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Everyone knows about Herzl. Is it time for Max Nordau, the intermarried father of Zionism, to get his due?

(JTA) — In the weeks since Israel’s latest government was sworn in, questions relating to assimilation, defining Jewish identity and what it means to be a Zionist have been central to the public and political discourse, which in some ways is perhaps more heated and divisive than it has ever been.

One useful addition to the discourse might be recalling the thought and example of an author and Zionist leader who died 100 years ago last month. Max Nordau was a central figure in the early years of the modern political Zionist movement, literally founding the Zionist Organization (today’s World Zionist Organization) with Theodor Herzl and heading multiple Zionist congresses. A physician and renowned man of letters prior to his “conversion” to Zionism following the Dreyfus Affair in France, Nordau’s joining the Zionist movement gave it a notable boost in terms of renown and respectability.

He also coined the term “Muscular Judaism” — a redefinition of what it meant to be a Jew in the modern world; a critical shift away from the traditionally insular, “meek” Jewish archetype devoted solely to religious and intellectual pursuits. The “Muscular Jew” in theory and practice was necessary in order for a modern Jewish state to be established.

Reviving interest in Nordau now is a continuation of a conversation that an Israeli historian kicked off four decades ago. The historian, Yosef Nedava, embarked on a crusade to renew interest in and appreciation of Nordau. Nedava was a proponent of Revisionist Zionism, a movement led by Zeev Jabotinsky and later Menachem Begin that was considered to be the bitter ideological rival to the Labor Zionism of David Ben-Gurion and others. Broadly speaking, Revisionist Zionism was more territorially maximalist when it came to settling the Land of Israel, and favored liberal principles as opposed to the socialist ones championed by Ben-Gurion and his colleagues.

Nedava had a penchant for fighting the battles of unsung heroes of history who he thought should be better remembered. He led a crusade to clear the name of Yosef Lishansky, the founder of the NILI underground movement that assisted the British during World War I who was executed by the Ottomans. He also worked to exonerate fellow Revisionist Zionists accused of murdering Labor Zionist leader Haim Arlozorov — an event that shook Mandatory Palestine in the early 1930s and beyond.

About Nordau, Nedava said at the time, “For 60 years he wasn’t mentioned and he was one of the forgotten figures that only a few streets were named after.”

Nedava’s sentiment was clear, even if his words were somewhat hyperbolic. Nordau had in fact been studied and cited over the years, and there were in fact at least a few streets named after him in Israel. At the official state event marking six decades since Nordau’s death, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin even declared, “We never forgot Max Nordau, his teachings and his historical merits.”

Following Nedava’s efforts leading up to the 60th anniversary of Nordau’s death in 1983, Begin set up an official committee to memorialize the Zionist leader. The committee was tasked with publishing Nordau’s works, establishing events and honoring him in other ways like getting his face on a stamp “and maybe on a monetary bill,” according to Nedava.

But no bill was ever printed with Nordau’s visage, and there’s no question that Nordau never has gotten nearly the credit nor recognition that Herzl received. If the streets referenced by Nedava are any indicator, there are currently a respectable 33 streets named after Nordau in Israel, though that’s just about half of what Herzl’s got. There’s a city called Herzliya, with a massive image of the Zionist founder overlooking one of Israel’s most-trafficked highways. Nordau has a beach in Tel Aviv, a neighborhood in Netanya and a small village far in the north — but no city of his own.

Trees line alongside Nordau Avenue in Tel Aviv, March 4, 2017. (Anat Hermoni/FLASH90)

That’s not to say he didn’t have his fans. The Revisionist movement and Begin’s Herut and Likud parties idolized him, often mentioning and depicting him alongside Herzl and Vladimir Jabotinsky. Revisionist historian Benzion Netanyahu, father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, greatly admired Nordau, even editing four entire volumes of his writings.

“Alongside Herzl, the Revisionists loved him, as he was a liberal. Yet he was also accepted and respected by those on the other side of the political spectrum,” Hezi Amiur, a scholar of Zionism and the curator of the Israeli Collection at the National Library of Israel, told me.

Like many of his generation and ilk, Nordau, himself the son of a rabbi, rejected religion and tradition as a teenager, opting to join mainstream European secular culture. He changed his name from Simon (Simcha) Maximilian Südfeld to Max Nordau. The shift in surname from Südfeld — meaning “southern field” — to Nordau — meaning “northern meadow” — was very much an intentional act for Nordau, the only son in his religiously observant family who chose northern European Germanic culture over the traditions of his fathers. He even married a Danish Protestant opera singer, a widow and mother of four named Anna Dons-Kaufmann.

