Love and politics
On Parshas Kedoshim, the murder of Chaim Arlosoroff, and Rav Kook's love for every Jew
The accompanying shiur is available on the Orthodox Union's parsha learning app: All Parsha.
Thanks to famed Jewish children’s singer, Uncle Moishy, the importance of loving Jews was seared into my mind from a very young age. In one of his most well-known songs, he sings:
Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.
And together we will walk in the way of Hashem.
V’ahavta l’reiacha ka’mocha, zeh klal gadol ba’Torah!
I was pretty heartbroken when I discovered that the opening lyrics are actually attributed to Albert Camus, the famed existentialist philosopher. But I have since made peace with Uncle Moishy’s light plagiarism—good thing he was never Professor Moishy.
However, the song's concluding lines are also not Uncle Moishy’s. They belong to Rebbe Akiva, who cites the words of the verse, “Love your fellow as yourself,” and then adds, “This is an important principle in the Torah.” Rashi, as well, cites Rebbe Akiva’s statement from the Midrash Sifra on this verse.
I don’t know why, but I suppose I always gave Uncle Moishy a harder time than Rebbe Akiva. When I discovered Uncle Moishy’s opening verses were from Albert Camus, I shared my outrage in my high school yearbook.
But what of Rebbe Akiva? What exactly is he adding to this line of the Torah? I feel like we let him off easy. Why exactly is loving your fellow Jew a great principle of the Torah? Treating others nicely or kindly is hardly unique to the Torah or Jewish thought—so what exactly is Rebbe Akiva adding? And why is this principle so central to Torah?
To understand this, let’s explore a darker chapter in Israel’s political history: the murder of Chaim Arlosoroff, and in particular, Rav Kook’s response.
On a summer Friday night in 1933, while strolling with his wife on the beaches of Tel Aviv, Chaim Arlosoroff was shot dead. His wife later stated during the trial that two men had approached them, shot her husband, and then disappeared. His murder embroiled the entire Zionist movement for decades to come.
“After 2,000 years of ghostlike wandering about the face of the earth,” Arlosoroff was quoted as saying in the New York Times article on his murder, “our people have found their home again.” Chaim Arlosoroff was not just any Israeli. Just 34 years old, he had worked in the Labor Zionist movement, left of center, and was a leader of the Jewish Agency.
On the Wednesday before he was murdered, June 14, 1933, he had just returned from Germany where he had attempted to broker a deal, later known as the Ha’avara Agreement, with the rising Nazi government so German Jews would be able to resettle in the land of Israel. This was obviously not an insignificant piece of information when he was murdered that Friday night on June 16th.
This became Israel’s version of the JFK assassination. Conspiracies proliferated, all trying to make sense of the death of the emerging Zionist leader. Arlosoroff was a key member trying to figure out the trajectory that the Jewish People should take vis a vis the State of Israel. He was presciently concerned that as the Nazis rose to power, the world would be cast into a World War and Britain would no longer have the ability or interest to govern the land of Israel. The warring political factions in Israel at the time had different visions of what the next steps should be. A partitioned state? Should Israel invest in urban development or rural development? Should peace be sought with their Arab neighbors? It was a delicate time in Israel’s history and Arlosoff’s murder brought all these issues to the fore.
Without the assailants in hand, the investigation immediately turned to members of the Zionist Revisionists, the party of Zev Jabotinsky, who adamantly boycotted any sort of negotiations or deals with the antisemitic Nazi government. Attention soon turned to three members of the Zionist Revisionists: Avraham Stavsky, Zvi Rosenblatt, and Abba Ahimeir. The motive was there and, to help bolster the case, Mrs. Arlosoroff picked Stavsky and Rosenblatt out of a questionable police lineup—Ahimeir was only accused of hatching the plan.
Jabotinsky, who was not allowed back into Palestine at the time, was outraged that members of his movement were being accused of murder. “The vast majority of our people are embittered by the pogrom and blood libel,” Jabotinsky said, “being waged by Jews against Jews.” No one had orchestrated Arlosoroff’s murder, he contended. To say otherwise, in his view, was nothing less than a blood libel.
Still, the accusations took a major toll on Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionist movement. For the next four decades, Revisionist Zionists would struggle to elect delegates to the Zionist Congress.
Other, even more insidious, conspiracies emerged. As a boy, Chaim Arlosoroff was very friendly with a girl named Magda Ritschel. Magda’s mother was no longer with her father—she remarried a wealthy Jewish businessman named Richard Friedländer, who adopted Magda. Later, Magda married none other than Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s Propaganda Minister and one of the most virulent antisemites within the movement. Joseph and Magda later committed suicide in Hitler’s bunker, after giving their six children cyanide pills. In January 1934, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on the Goebbels-Arlosoroff connection. Could this early connection to one of the most insidious antisemites ever to live somehow explain Arlosoroff’s murder?
Britain’s justice system was still focused on Stavsky, Rosenblatt, and Ahimier. An Arab man named Abdul Medjid confessed to the murders but quickly recanted. The focus remained on the Revisionist Zionists.
All this while, the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, remained on the sidelines. Rav Kook didn’t want to get drawn into a heated political debate, instead, he wanted the justice system to complete their investigation. In general, Rav Kook tried to articulate a Judaism that could reach those regardless of their political leanings, but the climate among Jews in Israel was making that harder and harder. He was being forced to pick a side.
