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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 Palestinian Authority Condemns Iran’s Attacks on Arab States — But Not Israel
Emergency personnel work at the site of an Iranian strike, after Iran launched missile barrages following attacks by the US and Israel on Saturday, in Beit Shemesh, Israel, March 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Other than a few informative reports, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is almost silent about the Israeli-American war with Iran.
So far, the PA has limited itself to condemning Iran’s attacks on other Arab states and requesting “an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers and for a session of the UN Security Council.”
The PA has neither condemned the Israeli-American attack on Iran, nor has it said anything positive about the Iranian missiles launched against Israel:
The State of Palestine strongly condemned the Iranian attacks on several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq, stressing its full rejection of any violation of their sovereignty or aggression against them by any party.
It described the attacks as a blatant violation of the UN Charter and principles of international law…
It also reaffirmed its consistent position against resorting to violence and war, calling for dialogue as the means to resolve disputes … and for adherence to international law to strengthen regional and international peace and security.
President Mahmoud Abbas called for an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers and for a session of the UN Security Council to address the serious challenges facing the region, its countries, and their sovereignty. [emphasis added]
[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, Feb. 28, 2026]
Vice President of the State of Palestine Hussein Al-Sheikh on Saturday reaffirmed Palestine’s rejection and condemnation of the Iranian attacks on several Arab sister states … and conveyed Palestine’s solidarity with the Arab states and support for any measures they deem appropriate in response.
Al-Sheikh stressed that the State of Palestine and its leadership firmly reject any violation of the sovereignty of Arab states or aggression against them by any party, describing the attacks as a blatant violation of the UN Charter and the principles of international law.
[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, Feb. 28, 2026]
Although the PA has not openly applauded the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, there is reason to believe they silently appreciate the development.
Palestinian Media Watch has exposed that the PA blamed Iran for making Hamas launch the devastating Oct. 7 war to “serve its Iranian masters” and accused Iran of supporting Hamas to “destroy the Palestinian national project,” thereby enabling it to replace the PLO as “the sole representative of the Palestinian people”:
PLO National Council member Muwaffaq Matar: “There is no clearer proof [than Iranian leader Khamenei’s speech] of Hamas’ subordination to this Iranian regime. In this speech there is nothing new for us, because we have already understood how much this regime controls Hamas, has given it its blessing, supported it, and aided it to destroy the Palestinian national project completely, so that it [Hamas] and also its partners who follow Iran will be the artificial alternative to the PLO.”
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, June 3, 2024]
This claim was reiterated recently by PLO Central Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul:
[Hamas] began to move according to the direction of the wind, based on the Muslim Brotherhood’s principle of taqiyya. Nothing is constant for [Hamas] except to continue serving as a paid pawn in the hands of the enemies, in order to sabotage the national project, dissolve it, incite against the legitimate leadership. [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 18, 2026]
Following the Israeli-American attack, former spokesman of the PA Security Forces Adnan Al-Damiri even mocked both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Iran.
Al-Damiri prophesized that the Iranian people won’t reach for their freedom made possible by Netanyahu (and Trump) but will continue to “support the regime.” Iran’s attack on several neighboring Arab states, many of which host US military bases, was ridiculed by Al-Damiri as “stupidity and malice”:
Posted text: “The Iranian people are not a plaything to accede to [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu, even if it is against the regime. Netanyahu’s appeal to the Iranian people will fail, and the people will set out to support the regime. The war will last a long time to complete the mission of toppling the [Iranian] fundamentalist regime…
Iran, out of stupidity and malice, attacked its [Arab] neighbors who opposed the war. It weakened itself by directly involving its neighbors.
This will open the possibility of ground military activity from the territories of its neighbors and with their participation. The war will last weeks, perhaps months.”
[Former Official Spokesman of the PA Security Forces Adnan Al-Damiri, Facebook page, Feb. 28, 2026]
So far, only the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has openly mourned the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with a poster and text calling the Israeli-American attack “a cowardly assassination operation committed by the Zionist and American treachery.”
Note: On June 3, 2024, then Iranian leader Khamenei gave a speech in which he praised Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, stating that:
An army that claimed to be one of the strongest armies in the world has been defeated inside its own land. Who has defeated it? Was it a powerful government? No, it was defeated by Resistance groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. It was defeated by these [groups]. This is what Al-Aqsa Flood did.
He neither mentioned the PA nor the PLO at all but only the “Resistance” and the “Palestinian people.”
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this story first appeared.
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Purim and Lion’s Roar: From Sinai to Shushan to Sovereignty
A woman holds a poster with the picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as people gather after Khamenei was killed in Israeli and U.S. strikes on Saturday, in Tehran, Iran, March 1, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
I am writing this from Israel. Since roughly 8:10 a.m. on Saturday morning, my family and I — including my grandchildren — have been moving in and out of our apartment’s mamad (safe room) as sirens sound and alerts flash across our phones.