In a congratulatory letter sent to Nordau following his marriage to Anna, Herzl, who was also not a particularly observant nor learned Jew, wrote:

Your concerns regarding the attitudes of our zealous circles [within the Zionist movement] regarding your mixed marriage are perhaps exaggerated. … If our project had already been fulfilled today, surely we would not have prevented a Jewish citizen, that is, a citizen of the existing Jewish state, from marrying a foreign-born gentile, through this marriage she would become a Jew without paying attention to her religion. If she has children, they will be Jews anyway.

This particular vision of Herzl’s has certainly not come to fruition, and the topic remains a particularly heated one, continuing to roil the Israeli political system, and — no less — Israel-Diaspora relations.

Similar political forces to those that have kept this particular Herzlian vision at bay may have also been responsible for ensuring that Nordau’s impressively whiskered face never made its way onto Israeli currency.

According to one report, Begin’s Likud government abandoned its efforts to get Nordau’s onto a shekel note in 1983 in order to avoid a potential coalition crisis. The concern was that the religious parties that were part of the ruling coalition could become outraged at the prospect of having someone married to a non-Jew on Israeli money. Whether the report was fully accurate or not, the sentiments behind such a potential coalition scare are certainly familiar to anyone following contemporary Israeli politics.

Nonetheless, perhaps the two most influential religious Zionist rabbis of the 20th century, Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook and his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, not only somewhat overlooked Nordau’s assimilationist tendencies and intermarriage, they even celebrated the man and his vision.

The elder Rabbi Kook, who served as the rabbi of Jaffa, Jerusalem and the Land of Israel in the opening decades of the 1900s, uncompromisingly criticized some of Nordau’s views, especially with respect to the separation of religion from Zionism. But he was a big fan of Nordau’s “Muscular Judaism,” writing among other things, that:

…a healthy body is what we need, we have been very busy with the soul, we have forgotten the sanctity of the body, we have neglected physical health and strength, we have forgotten that we have holy flesh, no less than we have the holy spirit… Through the strength of the flesh the weakened soul will be enlightened, the resurrection of the dead in their bodies.

Decades later his son, likely the most influential Israeli religious Zionist spiritual leader until his death in 1982, defined Nordau (as well as seminal Hebrew poet Shaul Tchernichovsky, who also married a non-Jew) as a “baal tshuvah” — a term imprecisely translated as “penitent” that is generally used to refer to non-observant Jews who become more religiously observant. Yehuda based his designation on a Talmudic teaching that “Anyone who transgresses and is ashamed of it is forgiven for all of his sins.”

Like anyone, Max Nordau probably regretted and felt ashamed of various decisions and actions in his life, but marrying a non-Jewish woman does not seem to be one of them. He and Anna stayed married for decades until his death in 1923.

Both Kooks were able to overlook the decidedly non-religious (if not outright anti-religious) life Nordau chose to lead. Instead of his personal choices, they focused on the central contribution he made to ensuring the reestablishment of a Jewish home in its ancestral land.

The majority of Israel’s current ruling coalition claims to be the ideological descendants of Begin and the Rabbis Kook, men who managed to have great admiration for the teachings and achievements of Nordau, even if they may have found his anti-religious, assimilationist tendencies and intermarriage reprehensible. Nedava wanted Israel to learn from Nordau 40 years ago. It’s possible the country still could today — if only the striking level of tolerance and respect with which he was considered in the past can still be summoned.

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The post Everyone knows about Herzl. Is it time for Max Nordau, the intermarried father of Zionism, to get his due? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Will the Release of the Hostages Be the Next Phase of Our Renewal?

Israeli protestors take part in a rally demanding the immediate release of the hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, and the end of war in Gaza, in Jerusalem September 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

With all the talk of “deals” and “final phases,” it feels a world away from those days — only recently — when Israel felt more vulnerable than at any moment since 1948.

On the morning of October 7, 2023, as the full horror of the Hamas pogrom unfolded, Israel’s invincibility — that almost mythic confidence built over decades of survival against the odds — shattered in a matter of hours. Images of slaughtered families, homes in flames, the kidnapped and the violated, flooded our screens — not scenes from history books, but unfolding in real time, and on Israeli soil. 

The world’s only Jewish state — the nation that had vowed “Never Again” — suddenly felt helpless. Battle-hardened soldiers wept as frightened parents clutched their children in bomb shelters. The idea of safety and deterrence — the IDF and Iron Dome as an impenetrable shield — was shaken to its core.

And even as the shock turned into rage, another kind of pain began to set in — the pain of inexplicable isolation. The world, which very briefly stood with Israel in the days immediately after the massacre, quickly turned. 

