Eps 6. Forgotten Founder

Did you know that the forgotten founder of Zionism went on to play a leading role in a good Israel or that Rafkabski was responsible for the continued presence of the Muslim wack on Harabas? It turns out that the margins of history tell the real story. Behind the Times dives into the big concepts and overlooked moments that carry vast meaning all through the lens of Torah and rabbitic thought. This is Jewish history like you've never heard it before. Behind the times with Rabbi Ephraim Zalma Galinski and Gdalia Gutag Basil 1897. The main conference hall is packed. Hundreds of delegates in black tailcoats, journalists, rabbis, politicians. The first Zionist Congress is underway. A figure rises to speak. He has dark eyes, a long black beard. He's bareheaded. His face is already famous across the Jewish world. His topic is Zionism as a cultural movement. The audience hangs on every word. This is the visionary who first set out a program for Jewish rebirth years before anyone dared to. When he finishes, the hall erupts in applause. And as the founder of the Zionist movement steps down from the podium, he extends his hand to Theodore Herzel. So people are wondering who is the founder and who is the speaker if not Theodor Herzel. >> And who is it really? Dr. Nathan Benbal. And I have a hunch that he's related to you somehow. >> Correct. This is total nepotism. I'm his great great grandson and I'm on the war path in this episode as I suspect we're going to see that you are a bit as well because not only is he my own ancestor the forgotten founder of the Zanist movement the man who went on to become the founder of briefly of an international leadist movement and then in his most dramatic move this very high-profile Jewish intellectual leader left secularism went from west to east and became a balchuva the most startling positively transformation. >> What's fascinating about it is it's not only that he became a balta in the sense that he became a my man he was to mitzvah he actually became an east European balta meaning he wanted to associate himself davka with the east European Jews. I mean you expect such an intellectual like that to become a baluva like from the style of the German orthodoxy whatever it was but no he chose dfka theidim and the east European Jews where he felt that was where authentic jewelry was correct and this is part this is we're going to trace the evolution and the seismic changes of this dramatic figure and as I said a largely forgotten figure because while if you go across many Israeli cities, towns and cities, you'll see that the roads, the neighborhoods, they very much trace given on depending on the neighborhood. But preserve, memorialize founders of the Zionist movement. You'll find us and obviously you'll find Herzel in the center of everything. I think Herzel was once one of the central streets in Benbre even later changed to Shak right later day. It was not so long relatively recently. And yet you'll have to in the major secular cities you will search and basically fail to find any mention of the true fan of Zionism. And let me jump in over here when I talk about just a I always do this. I meet sometimes Israeli figures including the current president of the state of Israel Isaac Viog. And I asked him I said he you're always talking about your grandfather and his legacy of Herzog and great. Do you know who my grandfather was? No he doesn't know. And why should he? But I said my grandfather was the founder of the acknowledged founder of the Zionist movement who coined the term Zionism. Do you know who it is? He had no the presence inelievable. He had no idea. He failed the Nathan Beram test. And so we are then we are about to in this episode we're going to set that to right. But I think and in fact the only places in which he is memorialized is for those who learned in him brisk just above where the I think if you go up 20 meters above you'll see a little alley which is the grandiose name burbam bam it's not a raov if you have particularly large wingspan you might be able to >> don't try driving your car down that >> no you'll definitely shear off your wing mirrors and the entrance to Benbra everyone knows the iconic Coca-Cola where if You come across the bridge from Gavachwell. You see Coca-Cola on your right. You have an option there to turn left and that is Rakov >> Nathan Bam. Wow. Unbelievable. >> Yeah. But nobody ever notices it. >> I used that street many times. I never even realized what the >> correct. I mean you are Ra Gillinsky. If even you have not noticed it's called Bbam and he and that is next. Everyone just calls it Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is indeed more famous in the Ben Breck world than Nathan Burman. Natam Nusam Bernbama. And by the way, as you're going to see this, we're struggling here between Nathan Birbra and NS Birm. And that is exactly part of his story over here, the name changes and stuff because he goes from west to east, from Dan