This is not symbolic. For more than two and a half years, it has been part of our routine, largely because an Islamist tyranny that controls modern Persia has made clear its intention to destroy the world’s only Jewish state and confront what it calls the “decadent West.”
Purim begins this Monday night. It is one of the most joyful holidays on the Jewish calendar. We commemorate events roughly 2,300 years ago, when the Jews of the Persian Empire thwarted the genocidal plan of Haman, a Persian vizier who sought to eliminate every Jew under ancient Persian rule.
The connection between then and now is not only rhetorical. It is theological.
The Jewish sages distinguish between two moments of covenant in Jewish history. At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people accepted the Torah amid overwhelming miracles and revelation. The Midrash (the rabbinic interpretive tradition) describes G-d holding the mountain over them “like a barrel.” The Talmud asks whether a covenant accepted under such circumstances can truly be considered voluntary.
Centuries later, in Shushan (the royal capital of the Persian Empire), the Jewish people accepted the covenant again — this time by choice. Megillat Esther (the Book of Esther) states, “The Jews upheld and accepted.” The Talmud understands this as a reaffirmation of Sinai, but now without thunder, seas splitting, plagues, or other spectacular and clearly divine miracles.
A royal Persian decree had set a date for annihilation. The Jews organized, fasted, lobbied the king, and prepared to defend themselves. According to our sages, it was at that moment that the covenant became fully embraced.
Sinai represents a covenant formed through revelation. Purim represents a covenant embraced through responsibility. That distinction matters.
The Book of Esther never mentions G-d explicitly. Unlike the Exodus narrative in the Passover Haggadah, which foregrounds Divine intervention, the Book of Esther reads like statecraft. A Persian official secures authority to eliminate a minority population. The decree circulates through an imperial bureaucracy. The Jewish community must decide how to respond.
“Gather the Jews,” Mordechai tells Esther. This is strategic, not mythical, language.
The Jews of Shushan survived because they took responsibility for their fate and they acted.
That pattern has a modern parallel.
For decades, the Iranian regime has funded, armed, and directed groups that target Israelis and Americans — whom it labels the “little Satan” and the “big Satan.” From Beirut to Buenos Aires, from sustained support for Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah, Tehran has made proxy warfare against America and Israel a central instrument of state policy.
At the same time, Iran has advanced uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs while engaging in negotiations designed to preserve those capabilities.
Days before Purim this year, Israel and the United States launched Operation Lion’s Roar, referred to in Washington as Epic Fury.
Iranian leadership assumed hesitation would prevail — that Western debate would slow or negate response, that deterrence would erode, and that proxy pressure, escalating threats, and negotiations designed to buy time would delay decisive action. They were wrong. Once again, Israel directly responded to threats against it.
History offers important perspective.
In 1948, roughly 650,000 Jews declared independence, while five Arab armies responded by trying to destroy it, including the British-trained and armed Arab Legion. The new state lacked air power, heavy artillery, and strategic depth. Many predicted its total annihilation. But Israel fought, won the war, and secured its independence.
In 1967, Gamal Abdel Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran, expelled UN forces from Sinai, and massed Soviet-armed Egyptian divisions along Israel’s border. Syrian artillery shelled the north. Jordanian forces controlled the high ground overlooking central Israel. At its narrowest point, the country measured nine miles across, with a population of barely 2.5 million facing neighboring states with a combined population of roughly 40 million.
Israelis feared catastrophe; thousands of graves were prepared. Six days later, Israel won the war and dramatically altered the map of the Middle East.
In October 1973, on Yom Kippur, fewer than 200 Israeli tanks faced roughly 1,400 Syrian tanks on the Golan Heights. Reinforcements were hours away. A breakthrough would have exposed the Galilee and major civilian centers. The line held. Syrian armored forces suffered heavy losses.
In Sinai during that same war, Egypt’s surprise assault initially overwhelmed Israeli positions. Weeks later, Israeli forces crossed the Suez Canal, encircled Egypt’s Third Army, and advanced to within roughly sixty miles of Cairo.
In 2024, Israeli intelligence penetrated Hezbollah’s communications networks, disrupted command structures, and eliminated most of its senior leadership. Analysts who insisted Hezbollah was effectively unbeatable without catastrophic Israeli losses were forced to watch its capabilities steadily collapse.
None of these episodes suspended natural law. They reflected decisions made under tremendous pressure. And this is where the story of Purim becomes essential: when open miracles are absent, G-d works through human agency.
For centuries in exile, Jewish communities survived, often barely, without sovereignty. Waiting was frequently the only option. But Purim established a different principle: divine providence does not remove human agency; it operates through it.
Political Zionism functioned in that mode. No prophet guaranteed success. No spectacular miracle cleared its path. Zionist leaders organized congresses, negotiated with empires, purchased land, built institutions, and formed defense forces. They acted.
