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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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Iran’s Shi’ite Allies Step Up Strikes Despite Weakened Hand
The sky is illuminated as an Iranian missile lands in Israel, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, as seen from Tel Aviv, Israel, March 12, 2026. PhotoL REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
Shi’ite Muslim armed groups in Lebanon and Iraq are stepping up their role in the war with the US and Israel, showing the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” can still wage attacks despite damage inflicted on the alliance during the Gaza conflict.
Groups that have long been armed and financed by Iran and loyal to its Shi’ite Islamist rulers are now helping Tehran intensify the war around the region, strikes in recent days show.
Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday launched their first-ever simultaneous rocket barrage on Israel, with the Lebanese terrorist group firing 200 missiles. Israel reported that only two of these hit its territory.
Iraqi Shi’ite militants have also picked up the pace of drone and missile attacks on US interests in Iraq in the last 3-4 days, according to three Iraqi security sources and two sources close to the groups.
One group yet to enter the fray are Tehran’s Houthi allies in Yemen, heavily armed and capable of disrupting maritime navigation around the Arabian peninsula, as shown during the Gaza war when they fired at Red Sea shipping and Israel. Houthi attacks could further disrupt oil markets because Saudi Arabia diverted exports to the Red Sea after Iran shut the Hormuz straits.
Last week, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said the group had its “fingers on the trigger” and was ready to act militarily when developments warrant it.
The alliance that Tehran calls the Axis of Resistance suffered major blows after Hamas – one of its key members – attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, igniting a war that decimated the Palestinian terrorist group and pummeled Hezbollah, with Israel killing the Lebanese group‘s leader Hassan Nasrallah. The ripple effects helped topple Bashar al-Assad in Syria, knocking away a pillar of the Axis.
“Iran built the Axis for a moment like this,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center think-tank, describing it as an “existential war” for Iran and Hezbollah, which joined the fight even though its military power remains well below levels seen in 2023.
“If the Iranian regime is destroyed, there would be nothing left” of the Axis, he said.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said the Hezbollah attack on Wednesday comprised 200 rockets and 20 drones.
“There’s no contradiction between the fact that we heavily, heavily diminished Hezbollah in the last three years, and the fact that they are still a relevant, dangerous force,” he told reporters on Thursday.
A US State Department spokesperson said Washington “unequivocally condemns Iran and Iran-backed terrorist militias’ attacks on diplomatic, military, and civilian infrastructure, in Iraq, including in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region,” and it fully supports “Israel’s right to defend itself against” Hezbollah.
HEZBOLLAH EXECUTES IRANIAN PLAN
Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei thanked “the fighters of the Resistance Front,” according to a statement issued on Thursday and read out by a state TV announcer.
“We consider the countries of the Resistance Front as our best friends,” he said in the statement, the first issued in his name since he was named as leader on Sunday.
Hezbollah, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, entered the Iran war on March 2, saying it aimed to avenge the killing of Mojtaba’s father, former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed on the first day of the war.
Israel has retaliated with a new offensive against the group in Lebanon, just 15 months after the last one, killing more than 600 people, forcing more than 800,000 from their homes.
Hezbollah’s rocket barrage on Wednesday night – its heaviest during this war – was launched at the same time as Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel, according to the Israeli military and two Lebanese sources familiar with Hezbollah operations.
The Lebanese sources said the coordinated strikes were part of Iran’s plan in the event of a major war, aiming to confuse Israeli air defense systems.
Despite the volleys of rockets, Hezbollah’s attacks have caused relatively little damage so far. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon.
No fatalities have been reported in Israel as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
LOYALIST CORE MOBILIZES IN IRAQ
Hezbollah played a major part in Iran’s regional strategy under the leadership of Nasrallah, the secretary general killed in 2024, backing Shi’ite factions in Iraq, Hamas, and the Houthis.
In Iraq, not all the Iran‑backed armed groups appear to support attacks on US interests. Reuters reported last week that many of the fighters and militia groups the Iranians cultivated in Iraq had not entered the fight.
But analysts and officials say a core group of Tehran‑aligned factions remains active and capable of exerting pressure.
Operating under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, these groups said on Thursday they’d carried out 31 attacks over the past 24 hours using dozens of drones and rockets against what they described as “occupation bases” in Iraq and the region.
Security officials say the militias have also sought to extend pressure to energy projects and oilfields in southern Iraq, where several US companies and US‑linked service firms operate alongside international partners.
Among the claimed attacks, two security sources said two drones hit the southern Majnoon oilfield on Wednesday, where US-based KBR is the operator. No casualties were reported. The attack was corroborated by a field engineer who said there had been five such strikes in less than a week.
On Tuesday a US diplomatic facility near Baghdad International Airport was struck by a drone, according to the US State Department, which said there were no injuries and everyone was accounted for.
Four security sources told Reuters the same site has come under repeated attack and was also hit on Wednesday.
Separately, two drones targeted a US military base near Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan on Wednesday, three Kurdish security sources said.
In northern Iraq, a drone attack struck an oilfield operated by US firm HKN Energy in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on March 5, causing a fire and halting production, two security sources and an oilfield engineer said. The sources said the drones belonged to Iran-backed militias and came from an area they controlled.
