The Universalism of the Chosen People
In what sense is Judaism racist? Does it in general recognize the “holiness” of race and if so, what practical deductions have Jews made from such a theory?
In connection with the Nazi racist propaganda, these questions about Jewry and Judaism have been dealt with extensively in the past few years. Jews regard themselves as a Chosen People and the…
To dispel comparisons between the Nazi regime’s concept of an Aryan master race and the Jewish concept of the chosen people, founding editor Hayim Greenberg published “The Universalism of the Chosen People” in the American Labor Zionist movement’s journal Jewish Frontier. In the United States, many Jews had become increasingly uneasy with the term. One of the most prominent critics was Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, who argued that the concept should be removed from Jewish liturgy altogether. Many readers were not persuaded by Greenberg’s words. They maintained that no matter how thoughtfully Greenberg explained “chosenness” as a greater responsibility, most people would continue to understand it as a claim that Jews were superior. The article was later republished in 1953 as the opening essay in his posthumous collection, The Inner Eye.
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