place where he's in is grows up in Vienna to to east where he becomes he learns Yiddish and he becomes Nusen Birbam. And so in this first of two episodes, we're going to be discussing his trailblazing life as a founder of secular movements in the plural and crucially what made him turn away from a movement that within a few decades of the 1897 Basel first Zionist Congress succeeded in a spectacular fashion by actually founding a Zionist state. What led him away from that? And we're going to be talking about countering, pushing back on some of the longestablished narrative about Nathan Nasam Birm within the secular world where he if he's not forgotten, he's relegated to the status of an erratic gadfly, someone who couldn't really last out and bring his ideas into action because he just couldn't stop changing. And we're going to push back on some of that. And just a personal note, I said to Arabalinski that obviously I have a personal connection, but I think everyone here including yourself um in Mishbaka has a personal connection through kind of institutional connection through none other than our founding editor of Amos Mosha Gille. >> I had this actually of carrying on very long discussions, hours of discussions with Mosha Gri. It was supposed to be like a podcast at the end. I'm not narrating that podcast. It's his grandson who's doing it and it's the podcast called Vish Moshe but it's based mainly on the conversations that I had with Ramosa Gilak and one of the memories that he kept on telling us over here throughout the years if you remember when we would meet at the Yum events that we have here in the newspaper every half year one of the fond memories of his was as a small child in a village which I'm not even going to attempt to try to pronounce it. Maybe you can help us out. >> I can't help you out this time. >> Right. It's in Holland somewhere. >> Oh, heaven. Of course I can. >> Okay, that's it. So, Rabbi Gri was there with his family and his father was discussing something with Dr. Nathan Bernbam and he was sitting as a child or Mosha Gri was sitting on the knees of Dr. Nathan Bernbam and playing with his long white beard. And that was my first introduction to Rab Mosha Grele who's a legendary founding editor. That actually shocking because you know you have someone who you're talking to and you're smoozing with and he feels like he's part of your generation and he's telling you I played with the beard of Dr. Nathan Bernard. So this is the first thing that he said to me. I met him in our old old crumbling offices. The first time that I met him nine years ago or something there I was walking the corridors. I didn't know who he was but he also knew who I was and he stuck his hand in his very warm way. He said what's your name? I said Gdali Gutenag. Well, he'd met my father and he'd made the connection and the first thing he said was he raised his hand. He said, "This hand pull the beard to Nathan Bernbam." That was his intro to me and to >> for us, Nathan Bernbam was like an ancient name and it was like prehistory for us. >> Yeah. And we'd like to in this episode then to bring it into to take it out of the the cobwebs and to establish why this who the person who was a legend to previous generations both secular and religious is largely forgotten today and his legacy should live on almost a century after he left the world. [music] So let's get straight in to this rabbinsky talk about his origins. Nathan Burbam was born in 1864 in Vienna. Now his parents into that was the capital then of the Austrohung Hungarian Empire and it was a melting pot. Vienna itself was a melting pot because the Austrohungarian Empire was a multinational multithnic mess basically by that stage it had been a very powerful and 50 years before World War I he's born into this capital the Austrohungarian Empire which was a gateway from the impoverished east to the cultured west. Remember that Vienna was a center, the seat of learning and culture. You know, you had many Jews there who assimilated very gifted gifted Jews such as Gustaf Mala, the psychologist Sigman Freud, the author France Kafka were making outsized contribution to what was then kind of a bastion of German culture. And yet because it was the capital of a multi-thnic empire, you had Jews were flooding in you know the from Galitia and from Bukavina and Al sorryly was the easiest way to assimilate. Correct. So he was brought up and I readers of my stuff will always say I'll come back to this always come back to this theme of the ostudent the Jews from the east and it was these Jews from the east coming to ultra advanced and enlightened Vienna were treated by the silligenists as embarrassing you know Jews from the east they were that's how they were and one of the biographers of Nathan Bernbam well let's let's say not strictly biographers because the the works that have been written about him have been about from academics who became interested in his own life through their own specialtity. One of them