Failure That Matters: Two Abortive Agreements and the Dynamics of Orthodox Jewish Politics on the Eve of World War II

Agudat Yisrael and the religious Zionist movement (Mizrachi) were the two largest and most influential political organizations of Orthodox Jewry during the first half of the twentieth century. Competing for the support of observant Jews, the two movements were enmeshed in bitter ideological and political struggles. Nevertheless, due to the dire situation of European and Palestine Jewries their political representatives met during the late 1930s in Paris and London in order to negotiate possible avenues of cooperation. While these endeavors were unprecedented in the history of the two movements, they eventually failed. Due to their failure, earlier scholarship has dismissed these efforts as a “lost opportunity” for Orthodox Judaism and blamed Agudists for their unwillingness to overcome long-standing rivalries and ideological reservations. This article, in contrast, perceives the negotiations of 1938–1939 as an important window into intra-Orthodox dynamics during the first half of the twentieth century. Rather than stressing the difficulties of overcoming ideological barriers and the failures of non-Zionist Orthodoxy to adapt to the challenges of the modern age, the article argues that it was a careful weighing of political gains and risks on both sides that dominated the negotiations and determined their outcome. The insights gained from this close analysis of intra-Orthodox relations are of significance beyond the question of party politics, as the two rivals were not only influential political movements, but ultimately came to shape the social, cultural, and political realities of traditionalist Jewry in the State of Israel during its early years and well beyond.