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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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BBC Apologizes for Not Mentioning Jews During Holocaust Remembrance Day Coverage
The BBC logo is displayed above the entrance to the BBC headquarters in London, Britain, July 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Hollie Adams
The BBC apologized on Tuesday night after at least four of its presenters failed to mention the murder of Jews in the Holocaust during the national broadcaster’s coverage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“BBC Breakfast” presenter Jon Kay said on air Tuesday morning that Holocaust Remembrance Day was “for remembering the six million people murdered by the Nazi regime over 80 years ago.” Several BBC broadcasts by some of its most well-known presenters included similar comments that omitted the mention of Jewish victims when discussing the Holocaust.
In one broadcast, “BBC News” presenter Martine Croxall also said Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day “for remembering the six million people who were murdered by the Nazi regime over 80 years ago.”
BBC World News presenter Matthew Amroliwala introduced a bulletin on his show with the same scripted line.
On the BBC Radio 4 program “Today,” presenter Caroline Nicholls discussed plans to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day and said in part: “Buildings across the UK will be illuminated this evening to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which commemorates the six million people murdered by the Nazi regime more than 80 years ago.”
“Is the BBC trying to sever all ties with their Jewish listeners? Even on Holocaust Memorial Day, the BBC cannot bring itself to properly address antisemitism,” the Campaign Against Antisemitism posted on X. “This is absolutely disgraceful broadcasting. BBC, we demand an explanation for how this could have happened.”
“The ‘Today’ program featured interviews with relatives of Holocaust survivors, and a report from our religion editor. In both of these items we referenced the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust,” the statement read in part, as cited by GB News. “‘BBC Breakfast’ featured a project organized by the Holocaust Educational Trust in which a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust recorded her memories. In the news bulletins on ‘Today’ and in the introduction to the story on ‘BBC Breakfast’ there were references to Holocaust Memorial Day which were incorrectly worded, and for which we apologize. Both should have referred to ‘six million Jewish people’ and we will be issuing a correction on our website.”
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said in a post on X that the BBC’s not mentioning Jews during its coverage of Holocaust Remembrance Day is “hurtful, disrespectful, and wrong.”
“The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children. Any attempt to dilute the Holocaust, strip it of its Jewish specificity, or compare it to contemporary events is unacceptable on any day,” she added.
Danny Cohen, the BBC’s former director of television, said the mistake, especially on Holocaust Remembrance Day, “marks a new low point” for the broadcaster. He said the mishap will surely be hurtful to many in the Jewish community “and will reinforce their view that the BBC is insensitive to the concerns of British Jews.”
“It is surely the bare minimum to expect the BBC to correctly identify that it was six million Jews killed during the Holocaust,” said Cohen, as cited by the Daily Mail. “To say anything else is an insult to their memory and plays into the hands of extremists who have desperately sought to rewrite the historical truth of history’s greatest crime.”
This year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in 1945. On Tuesday, King Charles and the Queen Camilla lit candles at Buckingham Palace in honor of the annual commemoration and hosted a reception for Holocaust survivors and their families. Last year, King Charles, who is patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, became the first British monarch to visit Auschwitz on the 80th anniversary of its liberation.
Tuesday was not the first time that the BBC has come under fire for its coverage of issues concerning the Jewish community or Israel.
In February 2025, the BBC apologized for “unacceptable” and “serious flaws” in its documentary about Palestinian children living in the Gaza Strip, after it was revealed that the documentary’s narrator was the son of a senior Hamas official. An internal review by the British public broadcaster also revealed that the documentary breached the BBC’s editorial guidelines on accuracy.
In July, the BBC apologized for streaming a live performance by the British punk rap duo Bob Vylan at the Glastonbury Festival, during which the band’s lead singer led the audience in chanting “Death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Also last year, the host of “Good Morning Britain” apologized on-air for failing to mention Jewish victims of the Holocaust during her coverage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
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New York Is Right to Keep Antisemitic Protests Away From Synagogues
Nov. 19, 2025, New York, New York, USA: Anti-Israel protesters rally outside of Park East Synagogue. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Hamas’ October 7 massacre, and the subsequent war against Israel, motivated sympathizers of the terrorist group to persecute Jews worldwide, even though the practice of blaming Jews for the actions of Israel is a globally recognized form of antisemitism.
In the US, dozens of these antisemitic campaigns targeted synagogues.
In recent months, the bigoted rallies grew especially menacing at two New York synagogues that hosted events for a non-profit corporation called Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN). NBN conducts information fairs that promote “aliyah” (immigration) to Israel, and it guides interested parties through the naturalization process.
During the NBN gatherings, congregants could not enter or exit the synagogues without encountering harassment and intimidation by hundreds of angry demonstrators.
The haters obstructed the entrances while screaming antisemitic obscenities and incitements such as “Intifada revolution” and “Resistance you make us proud; take another settler out.” At one of the synagogues, the protestors endorsed antisemitic terrorism by chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here.” Meanwhile, a member of the crowd repeatedly shouted, “We need to make them scared.”
On January 13, 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) pledged to curb such synagogue-focused hostility by legislating protest-free buffer zones for all houses of worship. Each buffer zone would form a 25-foot perimeter around the property of the religious institution. Outside the boundary, demonstrators could freely exercise their First Amendment right to scream and shout. Inside the line, worshipers could safely enter and exit the facility, engage in their freedoms of speech and religion, and enjoy their right of privacy to avoid the rowdy mob.