Within weeks, university quads and city squares were filled with angry crowds chanting slogans that blurred the line between anti-Zionism and old-fashioned antisemitism. Hostage posters were torn down by ordinary passersby who denied the reality of Jewish suffering and Hamas terror. 

Western governments — even close allies — urged “restraint,” as if Israel’s response to the atrocities required an apology. And the headlines found their favorite refrain: “disproportionate response.”

For Israel and Jews around the world, the vulnerability deepened — not only military but moral. For in the wake of October 7th a jarring truth emerged: the world’s sympathy is as fleeting as a news cycle, and Jewish blood is still cheap in the court of global opinion. 

Then came the grinding months of war — tunnels and booby traps, rockets raining down from near and far, hostage vigils, funerals of young soldiers, sleepless nights without end. Israel’s mission to destroy Hamas — so just and so necessary — was widely portrayed as cruelty and overreach. 

And although the country carried on, bruised and defiant, every Israeli, and every friend of Israel, knew their world would never be the same again.

But out of that national trauma, something remarkable emerged. Instead of despair, there was determination. Israel didn’t collapse; it recalibrated. The chaos of October 7th and its aftermath hardened into resolve — arguments and missteps notwithstanding. The IDF went into Gaza and, slowly and methodically, dismantled an infrastructure of terror once thought untouchable. 

And now — two years since that black day — Israel stands at the brink of what few dared to imagine then: a deal poised to bring home the remaining hostages and which signals the absolute capitulation of Hamas. If only this moment had come sooner.

The dark night that began on Simchat Torah two years ago is, at last, giving way to dawn. And it’s here — at this exact point of transition — that we arrive at Parshat Vezot Habracha, the Torah’s final portion. 

Moshe stands within sight of the Promised Land. He knows he won’t cross the Jordan, and he knows the nation will. His mission — with all its triumphs and heartbreaks — is complete. And before he departs, Moshe does something extraordinary: he blesses the people.

He doesn’t bless them because everything and everyone was perfect. Far from it. The wilderness years were marked by rebellion, doubt, and tragedy — this was a nation that often fell short of God’s lofty expectations. And a journey that should have taken months took forty years. 

But Moshe looks at the broken and scarred nation before him and sees beyond the pain. He sees the promise. He understands that blessings don’t land when life is smooth – they come into focus when we can see the rough edges of our journey and still believe in our purpose. That’s why he blesses them: to mark the passage from survival to meaning, and from suffering to renewal.

Vezot Habracha — together with Simchat Torah, the festival on which it is always read — has never felt more resonant. For two years, Israel wandered a wilderness of fear and grief. Every headline, every hostage — living or lost — and every fallen soldier, reminded us that the price of Jewish existence is still unbearably high. 

And yet, perhaps this moment — this stunning deal put together by President Trump and his determined team — is our Vezot Habracha. Like Moshe’s farewell, it arrives at the close of trials and tribulations. The enemies have been fought, the losses mourned, and the next chapter — rebuilding, redefining, renewing — stands ready to begin.

Moshe’s blessing ends with a vision for Israel’s future in its land (Deut. 33:28): “Israel shall dwell in safety, alone.” Those words have always felt poetic but unrealistic — aspirational dreaming rather than a reality we can experience.  Today they sound prophetic, as intended. 

For the first time in years — perhaps since its inception — Israel stands secure, unthreatened by the terror that has shadowed it from the start. The very movement that sought its destruction and the killing of all Jews wherever they are — Hamas — has been broken, and its former patrons have been knocked out or forced to abandon it. 

There’s a divine symmetry here: what began when we read Vezot Habracha now finds its conclusion as we read Vezot Habracha again.

It’s truly fitting that Vezot Habracha is always read on Simchat Torah — the day we dance, sing, and celebrate the Torah’s completion. You’d think we’d pause to reflect, maybe catch our breath after the long journey from Bereishit to Devarim. 

But no — the moment we finish the final words, we roll the scroll right back to the beginning and start again. That’s the Jewish way. There’s no such thing as “The End,” because every ending is the start of something new.

After all, Moshe’s death isn’t an ending — it’s the prelude to Yehoshua’s story and the Jewish nation’s metamorphosis into one of history’s most influential forces. The Jewish people don’t stop, nor are they paralyzed by the past. They move forward. 

And in our own time, as Israel stands at the end of one of the darkest chapters in its history, the same truth applies. As we close the chapter of pain that has been the past two years, we immediately stand on the threshold of renewal, raring to go.

On Simchat Torah, as the scroll rolls from the end back to the beginning, we will all remember the horrors of October 7th. Even so — through our tears — as we lift the Torah and dance with it again, we’ll be declaring something profoundly Jewish: that light follows darkness, that faith outlasts fear, and that life never stops. 