was a man called Professor Joshua Fishman who wrote a book about the Odyssey called Odyssey of Nathan Burman but very much from a linguistic point of view because they were he was fascinated as a linguist in his journey from west to east in his embrace of Yiddish and etc. Then there's one much more recently more comprehensive professor Jess Olsen from teachers at university but they all have this you know these are academics became interested in aspects of his life and did remarkable work because Nathan Mirram had enormous archives and it's just a lifetime work going through them so every little helps but anyway professor Fisherman in his biography uh in his work writes um quotes there a clever Yiddish putdown um that was that the Jews of Vienna would use about the Jews flooding in from the east. So the nidesh is about these ostuden primitive as it were ostuden trying to blend in. They would say like this nitina vavina, right? Meaning he's not really vianese. He's from Bukavina, right? But that was the prevailing sentiment. He wanted to he wanted to come and he wanted to fit in and become more enlightened. And crucially, this is what Nen Bernam's parents they sent in the gimnazium which was where he lost he wrote that far later in his life. Looking back, he said this is where his basic faith crumbled as a teen. But what happened is a little bit about his parents because his father was called Burbam. Okay. His mother Miriam Robits a family and how do we know Robit? So the Robitz thing I didn't put I was in the I was in where is it of Robits is buried not in Robit. I nearly made that mistake by the way when I was there six months or so ago. You're driving along towards Krakow and I made the mistake of I'm lucky I took someone in the car with me who said no I was going to go he's buried in lant which is famous in its own right he's buried in lant and not in ruptures where he was but anyway I believe that was his father his father's if I'm correct but anyway they came from a family and he was from Burbam and we have markers of that his son Nelson Burbam wrote about him in Yiddish He says that he was a little bit of a mascul and masculic tendencies enlightenment and in fact he called his son Nathan after Natan deviser was a famous iconic figure in German theater who was meant to represent this kind of humanist and enlightened person and many Jews were called it became a popular Jewish name because of that. But burbam um we know was still because his son writes that once his father who had a business selling he forgot to pes and he asked told him well actually forgot to there's no way around this chuck the whole and he did you took a large financial hit from it and so he was shim he kept the dramits and that was the home in which >> the fact that he sent his son to a German school was not kind of the times. >> Yeah. It wasn't his decision to take him away from Yiddish guy at all. He thought it would go together, >> right? And he was, as I said, these musculic open enlightened tendencies and that was very understandable in the time. Everyone, there was this great stampede from east to west and to throw off tradition. It was basically the Austrohungarian Empire version of throwing your fillin into the harbor when you arrive in Ellis Island. But sadly what happened is when Mandal Burman was nifa when no Bman was only 11 years old became and together with the fact that he was in such a secular environment he gradually abandoned his amits by the he reached the stage where he described himself as a total atheist and the crucial thing to know about Nasam I think from this stage from the early years in projecting forward you know we know what's going to be is to ask yourself what was the key difference between Nas and a contemporary the contemporary being Theodor Herzel right they grew up in the same place at the same time they were both leaders >> there's one major difference that the Herzel did not have a traditional >> and that's the point it's not determinative because we know that we know that NSUM how many countless room Jews at the same time the same place abandoned Yiddish kite and abandoned it for good but in retrospect that's the key this is the key thing because he had that grounding in tradition and he was hostile at one stage to to observance and to >> say he tapped back into it. There's no question this is a key marker indifferent because whilst whilst uh the Herzel comes along to Jerusalem and they and I think they tried to give him haftar he couldn't read and they were shocked the Jews of your say this is the great messiah of the Jewish people right he can't >> what's shocking about Herzil is that many people don't know this but his son testifies >> that he baptized his own son >> I mean he was far gone >> that shows how far he was >> and he had no reg you Ain Eric the Uganda plan >> he was trying to solve the problem of anti-semitism though >> correct and without I have in front of me the work of Rav Elli Kaplan the great Ilo from