ABSTRACT
An American rabbi who is indeed a representative of the classical tradition of Reform Judaism, but Elmer Berger is rather atypical in his rejection of Zionism, which is especially characteristic for Haredi streams of Judaism. In 1942 he wrote the essay Why I Am a Non-Zionist, which determined the subsequent development of his thought. In 1945 he published another well-known book, The Jewish Dilemma: The Case against Zionist Nationalism, in which he states that Zionism is actually succumbing to the racial prejudices against Jews and advocates Jewish assimilationism as the main way of dealing with Jewish problems in the modern world. He later became vice-president of the American Council for Judaism, which defined itself against Zionism from the perspective of Reform Judaism. For his anti-Zionist views he often came into conflict with pro-Zionist American Jews, especially after the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1969, Berger founded an organization called American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism.