As Professor Shnayer Leiman records in his fascinating article, “R. Abraham Isaac Ha-Kohen Kook: Letter on Ahavat Yisrael,” which covers most of the general details of the Arlosoroff Affair, Rav Kook had met Arlosoff that year before Rosh Hashana and even knew his grandfather. Rav Kook initially wanted to wait until the investigation was completed. He was willing to have his name included in an appeal for the defense fund for the accused, but stopped short of declaring their innocence or guilt.
Rav Kook’s silence was not well received. Abba Ahimeir sent Rav Kook a nasty letter accusing him of remaining silent during a blood libel.
Ahimeir and Rosenblatt were eventually acquitted. Stavsky, however, was found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of Chaim Asserloff. Rav Kook could no longer stay silent. Rav Kook issued a proclamation that stated, “I can attest on the basis of my inner conscience, that Avraham Stavsky is innocent of the murder charge.” Rav Kook sent letters urging other religious leaders to help Stavsky, including the leading Reform rabbi, Stephen Wise, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Stavsky, who was not an observant Jew, was deeply moved by Rav Kook’s efforts. He wrote Rav Kook a letter thanking him for his efforts:
I’m a plain Jew and I wonder: Why have I merited it that Rav Kook concerns himself so much with my fate? I ask only, Rav Kook, that you continue to remember me in your prayers. My suffering is made easier by the knowledge that none other than you, Rav Kook, looks after me and remembers me when praying to the Lord. May the Lord protect His people.
Jabotinsky was elated that Rav Kook finally entered the fray. “The Jewish nation, and its youth, will never forget the voice you raised, which revealed anew the strength of Jewish tradition,” he wrote to Rav Kook. The opponents of Revisionist Zionism on the left were outraged by Rav Kook’s involvement. Rav Kook’s life mission to unite all segments of the Jewish People to rebuild the Land of Israel was quickly unraveling in the political storm brewing from Asserloff’s murder. Still, Rav Kook remained steadfast in his conviction of Stavsky’s innocence despite the fractious response it was receiving.
As Rav Kook saw his position was widening the political turmoil unfolding in Israel, he published a letter clarifying his views. Here is the original, followed by a translation from Professor Leiman:
Rav Kook emphatically explains that his love for the Jewish People extends beyond any specific political affiliation or ideology. His concern was and remains the health of the larger collective entity, Knesset Yisroel, the Jewish People. Every Jew, even a plain Jew, even those he disagreed with, had a role to play in building a Jewish future.
It is worth noting that after the appeal, Stavsky was found innocent. The rest of his life was dedicated to bringing Jews to Israel. To help the efforts of the Irgun, Stavsky purchased a boat to transport arms to fighters in Israel. He decided to call the boat The Altalena. When the boat reached the shores of Tel Aviv, Stavsky was killed by gunfire and explosions from Haganah forces. He died in June of 1948, just a few yards away from where Asserlof was killed in June of 1933.
This brings us back to Rebbe Akiva’s statement that loving every Jew is a major principle of the Torah.
What exactly is Rebbe Akiva adding to an explicit verse we already know? Aren’t all commandments in the Torah important?
Rebbe Akiva is doing more than highlighting a powerful pasuk. He is drawing an equivalence between Torah and the love of the Jewish People. And this teaches us something about our obligations and relationships with both.
When it comes to Torah, we don’t just love the ideas, verses, and passages that make sense to us. A beit midrash is loud because people are arguing over the correct interpretation, resolving contradictions, and addressing inconstancies. There is a commitment to ameilus b’Torah, toiling and sweating to find meaning within the Torah.
But how hard do we work to find meaning and purpose within other Jews? Within ourselves? Rebbe Akiva is reminding us that the principles of Torah study need not end on the page but should extend to our relationships with others and ourselves. We need ameilus b’Yisroel, toiling and sweating to find meaning and purpose within each and every Jew.
It is easy to love Jews in the abstract. It is really challenging to see a Jew before you who grates on you, who you disagree with, and still find purpose and meaning within them. Rav Menashe Klein (1924-2011), once remarked about himself:
ובעזה"י הרבה הרבה הרבה כחות השקעתי במדה זו עד שהשי"ת נתן לי קצת מתנה לאהוב את כל איש מישראל ולהתפלל על נדחי ישראל שישובו באמת ובלב שלם
With the help of God, I have exerted many, many, many of my own strength for this characteristic, until God granted me a small gift to love each Jew and pray on behalf of all those distant from their Judaism that they should find a way to authentically return with a full heart.
And this was the message of Rav Kook. We don’t just love Jews because our politics align. In truth, as Rav Kook wrote in that letter, no political movement fully aligned with his views. Instead, his commitment was to the Jewish People, which sometimes came at a very high political cost. But however steep the price, it was worth it. Because loving the Jewish People is like our love for Torah—even if we can’t find the meaning right away, we can still toil, sweat, interpret, and discover the immutable connection of the Jewish People.
Shabbos Reads — Books/Articles Mentioned
Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution, Yehudah Mirsky
R. Abraham Isaac Kook Ha-Kohen Kook: Letter on Ahavat Yisrael, Shnayer Leiman
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Reading Jewish History in the Parsha has been generously sponsored by my dearest friends Janet and Lior Hod and family with immense gratitude to Hashem.