Slavodka who famously wrote in his he was very close in Birm and yet he famously wrote an essay about the great leadership of the Herzel as well right and it's in here which is >> his Nikuda and that essay is that they have there is a certain nuda that you can admire in theater >> correct doesn't ignore the bad parts of >> right well and this is the point that even I'm coming at it from as the loyal great grandson of a great forgotten Jewish legend I think it's important to establish about to that the gifts of the Herzel were great were considerable in terms as a statesman and Nathan Bman was not and it's important to remain objective about this in order to assess what it was okay these were his origins I think we can move on to his Zionist phase because this is again so important and and largely forgotten He actually started off his interest in Zionism before it was called Zionism as a part of the student body in university in Austria. >> So what indeed happens is I think as you say this common wisdom has it that Herzel founded the Zionist movement in the wake of the Drafford's trial. I think the truth is far more interesting. Forget Nathan Bram. There were other thinkers before Leo Pinska and others who started to call for Jewish for pretty much the same ideas but no burbam >> not to mention that there are bonim and religious activists who started before the Zionist movement >> correct so the it's a remarkable thing I mean you have to look into the writings of the to talk about how the to return to to Israel was something b >> what I was learning in high school here in Israel many years ago go. So it took me many years to realize that they actually rewrote history. They don't mention that the whole foundations of the modern Jewish state was like you say on the aliyah of the telmid au >> they were here first right they were here first everything you know it's shocking I was shocked to learn that everyone makes fun of the right the kuca >> kim not in the modern sense but in the sense of the regional base the Austrian kal and Israel and the Lithuanian they channeled money from over >> that was the financial backing of the entire yus until the first world war >> right so you know people make fun of it you know that it wasn't really a productive thing >> they were sharing off the >> so first of all the zizen movement was a big rise up >> the state of Israel till today [laughter] >> but besides that these right they built countless neighborhoods outside you know the zism movement wasn't the first movement that you know took the Jews out of the old city you're talking about they built like I think 39 neighborhoods They it was like already they functioned as a state and the history writers of the Zionist movement I can attest to that because that's what I was taught. They completely ignore the foundations of the Jewish Yeshu and we're not talking about masses of people who came to on this podcast we will uh reveal the truth. This is st stunning stuff and it indeed did not start with Herzel started before we're going to talk about this in particular what happened in 1882 Nathan Beram heads the University of Vienna to read law philosophy and near eastern studies the following year I think he's 19 years old he founds an student organization and there's lots of student organizations there but he found one called Kadima which was the first nationalistic Jewish student organization and in 1884 the age of 20 publishes a pamphlet called I'll skip the German, but he says the assimilation mania, arguing that the rebirth of the Jewish people depends on the land of Israel. And over the next decade, he goes on to talk to turn this idea into a movement. And it's important, therefore, to say what the time frame is. Remember, this is 1884, 10 years before the Drafford's trial. 10 years before Herzel Herzel's busy there making his reputation as a columnist and as a journalist. And Nasamir starting age 19 20 he begins a decade in which he's laying the foundations and not only is he laying the foundations he actually gives it a name that name is Zionism in German right he coins the term Zionism he coins the term do we have basis to determine whether Bernbal's early Zionism was with an affection so or he understood that a nation needs a land and it's more convenient to go to saw because that's our original homeland but we know as you mentioned before that Herzel for him >> and his Uganda plan >> right right so the question is do we have any basis to say that Bman wanted Dafka there was no Uganda plan for him in fact it's only after he leaves the Zionist movement that you start having him consider outside solutions to the Jewish people's crisis the crisis of anti-semitism the crisis of assimilation which solutions in outside Israel but I think at that stage pretty clear that's what he wanted and he coins the terms he actually actively founds an organization to Zion he goes across Galitzia again he heads east he doesn't head west he heads east for the first time to