American Foreign Policy and Zionism.

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Dr. 'Frederic A. Doppelt, I I { 1    I:; >      \ ,' . :i \   fl 1 feuest Club
* Rabbi, The Temple I 111    111 jj |     |j j |\|i [} Lfl I Eort '^1™' Indiana
• Fort Wayne, Jndiana UKJ    »^ua     WIHWW Friday, January 24, 195*
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY AND ZIONISM
A* Zionism in History:
1. A consideration of any aspect of American Foreign Policy at any time is a difficult
task, involving both extensive and intensive research. In the context of crucial
world events today and the explosive complex of the Near East, it becomes herculean.
As I grappled with it from day to day, I appreciated the heroic effort of the
minister who announced to his congregation, saying: This Sunday morning, my sermon
will be divided into three parts. I am going to explain the inexplainable, define
the indefinable, and to unscrew the inscrutable.
best      this * unscrewing11 process
But perhaps we can/proceed with /faft^MBtxra&CflXX by analyzing objectively the
historical record of American Foreign policy and its bearing upon the historical
development of Zionism.
2. First of all, what is Zionism? In its elementary and elemental essence Zionism may
be defined as the organized and galvanized effort of Jews throughout the world
to re-establish the ancient Jewish Commonwealth in modern Palestine. This worldwide phenomenon of twentieth-century -Jewry is really more than twenty centuries
old in Jewish history, during which it has experienced an evolution with three
stages  clearly discernible. It lived first as a pious and passionate hope, dating
back to the Bible itself, especially to the fervent and far-seeing prophets of the
post-exilic period who were confident that God would in His mercy restore the
Ifihgdom of David and thereby usher in the Messianic age both upon the House of
Israel and the whole world. With the Qestruction of the Temple in the year 70
of the Common Era and the subsequent Bispersion of the Jewish people throughout the
far-flung Roman Empire, this prophetic vision of the Restoration became an undying
prayer devoutly recited by every Jew in every land and every generation at every
service every day. The recurrent waves of discrimination, persecution, and
expulsion which so harassed medieval Jewry on the European continent only fed the
flames of this ancient longing until it became a consuming fire that would not be
consumed.