Pro-Palestinian organizations oppose the New York buffer zone proposal. The advocates claim that NBN illegally sells “stolen” Palestinian land. In their view, the slated law would not only “censor” their free speech right to denounce the alleged NBN crimes, but make New York State “complicit” in the supposed wrongdoing. They call the information fairs “non-religious political events.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), who is openly pro-Palestinian, remains noncommittal on the buffer zone scheme. But he opposes NBN, arguing that “sacred spaces” should not be used to breach international law.
The mayor and buffer zone opponents misconstrue the applicable law. The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act prohibits close-range harassment, intimidation, and physical interference at houses of worship, as well as reproductive health clinics.
Within this Federal framework, states and municipalities have enacted buffer zones to separate potentially dangerous protestors from those who frequent the protected sites. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of buffer zones to balance the adversarial rights involved. Based on subsequent case law, a thin, 25-foot buffer zone, such as the one designed for New York, is valid because it is “narrowly tailored” to meet its Constitutional goals.
Demonstration organizers cannot credibly portray NBN presentations as non-religious political events. In Judaism, “making aliyah” means “going up” to settle in the Biblical Promised Land. The ascent is a religious rite that Jews have performed for millennia. That is why NBN extends its outreach to synagogues. Even if NBN’s operations were purely political, they would deserve just as much First Amendment protection as any religious affair.
Another misconception is that NBN sells land. In reality, the outfit merely provides guidance on how to find housing.
The broader accusation that Israel illegally builds settlements on occupied Palestinian land is also untrue. The territories claimed by Palestinians have already been lawfully allocated to the state that became Israel, pursuant to the 1920 San Remo Treaty and 1922 British Mandate for Palestine. Occupation law applies when a state captures foreign land, but not when it settles its own land. A temporary exception to Israel’s sovereign reach was established when Israel and the Palestinians negotiated interim spheres of territorial control — called “Areas A, B and C” — in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. Those limits are strictly observed by Israelis.
The International Court of Justice ruling referenced by the protest partisans to claim NBN is selling or promoting settlement on stolen land was an “advisory opinion,” which means it had no legally binding effect. It’s just as well. A dissenting judge on the court rightly rebuked the decision for failing to recognize Israel’s territorial rights. The US government recognizes Israel’s territorial rights. Any buffer zone objectors who dispute that US position should lobby the Trump administration, not Governor Hochul, because the Constitution reserves matters of international relations exclusively for the Federal government.
Regardless of whether Israeli settlements comply with international law, nothing in that legal realm can supersede the Constitutional safeguards planned for New York’s synagogues. The US government is legally barred from accepting any international obligation inconsistent with the Constitution.
The current trend of unbridled antisemitism has trampled on Jewish civil rights. Some of the worst offenders are those who harass Jews at the entrances to their synagogues. A buffer zone is the bare minimum needed to keep that threat at bay.
Joel M. Margolis is the legal commentator of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, the US affiliate of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
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‘Time Is Running Out’: Trump Warns Iran to Make a Deal or Next Attack Will Be ‘Far Worse’
US President Donald Trump delivers a speech on energy and the economy, in Clive, Iowa, US, Jan. 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump urged Iran on Wednesday to come to the table and make a deal on nuclear weapons or the next US attack would be far worse, but Tehran said that if that happened it would fight back as never before.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!” Trump wrote in a social media post.
The Republican US president, who pulled out of world powers’ 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran during his first White House term, noted that his last warning to Iran was followed by a military strike in June.
“As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran,” Trump continued. “The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
He also repeated that a US “armada” was heading toward the Islamic Republic.
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations responded in kind.
“Last time the US blundered into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it squandered over $7 trillion and lost more than 7,000 American lives,” it said in an X post quoting Trump‘s statement.
“Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests—BUT IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE!”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said he had not been in contact with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in recent days or requested negotiations, state media reported on Wednesday.
“There was no contact between me and Witkoff in recent days and no request for negotiations was made from us,” Araqchi told state media, adding that various intermediaries were “holding consultations” and were in contact with Tehran.
“Our stance is clear, negotiations don’t go along with threats and talks can only take place when there are no longer menaces and excessive demands.”
Trump said a US naval force headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was approaching Iran. Two US officials told Reuters on Monday that the Lincoln and supporting warships had arrived in the Middle East.
The warships started moving from the Asia-Pacific region last week as US-Iranian tensions soared following a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests across Iran by its clerical authorities in recent weeks.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if Iran continued to kill protesters, but the countrywide demonstrations over economic privations and political repression have since abated. According to reports, the Iranian regime may have killed more than 30,000 people over two days in one of the deadliest crackdowns in modern history.
He has said the United States would act if Tehran resumed its nuclear program after the June airstrikes by Israeli and US forces on key nuclear installations.
Iran‘s President Masoud Pezeshkian told Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call on Tuesday that Tehran welcomes any process, within the framework of international law, that prevents war.
Bin Salman said during the conversation that Riyadh will not allow its airspace or territory to be used for military actions against Tehran, state news agency SPA reported on Tuesday.
The statement by the Saudi de facto ruler follows a similar statement by the United Arab Emirates that it would not allow any military action against Iran using its airspace or territorial waters.