Galitzia to promote a program of settlement in Palestine he creates across Galitzia more than a dozen branches of the group which formed the basis for the Zionist movement he says that the ancient National home of the Jews is the only place this rebirth can take place. Not Argentina or the United States as other Jewish leaders had proposed. >> Why is he mentioning Argentina? >> Was Baron Hirs, right? He took in fact Baron Hirs took colonist there and anyone who has read the ark of Lipchious's excellent contribution to the last edition of Pendulum, our official Jewish history supplement. It came out a few weeks ago in the summer. We'll see all about that plan. The cowboys, the Jewish gauchos of the Pampas of the Great Plains of Argentina. So Nathan Bman didn't mention Argentina just by chance. >> No. So by the time that a shocked Herzel reacted to the Drafus tribe with his book, The Jewish State, Zionism as a movement was a growing concern. And so the question is what happened? What happened there? Why did he leave it? Why was he forgotten? What do you say Robinsky? There's no doubt that there were internal battles inside the Zidist movement as any political organization but the fact was that he was not voted as the chairman that was elections. He was voted as the secretary general of the movement. He was not the head of the I think the reason for that is pretty clear. By the way, there's two things happening. His ideas are being pushed aside by different ideas and by the greater organizational and leadership capabilities of Theodor Herzel. Again, I think we have to be cleareyed. Theodore Herzel is a dazzling. >> Rabbi Gulak once told me that Nathan Bernin was a terrific idealist, but he's a terrible politician. >> And there you have it. Because the Herzel was a phenomenal politician. In fact, he was a statesman. He was the first and this is really the point of the essay of you know that we mention in big over Elliot Kaplan in which he says that this is the first Jewish leader in millennia who's been able to go to the courts of kings and statesmen and put the Jewish case over there and so there's no question that Herzel had the edge over there. We also know that Herzel must have felt threatened by the founder of the organization that he is essentially conducting a takeover of. And it's important to stress also that Herz for Herzel Herzel is not an idealist. He's a practical person. He says we need a solution to the Jewish problem. This Jewish question idea is rocketing round in European thought for decades. And that's the language that the Nazis themselves use. The Jewish question, the solution to the Jewish question, the final solution to the Jewish question is one that has been raised in terms of the lexicon of the European intellectuals for [clears throat] decades and decades. And so what Herzel's diaries show us is an total condescension towards Nathan Burman. Nathan Burman was unsuccessful lawyer struggled lifelong with paranosa didn't have two pennies to rub together. He was a lifelong idealist and activist and he was penniless. And so we have communication between Nathan Birmam saying can you put me in a stip pen from the organization and Nathan Birmam writes these with lip curl and condescension because Herzel himself is a very affluent person and in fact layouts his own money into the making the organization a success. He attacks Nathan Burbram for what he calls shameless begging letters and for daring to ask for a stipen from the Zionist organization. And then he also complains that he dares to draw comparisons between him and me which goes to show I think that's the language of someone who feels very threatened right this is the language and obviously he did because Bam may not have been a political organizer he may not have been a politician at all but he was a man who throughout his life inspired adulation wherever he went as >> the fact was that he was the first one who brought up the idea it wasn't hero >> correct And and in fact in Yokim Duron's book you have over here a photocopy of Herzel's pamphlet the Jewish state and you have over here and it's in something rather I don't don't know what this means but it's the Herzel over here you can see he dedicates a copy to him in presumably in friendship or whatever but that was he was a threat because he'd been before his book and his writings because I don't think we've mentioned how prolific Nathan Brimam is as a writer and as a thinker. in and it's spreading his ideas through newspapers. He's published a newspaper >> as part of the student body in Vienna already. >> Correct. From then onwards. And so he's left an intellectual trail across European jury by that point. And see seen as a threat over there. And this picture I'd like I think is a picture of a lifelong impoverished revolutionary. I think we get from another source and this is one I found fascinating. a very critical source but of Nathan Beram but a religious orthodox source a man called who was known Oscar Wolfsburg