Nathan Birnbaum

Nathan Birnbaum
Nathan Birnbaum
Born	Nathan Birnbaum; May 16, 1864; Vienna, Austrian Empire
Died	April 2, 1937 (aged 72); Scheveningen, Netherlands
Pen name	Mathias Acher; Dr. N. Birner; Mathias Palme; Anton Skart; Theodor Schwarz; Pantarhei
Occupation	Writer and journalist

Nathan Birnbaum (Hebrew: נתן בירנבוים‎; pseudonyms: "Mathias Acher", "Dr. N. Birner", "Mathias Palme", "Anton Skart", "Theodor Schwarz", and "Pantarhei"; 16 May 1864 – 2 April 1937) was an Austrian writer and journalist, Jewish thinker and nationalist.[1][2]

His life had three main phases, representing a progression in his thinking: a Zionist phase (c. 1883 – c. 1900); a Jewish cultural autonomy phase (c. 1900 – c. 1914) which included the promotion of the Yiddish language; and religious phase (c. 1914–1937) when he turned to Orthodox Judaism and became staunchly anti-Zionist.

Biography

Nathan Birnbaum was born in Vienna into an Eastern European Jewish family with roots in Austrian Galicia and Hungary.[3] His father, Menachem Mendel Birnbaum, a merchant, hailed from Ropshitz, Galicia, and his mother, Miriam Birnbaum (née Seelenfreund), who was born in northern Hungary (in a region sometimes called the Carpathian Rus), of a family with illustrious rabbinic lineage, had moved as a child to Tarnow, Galicia, where the two met and married.[4]Menachem Mendel Birnbaum died when Nathan was eleven. He attended a public high school and gradually drifted away from religious observance but strongly believed in the idea of Jews as a nation.[5]

From 1882 to 1886, Birnbaum studied law, philosophy and Near Eastern studies at the University of Vienna.

He married Rosa Korngut (1869–1934) and they had three sons: Solomon (Salomo) Birnbaum (1891–1989), Menachem Birnbaum (1893–1944), and Uriel Birnbaum (1894–1956).

In 1933, at the time of the Nazi rise to power, Birnbaum and his wife, together with their son Menachem (an artist) and family, who at that time were all living in Berlin, fled to Scheveningen, Netherlands, with the help of businessman and diplomat Henri B. van Leeuwen (1888-1973). There, Birnbaum, van Leeuwen, and banker Daniel Wolfe published the anti-Zionist newspaper Der Ruf ("The Call"). (Menachem and his family were murdered by the Nazis in 1944.) At the same time, their son Solomon (Professor of Yiddish and Hebrew paleography) and his family fled from Hamburg to England. Their other son, Uriel, an artist and poet, and his family fled from Vienna to the Netherlands in 1939. Van Leeuwen, also an Orthodox Jew, became a Dutch anti-Zionist leader and Bergen-Belsen survivor.[6]

Birnbaum died in Scheveningen in 1937 after a period of severe illness.

Zionist activism

Street named for Nathan Birnbaum, Jerusalem, Israel

In 1883, at the age of 19, he founded Kadimah, the first Jewish (Zionist) student association in Vienna, many years before Theodor Herzl became the leading spokesman of the Zionist movement. While still a student, he founded and published the periodical Selbstemanzipation!,[7] often written in large part by Birnbaum himself. In it he coined the terms "Zionistic", "Zionist", "Zionism" (1890), and "political Zionism" (1892).[8]

Birnbaum played a prominent part in the First Zionist Congress (1897) where he was elected Secretary-General of the Zionist Organization. He was associated with and was one of the most important representatives of the cultural, rather than political, side of Zionism. However, he left the Zionist Organization not long after the Congress. He was unhappy with its negative view of Diaspora Jewry and the transformation of the Zionist ideals into a party machine.

His next phase was to advocate Jewish cultural autonomy, or Golus nationalism, concentrating in particular on the Jews of eastern Europe. He advocated for the Jews to be recognized as a people among the other peoples of the empire, with Yiddish as their official language. He ran (in Buczacz, eastern Galicia) on behalf of the Jews (and with the support of the local Ukrainians) as candidate for the Austrian parliament. Although he had a majority of the votes, his election was thwarted by corruption of the electoral process by the local Polish faction.[9]

He was chief convener of the Conference for the Yiddish Language held in Czernowitz, August 30 –September 3, 1908. It was the first Yiddish-language conference ever to take place. At the conference, he took the place of his colleague and fellow Yiddish activist Sholem Aleichem who was critically ill.[10]

Religious orthodoxy

From about 1912 onwards, Birnbaum became increasingly interested in Orthodox Judaism, and he became a fully observant Orthodox Jew in about 1916. He continued to act particularly as an advocate for the Jews of eastern Europe and the Yiddish language. From 1919 to 1922, he was General Secretary of the Agudas Yisroel, a widely-spread and influential Orthodox Jewish organization. He founded the society of the "Olim" (Hebrew for the "Ascenders"), a society with a specific program of action dedicated to the spiritual ascent of the Jewish people.

