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No masters but God: Portraits of anarcho-Judaism
The forgotten legacy of religious Jewish anarchism, and the adventures and ideas of its key figures, finally comes to light in this book. Set in the decades surrounding both world wars, No masters but God identifies a loosely connected group of raBB Hardbackis and traditionalist thinkers who explicitly appealed to anarchist ideas in articulating the meaning of the Torah, traditional practice, Jewish life and the mission of modern Jewry. Full of archival discoveries and first translations from Yiddish and Hebrew, it explores anarcho-Judaism in its variety through the works of Yaakov Meir Zalkind, Yitshak Nahman Steinberg, Yehuda Leyb Don-Yahiya, Avraham Yehudah Hen, Natan Hofshi, Shmuel Alexandrov, Yehudah Ashlag and Shmuel Tamaret. With this ground-breaking account, Hayyim Rothman traces a complicated story about the modern entanglement of religion and anarchism, pacifism and Zionism, prophetic anti-authoritarianism and mystical antinomianism.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published June 1, 2021
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178 people want to read
About the author
Hayyim Rothman
4 books1 followerHayyim Rothman is a Fulbright postdoctoral scholar at Bar Ilan University.
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February 8, 2025I came to this book in parallel to reading deep dive into historical materialism and it was a fascinating contrast. Seeing all these religious anarchist thinkers outright reject histmat gave me a good comparison between scientific and utopian socialism or anarchism. The readings led me to an understanding that historical materialism might be the more useful scientific tool to study history, societies and their economies, divorced from utopian morality and empathy to the plight of those who suffer, it is insufficient to spring people into action.
But I came to this book not only as a project to understand a more idealist and utopian side of leftist thinking, but also as part of a journey to understand Judaism away from the abhorrent views espoused by parts of the most orthodox believers. In my personal struggle with this part of my identity, at times I felt just like giving up: if they believe that those hateful things define being a true Jew and that people like me or others with diverse backgrounds should be cut from the people, so be it! Let us loose. But that felt like giving them too much power over something that is actually shared by all of us.
And there's a second part to that journey: large swathes of the poorest and most oppressed people are believers in some sense. The elitist approach of disregarding faith entirely as backwater superstition holding back the working class results in alienating these people from left politics. Finding a religious expression that can work in tandem with social justice might build the necessary bridge to hold honest conversations between these sides that should've been working together. That is, as long as there is willingness to honestly engage with the religious texts and not cynically use them as a way to coat the political message with a religious garb in an attempt to trick the faithful into new political beliefs.
With this background, I was fascinated to find the anarchist minyan presented by Rothman. Their engagement with religious was filled with so much love for humanity and the choice to take neighborly love as the central tenet of the Torah to which all the commandments and texts should be centered around. Taking inspiration not only from the Jewish tradition but also being receptive to Russian narodnism, Tolstoyan anarchism, and - in the case of specific thinkers - western philosophers such as Schelling, Schopenhauer, Kant, Fichte, and even Spinoza, they built a myriad of interpretations of Jewish faith that share some common ground: the rejection of any authority - stately, military, or economic - of man over man, that Jewish chosenness means something like a universal mission to spread the ethics of neighborly love, the rejection of the idea that diasporic experience is one of mere suffering and punishment, and the reluctant interaction with Zionism.
They all favor the cultural Zionism of Ahad Ha'am over the political Zionism that ended up winning. Most of the anarchist minyan would yearn to come back to the land of Israel not as conquerors, but as builders of a cultural heart from which the light of godly love could be spread while working together instead of fighting and killing our neighbors.
Overall, most of them seemed to prefer pacifism as a religious tenet, taking the commandment not to murder as a deontological maxim. The revolution should follow a tolstoyan path: starting from the hearts. There are exceptions, like Steinberg, who would allow a very controlled use of violence as a measured reaction to oppression and to ensure the victory and liberation of the oppressed, but not as a savage outpouring of revenge. I have mixed feelings about these approaches. On the one hand, I do see the point that if the people seeking liberation use the same weapons as their jailors, they tend to rely on them to the point of down the line becoming aggressors themselves. But on the other hand, I feel uneasy with the idea of quietism while renewing the hearts of people, which can be easily exploited by the proficient exploiters.