Wolfsburg later changed his name in one of those remarkable yakisha transformations seamless peerless transformations into the Israeli Aviad that name mean anything to you >> it doesn't mean but at that time it was very common to change gulla sounding last names >> I mean the Germans were particularly you in a yakisha jokes legend has it well it's really true but there was you know the Germans who turned up in England or America or here in Israel they come along and they're trying to shed their old yaksha accents and they declare v English you know I think my father-in-law makes imitates all the echasers you know v English but in the same thing as well you have the Oscar Wolfsburg becomes he is a leading misrai activist and he published a very interesting memoir called Duke Na which published on Shiao Ayad which is remarkably different from Oscar Wolfsburg. He paints a picture of someone forced to move from place to place both because of his everchanging ideas and causes that he espoused, but also crucially to keep the wolf from the door for basic reasons of being able to put bread on the table. As a ideologue, he was never in one place and didn't he never established himself as a person who was able to take care of himself financially. And I know it was very hard for his family in that sense as this super revolutionary. He never got to enjoy the fruits of his revolution. He never got to enjoy the actual fruits of success. He moved on first. So besides the personal difficulties, there's also ideological difficulties. There has to be differences between himself and Herz. Herzel was talking about political Zionism. He was much more cultural renewal of the Jewish people. >> This leads us to his next stage of his of his ideological evolution. Correct. Because within a year of the Zionist Congress after Herzel opposed his re-election to the post of secretary general Nathan Beram left the Zionist organization he closed the door on the movement they had founded just as it was taking off for meteoric success. History as it said is written by the victors and in the struggle for the domination of the Zionist movement Herzel succeeded in the very best tradition succeeded by erasing Nathan Ber's >> because in the best tradition of such struggles Nathan Beerman was erased from the history book a recent biography of Herzel that I read a few years ago fails to make mention I invariably look inside the you know the notes at the back of the bibliography at the back and it fails to make mention at all of Nathan Bermap An older biographer whose name I forget dismisses Burbam in footnote as and I quote pursuit hairy and erratic and that is incredible. The truth is that Nathan Mirramman was anything but erratic. We're going to see about that over here. Let's get on to his next stage. One picture in particular which you mentioned before Golinsky speaks loud and clear about Nathan Bram's celebrity and renown. It's a it's a photo taken in Bhach in Galitzia 1907. >> The seat of the most famous Pisc in Galitian history is the Aselav Romero of Bhach. So that Bhach was probably like a metropolitan of Galatian jewelry observant Galian. >> It's to distinguish him I presume from another who's not the >> right. Someone once told me he says if you know what the kayod is to the lit jury bach that's for the galatian that explains by the way if you ever see like interesting minhagim by galat yen. So if you look at you'll be able to trace where it comes from. Okay that's homework for all of us. This picture over here speaks loud and clear because it shows a middle-aged buram surrounded by a crowd of hundreds of men and women. Some are in modern dress and many are kind of visibly religious. What was happening then? Nathan Bernam was by then a candidate for an eastern Galitzia seat in the Austrian Parliament and these were the Jewish masses coming out in his support. So how had this vianese intellectual become involved in the rough and tumble of Eastern European electoral politics? That's the heart of his second stage his advocacy for diaspora national. At this stage, Bram is not coming to save the Jewish homeland. >> No, but to save the Jews. Correct. And he in his journey from west to east on underlying Nathan Bram's rupture with the Zionist movement in addition to obviously falling out with Herzel was his discovery that actually the 8 million Jews of Eastern Europe didn't need the Zionist promised land to be transformed into a nation. He said they were already living entity. they had a separate language, a very vibrant language, Yiddish and the unique culture assoc associated with it. So he said, "Okay, we don't need to trapes off to the, you know, to the Middle East over here. Let's go for cultural autonomy right where they are." In other words, and this was because Austrohungarian Empire was really breaking up and everyone's demanding the Slavs and the Ukrainians and the Polars, whatever the the Hungarians call themselves, they're all demanding their independence