So when the hostages come home, when the guns fall silent, and when Israel can finally breathe again, let’s not linger in the horrors of the past. Let’s celebrate. We are turning the scroll from tragedy to triumph, from mourning to blessing — from October 7th to Vezot Habracha — and beginning anew. 

Like our ancestors before us, we will start again — stronger, wiser, and with our faith renewed — ready to write the next chapter of the Jewish story.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California. 

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Two Years Since Oct. 7: A World That Lost Its Moral Compass

People react near the scene, after an attack in which a car was driven at pedestrians and stabbings were reported at a synagogue in north Manchester, Britain, on Yom Kippur, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Phil Noble

Two years have passed since October 7, 2023 — a day of unspeakable horror for Israel and the Jewish people.

Across Israel and Jewish communities worldwide, this weekend was marked by somber commemorations, filled with dignity and tears. Candles were lit, names were recited, and prayers rose for the 1,200 victims, for the hostages still held in Gaza, and for the survivors who carry the trauma of that day.

But even as Jews mourn, the streets of Europe and particularly in the Netherlands, have been filled with anger and hatred. More than a quarter of a million protesters recently marched, not to demand the release of hostages or condemn terrorism, but to denounce Israel. Some waved Hamas flags, others shouted calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, and openly echoed antisemitic slogans. Among them were politicians, cultural figures, and so-called “human rights activists” who have chosen ideology over morality.

The renewed peace initiative led by former President Trump receives little attention, as does the suffering of Israeli hostages or the trauma of their families. The same protesters who speak the language of “human rights” fall silent in the face of atrocities that do not involve Israel.

Ignored Tragedies Around the World

While the global media fixates on Israel, genuine humanitarian catastrophes unfold elsewhere, largely unnoticed:

  • In Sudan, a brutal civil war since April 2023 has displaced over 12 million people and claimed tens of thousands of lives.
  • In Ukraine, the war continues to devastate both sides, leaving hundreds of thousands dead.
  • In Myanmar, entire villages have been destroyed amid ongoing conflict.
  • Across the Congo and the Sahel, armed groups massacre civilians daily.
  • In Yemen, famine and war push entire families to starvation.
  • In Somalia and the Horn of Africa, drought and fighting threaten tens of millions with hunger.

Even more overlooked are the massacres of Christians in Africa. Since 2023, over 22,000 Christians have been murdered by Islamist extremists across the continent.

  • In Nigeria, the Yelwata massacre (2025) left 200 dead and entire Christian communities destroyed.
  • In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Komanda and Kasanga attacks killed more than 100 worshippers, many inside their churches.
  • In 2023 alone, 4,761 Christians were killed for their faith.

There are no mass demonstrations, no “solidarity weeks,” no campus rallies for these victims. Their suffering does not fit the fashionable narrative.

The Moral Epidemic of Selective Outrage

This is the defining moral crisis of our time: selective outrage. The global community claims to champion justice and peace, yet its attention and anger are rationed, directed almost exclusively at the world’s only Jewish state.

In Paris, Amsterdam, London, and New York, chants of “intifada” echo through the streets. At leading universities, students glorify Hamas as a “resistance movement.” At the United Nations, Israel is condemned more often than all other nations combined.

The evidence is clear: this is not about human rights. It is about hatred, the oldest and most adaptable hatred in history, repackaged as activism.

When the World Turns Upside Down

Today, we live in an age where terrorists are celebrated, and their victims are blamed for defending themselves. Where Jewish blood is once again cheap, and the world remains silent. And yet, Israel endures. The Jewish State mourns, rebuilds, and defends itself because it has learned, time and again, that Jewish survival cannot depend on global approval.

Two Years Later: The Truth Remains

On this October 7, 2025, we remember the murdered, we pray for the hostages, and we reaffirm an unshakable truth: “Israel is not the cause of the world’s chaos. It is the moral measure of it, a nation that proves, even after centuries of hate, that the Jewish people still choose life.”

Sabine Sterk is the CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel

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Pro-Palestinian LA Times Heiress Seizes Left-Wing Outlet to Push Agenda

May 1, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; A flag is waved during a sit-in outside of a pro-Palestinian encampment at the campus of UCLA. Violence broke out early in the morning at the encampment, hours after the university declared that the camp “is unlawful and violates university policy.” Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

The pro-Palestinian daughter of the Los Angeles Times owner has recently been appointed publisher of the left-leaning outlet Drop Site News— a new platform for her to espouse her hateful views about Israel.

