Did America Prove Herzl Wrong?

Theodor Herzl remains one of the defining Jewish thinkers of the modern era because he recognized a truth that many of his contemporaries preferred not to see. Writing amid the rise of European nationalism and in the shadow of the Dreyfus Affair, Herzl concluded that antisemitism was not a temporary prejudice that education, enlightenment, or assimilation would eventually erase. However successful Jews became, their security ultimately depended upon the acceptance of others.

Looking at nineteenth-century Europe, that conclusion was difficult to dispute. The Jews of France believed emancipation had secured their place in society. German Jews saw themselves as cultured and patriotic members of the nation. Across Europe, Jews entered universities, professions, and public life in unprecedented numbers. Yet their success did not end antisemitism. In many places, it intensified resentment and exposed the limits of emancipation.

Herzl’s answer was revolutionary in its simplicity. The problem was not Jewish behavior but Jewish powerlessness. If the Jewish people wished to determine their own fate, they would need what other nations possessed: sovereignty. The Jewish question could not be solved through acceptance alone. It required self-determination.

History vindicated much of Herzl’s diagnosis. The Holocaust demonstrated with horrifying clarity that even deeply integrated Jewish communities could be destroyed. The establishment of the State of Israel transformed the Jewish condition by restoring Jewish agency, power, and sovereignty. Every Jew alive today inhabits a world changed by Herzl’s vision.

Yet Herzl never had the opportunity to confront one of the great complications to his theory: the rise of American Jewry.

America does not disprove antisemitism, nor does it render Israel unnecessary. The events of October 7 and their aftermath reminded Jews everywhere that a people cannot outsource its security indefinitely. The sovereign Jewish state remains one of the indispensable achievements of modern Jewish history.

The challenge America presents is more subtle. It became the most successful Diaspora community the Jewish people had ever known.

For nearly four centuries, Jews in the United States have experienced a degree of security, prosperity, civic participation, and cultural influence without historical precedent. More importantly, they did not achieve this success by disappearing. American Jews built synagogues, schools, camps, seminaries, federations, advocacy organizations, and philanthropic networks that reshaped modern Judaism. They became judges, legislators, military officers, university presidents, artists, business leaders, and public intellectuals while remaining recognizably Jewish.

This was not the future Herzl anticipated.

The reason may lie in a distinction between European emancipation and American citizenship. In Europe, Jews sought admission into societies that had already defined themselves. The central question was whether they could become sufficiently French, German, Austrian, or Hungarian to belong. Their acceptance remained conditional because they were entering national stories largely written without them.

America developed differently. The United States was not founded around a single ethnicity, church, or ancestral people. Americans have spent 250 years arguing over who belongs within the nation’s promise, and the country has often failed to live up to its ideals. Yet the ideal itself mattered: citizenship could rest upon participation in a political community rather than membership in a particular tribe.

European Jews often wondered whether they would be allowed in. American Jews asked how they would participate.

That difference altered the Jewish relationship with political power. For centuries, Jewish communities lived under rulers who could expand or revoke their rights. Even periods of flourishing carried an underlying uncertainty because Jewish security depended upon authorities outside the community. In America, Jews were not merely subjects receiving protection. They became citizens who voted, organized, litigated, protested, served in government, and helped shape the institutions around them.

Citizenship did not eliminate antisemitism, but it gave Jews a stake in the society and a role in constructing it.

This also helps explain the distinctive character of American Judaism. In many Diaspora settings, Jewish continuity depended upon maintaining firm boundaries against the surrounding culture. American Judaism developed in a society shaped by voluntary association. The result was not simply assimilation, but transformation. Denominations emerged, summer camps flourished, philanthropy expanded, and new forms of religious and communal life took root. American Jews created a modern Jewish civilization within a broader civic culture.

That success presents a genuine challenge to classical Zionist assumptions. If Herzl was right that Jewish survival required sovereignty, what should we make of a Diaspora community that has flourished to an unprecedented degree? The answer is not to choose between Israel and America, but to recognize that each addressed a different Jewish problem.

Israel answered the question of sovereignty. It restored the Jewish people’s ability to govern, defend, and shape their collective future. American Jewry answered another question: whether Jews could belong fully to a society without ceasing to be Jews.

This distinction also helps explain why Israelis and American Jews so often misunderstand one another. Israelis are heirs to Herzl’s triumph, shaped by sovereignty, security, and collective responsibility. American Jews are heirs to a different achievement, shaped by citizenship, pluralism, and voluntary belonging. Each community can mistake its own historical experience for the normative Jewish condition.

The modern Jewish story is therefore not the triumph of one answer over another. It is the emergence of two extraordinary answers to two different questions. Israel answered the question of Jewish sovereignty. America answered the question of Jewish citizenship. Learning how those answers can coexist may be one of the defining Jewish tasks of our time.

This essay is the second installment in “America at 250: A Jewish Reckoning,” a year-long series exploring the relationship between American Jewish life, Zionism, citizenship, and belonging.