Sovereignty eliminates the option of passivity. It requires decisions, risk, and accountability.
As I write this, the sirens keep sounding. As usual, Israelis will gather our children and move into reinforced spaces. We will follow Home Front Command instructions. When the all-clear comes, we will return to our lives as citizens of a sovereign Jewish state.
Some clearly prefer the image of Jews as permanent victims — admired or to some degree tolerated because they are powerless. Purim rejects that model. When we gather, mobilize, defend, and take responsibility — whether on the Golan in 1973, in intelligence and military operations against Hezbollah, or in confronting nuclear and missile threats from Tehran — we act in the spirit clarified in Shushan.
Jewish survival in the modern age rests on agency — on the willingness to participate in history rather than endure it. May this be the last Purim in which a tyrannical regime in Persia threatens the Jewish people and the free world. Next year (and hopefully much sooner), we hope Iran will be free of its oppressors — and at peace with Israel.
Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish history. He serves on the board of Herut North America.
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If the Ayatollahs Are Overthrown, What Is Next for Israel and Iran?
Israel and Iran flags are seen in this illustration taken June 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
If the Iranian regime does fall — what happens next? Will Iran return to the peaceful history of its past, or will more chaos ensue?
History offers both warning and hope.
In ancient Persia under King Ahasuerus, a decree was issued by Haman to annihilate the Jewish people. Haman’s hatred was not casual prejudice. It was genocidal policy. Yet through courage, strategy, and unity, Queen Esther exposed the plot. The Jews were granted the right to defend themselves and survived what was meant to be their destruction. Purim became a celebration not only of survival, but of clarity in the face of existential threat.
Israel’s modern reality is not ancient Persia, but the echoes are unmistakable. Since 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has built its regional strategy around encircling Israel with armed proxies. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen have all received Iranian funding, training, and weaponry. Tehran’s leaders have repeatedly called for Israel’s elimination while advancing a nuclear program that has alarmed the international community for decades.
A regime change in Iran would therefore reverberate far beyond Tehran. But we must be realistic. Regimes can fall quickly. Narratives do not.
Decades of indoctrination inside Iran have portrayed Israel as a cosmic enemy. Beyond Iran, global discourse has increasingly cast Israel as uniquely malevolent, often divorced from context. Social media accelerates outrage while compressing history into slogans. Complex security dilemmas are flattened into caricature. Millions form hardened opinions about a country they have never visited, about a conflict they have never studied in depth.
A post revolutionary Iran would not automatically translate into pro-Israel sentiment. Prejudice rarely evaporates with a leadership change. If peace between the two countries is to be more than a pause between conflicts, it must be built deliberately.
So what are the realistic pathways?
First, intellectual honesty about history. The Jewish connection to the land of Israel is ancient and continuous. Archaeology, historical texts, and liturgy testify to a people whose national and spiritual identity is rooted in Jerusalem and the broader land. Recognizing Jewish indigeneity reframes the debate from colonial accusation to national self determination. Education systems across the region would need to replace erasure with acknowledgment. That is not a concession. It is a prerequisite for coexistence.
Second, regional integration based on shared interests. The Abraham Accords demonstrated that longstanding hostility is not immutable. Economic cooperation, technological exchange, and security coordination between Israel and several Arab states have already produced tangible benefits. Trade has expanded. Tourism has grown. Joint ventures in renewable energy, water technology, and cyber defense are underway. A future Iran that abandons revolutionary maximalism could, in theory, plug into the same architecture of mutual benefit.
Third, economic normalization as a stabilizing force. Iran possesses immense human capital, natural resources, and strategic geography. Israel is a global leader in innovation, from agricultural technology to medical research and cybersecurity. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict. When prosperity is tied to stability, the incentive structure shifts away from confrontation.
Fourth, people to people engagement. Hatred thrives in abstraction. It weakens in proximity. Academic exchanges, cultural dialogue, and civil society partnerships can humanize what propaganda has dehumanized. The Iranian people have repeatedly demonstrated courage in protesting repression. Many distinguish between political opposition to their rulers and personal animosity toward Jews. Those spaces of nuance must be widened.
And yet, realism demands humility. Human nature contains rivalry as well as compassion. The 20th century, despite unprecedented technological progress, produced unparalleled destruction. The hope that humanity will transcend conflict entirely has so far proven elusive. Peace may not be an eternal state. It may be episodic and fragile.
That does not render it meaningless.
Israel does not aspire to endless war. It aspires to secure sovereignty in its ancestral homeland. It aspires to raise children without air raid sirens and to innovate without existential distraction.
If change comes in Tehran, it will open a door. Whether that door leads to durable coexistence depends on choices made not only by leaders, but by societies willing to confront myths and abandon absolutism.
Peace may never be permanent. But it can be extended. It can be strengthened. And in a region too accustomed to despair, even incremental light after darkness is worth striving for.
Sabine Sterk is the CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.