Nika Soon-Shiong, 32, daughter of billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, is no stranger to newsrooms. She has allegedly interfered behind the scenes at her father’s newspaper to influence coverage, meddling with headlines and clashing with editors who didn’t align with her activist agenda.

Soon-Shiong’s own public statements reveal a consistent hostility toward Israel and Zionism. On social media, she has displayed a Palestinian flag in her bio, dismissed the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, described Israel as an “apartheid state” that is engaged in “genocide” — and even alleged that the Los Angeles City Council was funding a “Zionist militia.”

Despite this pattern of rhetoric aligning with fringe, hardline narratives rather than journalistic neutrality, Soon-Shiong has, since 2021, sat on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) — an organization that redefines international law to designate terrorists as journalists.

How much influence has Soon-Shiong exerted on the CPJ? Even before the October 7 massacre and the resulting war, the CPJ published a report accusing the Israeli military of acting with “impunity” and severely undermining freedom of the press. This, even while according to the organization’s own data, Israel did not even feature in its so-called “Global Impunity Index,” which charts the countries in which press freedom is curtailed and where there is a lack of accountability when journalists are killed.

The double standards were glaring.

The CPJ has also been at the forefront of eulogizing so-called “journalists” who were killed in Gaza while working for outlets like Al-Aqsa TV and Quds News Network, which are affiliated with Hamas.

As we will see below, Soon-Shiong isn’t overly concerned when it comes to distinguishing between journalists and terrorists. One can only assume that this has played an active role in the CPJ’s willful blindness on this issue.

A New Platform for Anti-Israel Hate

So what happens if someone who brings both money and an extreme pro-Palestinian agenda is given her own media outlet?

We’re about to find out. Soon-Shiong has been appointed publisher of Drop Site News, a proudly left-wing outlet positioning itself as a corrective to what it calls mainstream media’s failure to cover “genocide” and “apartheid.”

It’s a media outlet devoted to delegitimizing Israel and promoting terrorist agendas. Alarmingly, its audience keeps growing.

The move provides Soon-Shiong’s ideological agenda a direct platform with more than 400,000 followers, which is most likely now set to receive a significant injection of cash.

Funding Gaza Journalists or Terrorists?

For starters, just before Soon-Shiong’s new role was announced, she launched a fund to support an undisclosed list of Gaza “journalists” whose vetting process raises questions about possible terror ties.

The fundraising initiative is run in partnership with Unmute Humanity, which describes itself as “a grassroots collective to disrupt media complicity and call for accurate reporting of the U.S.-funded genocide by Israel against Palestinians.”

The so-called “Gaza Journalist Fund” has already raised more than $200,000, but no list of beneficiaries has been published. Instead, the group says it supports “journalists who have appeared on Unmute Humanity’s Voices of Palestine webcast or weekly TikTok Lives, or individuals with whom Unmute Humanity maintains ongoing direct communication.”

That vague “vetting process” has already spotlighted troubling figures. One is Bisan Owda, an Al Jazeera reporter exposed as a longtime member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — a terror group responsible for suicide bombings, shootings, rocket fire, and the 2014 massacre of five Jewish worshipers in a Jerusalem synagogue. Unmute Humanity repeatedly promoted Owda across its platforms throughout 2024.

Another example is Anas al-Sharif, a Hamas operative who masqueraded as an Al Jazeera journalist until being killed by the IDF. Unmute Humanity openly eulogized him in posts and collaborations with other pro-Palestinian groups. Had he survived, it appears he would have been eligible for Soon-Shiong’s Gaza Journalist Fund.

Another “journalist” whose material was promoted is Mohammed Salama, a Hamas terrorist who posed as an Al Jazeera journalist and was targeted by the IDF together with al-Sharif.

If these examples are the norm rather than the exception, Soon-Shiong may effectively be financing terrorists under the guise of supporting Gaza reporting, through partnerships with groups that present them as journalists.

And she does not even try to hide her agenda.

Soon-Shiong also proudly announced her plans to turn her new media toy into an instrument of propaganda, for the sake of “the verdict of history”:

And Drop Site News’ Middle East editor recently explained — in an agenda-driven panel with CPJ’s CEO and former head of Human Rights Watch — that journalists should join the Gaza-bound flotilla (and thus take part in a blatant breach of international maritime law) because avoiding it is a “political” decision.

Many questions arise: How much cash is Soon-Shiong funnelling into Drop Site News? Is she planning to tighten her grip on her father’s newsroom, too? And who are the so-called “journalists” in Gaza now poised to receive US dollars?

The American public is owed absolute transparency — because when media power and US money are funneled into agendas that imperil Jewish lives — silence is complicity.

HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

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