or at least autonomy within the >> will that solve anti-semitism or that wasn't his concern. >> I think it was he said we need to be a nation that can govern ourselves normalized and therefore we can do this within a multinational multithnic framework within the Austrohungarian Empire. That was the idea as well. But the key thing is he's fixating on Yiddish because he identifies in Yiddish. He says it's not land. And he writes this later on in his when he looks back at his life. He says retrospectively, look, I started with the idea that land is the key to everything. But then I said, look, they've got a culture. Obviously, the seat of culture is not land. It is language. Language. Because they have a common language. And obviously he's going to evolve in a third stage in which he says well actually what if they speak you know there's actually the culture is rooted in something deeper that's the third stage but you can see where he's going now. So from 1902 onwards he developed a theory of Jewish nationalism called pangjudaism. Whereas western Jews kind of derided Yedish as a jargon. And professor Fishman in the work we mentioned before says this great phrase. They called they the Germanic Jews who loved in love with German. You know the purity of the German language. They looked on Yiddish as what they called a moushelon. I love that. That is just so great. Moushelin is Mau Moshe writing Yiddish. uh Moses language, this kind of mongrel tongue, a dialect that's as faintly or more than faintly embarrassing and they look down on it. But he because Nathan Beram is an idealist, he's also potentially a bit of a contrarian and he's in massively independent thinker. He says no, Yedish is itself a you know the foundation of Jewish identity and culture and he starts learning it. He has to teach himself Yiddish. Eventually he learns to read and write to speak Yiddish. And in fact his son who is my great-grandfather became a professor the first and last professor of the Yiddish language in the University of Hamburg as he became Balchuva with his father when he was already a young man himself amazing followed that journey but he became a professor of Yiddish heir wrote to Yiddish grammar dictionary etc. He was well known in that field as well as classical Hebrew and a scholar in that respect. But he teaches himself Yiddish and that was just one. >> How did this evolve into a political party that you mentioned before? Because he says that we need a way to, you know, he's a movement fan. That's what he does. That's what Nathan Mirram does. He takes ideas and he says we need to turn them into movement. In 1908 he convenes the first and I think the last international Yiddish conference in Chernovitz which is another famous name present day Ukraine and is attended by the leading Yiddish writers of the day and I suppose all the names and they come along over there and in that year he also crosses the Atlantic to the United States to preach the importance of Yiddish and obviously there is an enormous Yiddish culture which continued for decades. >> This is his first trip to United States. That's his first day of the trip. >> And I think during this trip, this is where he had his first religious revelation. >> His first religious revelation certainly we're going to talk about that second episode more. But this is he has some vision of Hashem while he's on the trip on the boat and encounter with water. By the way, because of that, he wrote in his Tavo that that his descendants should read Mauriona on his yacht site, a a practice which I think everyone all of his descendants honor in the breach because I never heard of anyone actually doing this. So the point is I think an idea of his stature can be grasped in the fact that he met President Roosevelt at the White House. President Roosevelt the, you know, Teddy Roosevelt the who was the obviously inspired the teddy bear for those you know and that was a visit arranged by New York congressman. >> What what was his goal at this for this trip in to United States? >> Well, he was there to promote Yiddishism. It was there he was in that's the same year as his Yiddishist face his diaspora nationalist face. >> He wanted to save American jewelry from assimilation through this idea of fish. >> He wanted to save jewelry in general from assimilation and give them this as he said this cultural autonomy over there. So where once as a Zionist he preached nationalism in the land of Israel, now he saw autonomy for the Jewish people as a nation in the diaspora. So what did he do? And that's the picture in Bhach. He in 1907 he stands as a candidate for the Austrian parliament. And yet again you can see he inspires he's a very famous man to judge by the size of the crowds who comes to visit him there. And then what happens? He would have apparently it was said that he would have won the seat except that the Polish faction didn't back him and they did total corruption to keep the voting booths open for longer. They seem to have set