The minyan does some picking and choosing of the sacred texts from which to derive their message, but ultimately, that is also what the mainstream orthodoxy also does. But in choosing the texts that condemn violence and oppression, that exalt living in equality and peace, and that show God not as the vengeful egoist, but as the loving liberator, these thinkers put forward a more beautiful religious message than the one I grew accustomed to. It's one that I feel that I can delve into and use as building blocks for a more wholesome political, religious, and existential view.
But I came to this book not only as a project to understand a more idealist and utopian side of leftist thinking, but also as part of a journey to understand Judaism away from the abhorrent views espoused by parts of the most orthodox believers. In my personal struggle with this part of my identity, at times I felt just like giving up: if they believe that those hateful things define being a true Jew and that people like me or others with diverse backgrounds should be cut from the people, so be it! Let us loose. But that felt like giving them too much power over something that is actually shared by all of us.
And there's a second part to that journey: large swathes of the poorest and most oppressed people are believers in some sense. The elitist approach of disregarding faith entirely as backwater superstition holding back the working class results in alienating these people from left politics. Finding a religious expression that can work in tandem with social justice might build the necessary bridge to hold honest conversations between these sides that should've been working together. That is, as long as there is willingness to honestly engage with the religious texts and not cynically use them as a way to coat the political message with a religious garb in an attempt to trick the faithful into new political beliefs.
With this background, I was fascinated to find the anarchist minyan presented by Rothman. Their engagement with religious was filled with so much love for humanity and the choice to take neighborly love as the central tenet of the Torah to which all the commandments and texts should be centered around. Taking inspiration not only from the Jewish tradition but also being receptive to Russian narodnism, Tolstoyan anarchism, and - in the case of specific thinkers - western philosophers such as Schelling, Schopenhauer, Kant, Fichte, and even Spinoza, they built a myriad of interpretations of Jewish faith that share some common ground: the rejection of any authority - stately, military, or economic - of man over man, that Jewish chosenness means something like a universal mission to spread the ethics of neighborly love, the rejection of the idea that diasporic experience is one of mere suffering and punishment, and the reluctant interaction with Zionism.
They all favor the cultural Zionism of Ahad Ha'am over the political Zionism that ended up winning. Most of the anarchist minyan would yearn to come back to the land of Israel not as conquerors, but as builders of a cultural heart from which the light of godly love could be spread while working together instead of fighting and killing our neighbors.
Overall, most of them seemed to prefer pacifism as a religious tenet, taking the commandment not to murder as a deontological maxim. The revolution should follow a tolstoyan path: starting from the hearts. There are exceptions, like Steinberg, who would allow a very controlled use of violence as a measured reaction to oppression and to ensure the victory and liberation of the oppressed, but not as a savage outpouring of revenge. I have mixed feelings about these approaches. On the one hand, I do see the point that if the people seeking liberation use the same weapons as their jailors, they tend to rely on them to the point of down the line becoming aggressors themselves. But on the other hand, I feel uneasy with the idea of quietism while renewing the hearts of people, which can be easily exploited by the proficient exploiters.
The minyan does some picking and choosing of the sacred texts from which to derive their message, but ultimately, that is also what the mainstream orthodoxy also does. But in choosing the texts that condemn violence and oppression, that exalt living in equality and peace, and that show God not as the vengeful egoist, but as the loving liberator, these thinkers put forward a more beautiful religious message than the one I grew accustomed to. It's one that I feel that I can delve into and use as building blocks for a more wholesome political, religious, and existential view.
January 17, 2025
Very in-depth and thorough historico-theological study of several early 20th century thinkers at the intersection of Orthodox Judaism and Anarchism, loosely conceived. The theological part, which is predominant, was partly lost on this reader, and the interpretations of events related to the history of Russian revolutionary movement, such as the career of I.N. Steinberg / I.Z. Shteinberg, or relations between Russian populism and anarchism weren't rather unorthodox.
March 9, 2023
Great textbook framing religious Jewish anarchism. Would be interested in a more modern angle, perhaps including women anarchists.
June 3, 2024
The information is really good but the writing lets the research down.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews