01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Avukah's Goals Avukah was based at 111 Fifth Avenue in New York City. According to a 1938 pamphlet entitled Program for American Jews, its founders felt that it would be attractive "to Jews interested in the survival of the Jewish people, to Zionists, to Jews not interested in the existence of a Jewish group, and to socialists." Specifically, the pamphlet was addressed to Jewish American students and broached the question of whether there are facts or problems that specifically apply to Jews. The group's goal, stated on the reverse side of the program itself, included determining "the relation of the Program to these interests and attitudes, and seeking to indicate to what extent it coincides or differs with them." The premises the group accepted were that there existed at that time four million Jews in the United States who "constitute a group with special needs and special problems" (6); that Jews are confined to particular activities or, as in Nazi Germany, thrown "out of their jobs and into concentration camps" (7); that there is latent and blatant anti-Semitism in American society; and that "the whole Jewish environment, the society which young American Jews find around them, is not suited to their needs" (8). Avukah believed that the existing support network ­ Jewish groups, Jewish publications, Jewish systems of education and political action ­ were inadequate in light of such threats. It identified for itself four objectives: first, the "eventual liberation from the difficulties arising out of [the Jews'] minority position" (11); second, the creation of "a new type of organization" (12); third, the provision of "such aid as [we] can to Jews in countries where anti-Semitism is strong" (13); and fourth, "the definitive construction of the new Jewish settlement in Palestine" (13).

A Brief History of Zionism (from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The new settlement that Avukah described is an important manifestation of the kind of Zionist position promulgated by Harris and, of course, by Chomsky himself. In the view of Avukah, certain British, feudal Arab, and Italian interests were trying to exploit the situation in Palestine for their own ends. This was leading to significant conflict between the Arabs and the Jews: "these interests have obstructed the Arab masses from the liberation which Jewish immigration can bring them, but they have not been able to stop the immigration of Jews." According to Avukah, the Palestinian situation had to be "faced by the Jews and straightened out on the only possible basis of social equality. For the fundamental interests of Jewish and Arab people are the same." The Program for American Jews goes on to insist that: the Jews who come do not displace the Arabs. On the contrary, they are necessarily leading the Arab peasants out of the feudal system which holds them as serfs. Such a change can not come without fighting, without the attempt of reactionary forces to thwart the liberation of peasants and to set them against the Jews. But the fall of feudalism in Palestine is unavoidable, and with it will come the basis for cooperation of the masses of Arabs and Jews. (16) Norman Epstein remarks that this is an overly optimistic assessment of the effects of Jewish immigration to Palestine: "Avukah, despite its good intentions, contributed to Zionist mythology ­ for example, that Jewish immigration to Palestine would 'liberate' the 'Arab masses' and that 'the Jews who come do not displace the Arabs.' In fact, the Jews bought the land and 'liberated' them into unemployment, a result amplified by the policy of favouring employment of Jews over Arabs in Jewish enterprises" (20 Apr. 1995). Chomsky concurs that the Avukah position, which in the 1940s he would have agreed with, is overenthusiastic ­ "to put it mildly." Nevertheless, he continues, "I'm pretty sure I would have realized that by the time I started speaking out publicly on the matter in the '60s. In retrospect, I'm surprised at how much of the mythology I believed back in the '40s, including my failure to comprehend the racist elements in such matters as the 'Jewish labor' slogan" (18 May 1995). Since Chomsky was between twelve and twenty-two years old in the 1940s, it is perhaps not surprising that all of the perspectives on Zionist mythology were not then evident to him.