the town clock back by an hour or something like that. So lots of political dirty tricks going on and within a year he abandons that. That's the crucial thing. He set up a second movement. It it has a future because it has a crowd and it has a political base and it has a political idea and is relevant. It's an idea that the retrospective of history would become nothing because Yiddishism is gone. Whereas Zionism led to the state of Israel, right? And yet he himself is far from a spent force. And I think we're going to see that in the next episode he is going to enter for what in retrospect his greatest impact was in the from world as a Balcha. But we're going to leave that to the second. The thing I want to wrap up this episode just to understand one thing which is look if you go to and this is something that struck me if you go to this little alleyway next to Zosha you see that this man has been forgotten because even in the fro he's reduced to this anonymous little alleyway over there in one reading of Nathan Birram's life you have this sense that you know yes maybe the detractors were right he was erratic he couldn't keep his focus on anything he was such a brilliant idealist and such a visionary He couldn't make anything practical happen. Yes, he's that other detractors and the critics fair. We will see in the next episode that in actuality his ideas did inspire other people again like by Zionism, right? So we see even in the fume world his ideas did inspire other people to take practical action and we'll see that in Mashem in the next episode. So I'm just going to back you up over there because we have a number of years ago I had this conversation with professor Jess Olsen who had this and I wrote a piece about this and he said if I'm quoting from what I wrote there he said even if Nathan Mirman's legacy is not easily measured in terms of concrete accomplishments relative to those who followed him he was a pioneer for those positions perhaps if he hadn't blazed the trail things would be very different. When Nathan Berman still quoting helped create Jewish nationalism in the 1880s, he wrote so extensively. He himself was largely responsible for an untold number of people take it seriously and the same held true for his foray into Yiddish and his chuva. He was inspiration to many important figures in each intellectual world he inhabited. I think it's very important. In other words, yes, he dropped out before and then he left and then the movement flourished without him. Y she dropped out and then the movement didn't flourish. Right. So you just mentioned like like a name Abella Kaplan, right? Abella Kaplan was inspired by him and he identifies himself as a Talmet of Nathan Beman and Rebella Kaplan himself inspired many academic Jewish youth in in in Germany. Yes. And I think this is just to end with this over here that to quote his orthodox Yakasha critic, he called him a tragic figure to his very core. He was granted consistent creativity. He said he gave of himself alternately in fits and starts as if possessed by a demon. He was a volcanic erupting force. Now that is one of the most incredible testament because this is a person who's quite a critic of Nathan Bernimbam. And yet he said this was a volcanic erupting force. But for me the critics who called him erratic are wrong. And I think we'll just wrap up this first episode because if you see his direction of travel, you understand there was one line that you can trace right through his evolution. He starts with his starting point is that there is a Jewish problem. He says the answer to that Jewish problem we find in Zionism, but he means a more cultural Zionism. Obviously, Erit Israel is going to be reality, but he's looking for the core of the Jewish people. He finds it first in land. He abandons that because he says as he writes later in his life he says it cannot be that if a nation has existed so long without a land should be dependent on that land for its inner spiritual cultural life. So he goes to language and he says well that's where it is in the east. He's heading east and he's unafraid to do so. He himself is unafraid to buck the trend. Everyone's going from east to west from the backward to the enlightened. He's going the other way. >> His original friends were would make fun. We'll mention it in the next episode. They said, "Oh, you're probably looking for one of your friends, Dr. Bernbomb." Like they realize that he was heading towards East European Jew. >> Fascinating. >> They made fun of that. And he says in his journey when he leaves diaspora, nationalism, Yiddishism [music] behind, he is heading to the east because there he says there's the truth in Jewish observance. And that is going to be the next eruption in this massive volcanic force. Thank you for listening to Behind the Times. We appreciate you joining us as we explore the stories and people that shape Jewish history. If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with friends. Until next time.