Reuters could not independently verify who was behind the attacks.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq also claimed responsibility for downing the US military refueling aircraft on Thursday. The US Central Command said the aircraft crashed in an incident that involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
Andreas Krieg, a lecturer at King’s College London’s security studies department, said that while the Axis of Resistance had been degraded since 2023, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shi’ite militias, and the Houthis were “very much operational.”
“They still retain capabilities, they still show very strong intent, and they remain well resourced,” he said.
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Six US Service Members Killed in Plane Crash Over Iraq
A US Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft is seen at Riga International Airport, Latvia, June 6, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
All six crew members aboard a US military KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq are confirmed to have been killed, the US military said on Friday.
The refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, in an incident the military said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
The deaths add to the seven US service members who have already been killed as part of US operations against Iran which began on Feb. 28.
“The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” a statement from US Central Command said.
Speaking with reporters at the Pentagon on Friday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said operations against Iran would continue.
“War is hell. War is chaos, and as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen,” Hegseth said.
A US official told Reuters that the second aircraft involved in the crash, which landed safely, was also a military refueling aircraft known as the KC-135.
The United States has deployed a large number of aircraft into the Middle East to take part in operations against Iran. The incident highlights the risk of not just operations but also of refueling aircraft in the air.
The KC-135, built by Boeing in the 1950s and early 1960s, has served as the backbone of the US military’s air refueling fleet and is critical to allowing aircraft to carry out missions without having to land.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, claimed responsibility for downing the US military refueling aircraft.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that as many as 150 US troops have been wounded in the US-Israeli war on Iran. The crash happened the same day two US sailors were injured after the USS Gerald Ford suffered a non-combat-related fire on board.
The first seven US troops were killed when a drone slammed into a US military facility in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait and in another attack in Saudi Arabia.
President Donald Trump and other senior officials have warned the Iran conflict will result in more US military deaths as Tehran retaliates against US and Israeli strikes.
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Turkey Says NATO Defenses Intercepted Third Missile From Iran, Asks Tehran to Clarify
Debris of a NATO air defense system that intercepted a missile launched from Iran is seen in Dortyol, in southern Hatay province, Turkey, March 4, 2026, in this screengrab from video. Photo: Ihlas News Agency (IHA) via REUTERS
NATO air defenses in the eastern Mediterranean have shot down a third ballistic missile that was fired from Iran toward Turkey, the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Friday, adding that it was asking Tehran for clarification.
NATO air defenses shot down the first Iranian ballistic missile fired at Turkey on March 4 and a second one on March 9. The ministry has said the first incoming missile was downed en route to Turkish airspace, while the second had entered it.
Turkey has not disclosed the target of the third missile, saying only it was “entering” Turkish airspace, but an explosion was heard and windows were shaken overnight near the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey‘s Adana province, according to a Reuters witness and social media footage verified by Reuters.
US air forces, along with personnel from Turkey and other countries, are stationed at Incirlik. Ankara says Washington has not used the Turkish base in its air assault, alongside Israel, on Iran.
NATO spokesperson Allison Hart confirmed the alliance’s air defenses had intercepted a missile from Iran, adding: “NATO remains vigilant and stands firm in its defense of all allies.”
TURKEY SAYS IT DOES NOT WANT TO BE DRAGGED INTO WAR
Turkey, NATO’s second-largest army and Iran‘s neighbor, has warned Tehran against any more attacks. It has protested to Tehran after every incident, while saying it does not want to be dragged into the war between Iran, Israel, and the US.
“All necessary measures are being taken decisively and without hesitation against any threat directed at our country’s territory and airspace. Consultations are being conducted with the relevant country to clarify all aspects of the incident,” the ministry said in a statement.
A Turkish security source said there had been no casualties in the latest incident and there were no reports of any debris falling from the interception.
The Iranian embassy in Ankara later repeated that it was not targeting Turkey, pointing to Tehran’s proposal to form a joint team to investigate the incidents after a phone call between the two countries’ presidents.
“It is hereby emphasized that no projectiles have been launched from Iran toward Turkey,” the embassy said on X, adding that Tehran respected Turkey‘s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Local media later cited separate Turkish security sources as saying that while Turkey was acting cautiously to avoid escalating the situation, its stance “does not mean endless tolerance.”
The Hurriyet newspaper and other media cited the sources as saying Ankara had conveyed “a clear message” to Tehran to demand that it “immediately identify those responsible for the attacks and take the necessary precautions.”
They said Turkey would not refrain from responding to the attacks or imposing punitive measures as it sees fit “when the time comes.”
TURKEY RELIES ON NATO AIR DEFENSES
Turkey, an emerging leader in the global defense industry, lacks its own fully-fledged air defenses despite development efforts, and has relied on NATO air defenses stationed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea against the Iranian missiles.
The Kurecik NATO radar base, to the northeast of Incirlik in the southeastern province of Malatya, provides vital protection for the alliance, including the detection of missiles fired towards Turkey.
Fragments of the previous missile fired from Iran had fallen in a region between the two bases.
Turkey‘s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that the Russian S-400 air defense systems it acquired in 2019 were not used, as NATO’s integrated defenses were quicker and more effective.
Following the incidents, NATO has beefed up its ballistic missile defenses in the region and deployed a US Patriot air defense system to boost defenses at the Kurecik base.