Published works

"In bondage to our fellow Jews", 1919, from Nathan Birnbaum, Series of Essays on Agudas Yisroel, London, 1944, reproduced in Michael Selzer, editor, Zionism Reconsidered, Macmillan, London, 1970.
Selbstemanzipation! Periodical. Vienna, 1885-1894. (ed., numerous articles). See above in text.
Die jüdische Moderne; (August Schulzeg, 1896,
Ausgewählte Schriften zur jüdischen Frage, 2 Bände, 1910.
Den Ostjuden Ihr Recht!; (Löwit Verlag) Vienna, 1915,
Gottes Volk; (Löwit) Vienna, 1918,
Um die Ewigkeit. Jüdische Essays; (Welt-Verlag) Berlin, 1920,
Im Dienste der Verheissung, Frankfurt 1927.
Der Aufstieg (periodical); Berlin and Vienna, Jan. 1930 - Dec. 1932.
Solomon A. Birnbaum (ed): The Bridge, London, 1956.
Confession, New York, 1946. Translation (abridged) of Gottes Volk.
From Freethinker to Believer in: Lucy Dawidowicz: The Golden Tradition, New York, 1967. Translation of Vom Freigeist zum Glaubigen, Zürich, 1919.
Shloimy Birnboim (ed) Ais Laasys - Giklibene Ksuvim fun Nusn Birnboim, Lodz, 1939. (Yiddish). Selected essays.
Die Freistatt (periodical). Eschweiler, 1913-1914. Numerous articles.
An'iberblik iber maan lebn in: Orlean, Y.L. and Hasofer, N. (eds):Yubileyum Bukh zum zektsiktn Giburtstug fun Dr. Nusn Birnboim. Yeshurun, Warsaw, 1925. Yiddish.

References

Bridger, David (1962). The New Jewish Encyclopedia. New York, Behrman House. ISBN 978-0-87441-120-1.
The New Jewish Encyclopedia. "The Religion Book:Zionism". answers.com.
"Birnbaum, Nathan" (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. pp. 714-716.
Olson, Jess (2013). Nathan Birnbaum and Jewish Modernity: Architect of Zionism, Yiddishism, and Orthodoxy. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. pp. 17–21.
Laboratory for World Destruction: Germans and Jews in Central Europe, Robert S. Wistrich
Jews backing academic boycott against Israel
"Self-Emancipation!" 1885–1894, with some interruptions, renamed 1894 "Juedische Volkszeitung"
Alex Bein, Herzl Year Book vol. II, p. 6, New York, 1959
Fishman, Joshua A. (1987). Ideology, Society & Language: The Odyssey of Nathan Birnbaum. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publishers Inc. pp. 30–31.
First Yiddish Language Conference. Louis Fridhandler, Two roads to Yiddishism (Nathan Birnbaum and Sholem Aleichem)

External links

The personal papers of Nathan Birnbaum are kept at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. The notation of the record group is A188.
First Yiddish Language Conference Tshernovits
First Yiddish Language Conference By Nathan Birnbaum.

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[1] Bridger, David (1962). The New Jewish Encyclopedia. New York, Behrman House. ISBN 978-0-87441-120-1.

[2] The New Jewish Encyclopedia. "The Religion Book:Zionism". answers.com.

[EncyclopaediaJudaica-3] "Birnbaum, Nathan" (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. pp. 714-716.

[4] Olson, Jess (2013). Nathan Birnbaum and Jewish Modernity: Architect of Zionism, Yiddishism, and Orthodoxy. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. pp. 17–21.

[5] Laboratory for World Destruction: Germans and Jews in Central Europe, Robert S. Wistrich

[6] Jews backing academic boycott against Israel

[7] "Self-Emancipation!" 1885–1894, with some interruptions, renamed 1894 "Juedische Volkszeitung"

[8] Alex Bein, Herzl Year Book vol. II, p. 6, New York, 1959

[9] Fishman, Joshua A. (1987). Ideology, Society & Language: The Odyssey of Nathan Birnbaum. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publishers Inc. pp. 30–31.

[10] First Yiddish Language Conference. Louis Fridhandler, Two roads to Yiddishism (Nathan Birnbaum and Sholem Aleichem)