I discovered the most wonderful store in Passaic – Capital Seforim. Capital is an old school, second hand seforim store, much of which is collected from estate sales. I went there mostly because I was looking for a set on the parsha that was out of print, and thought that would be my best bet. There are seforim floor-to-ceiling in a narrow and long space, with subject labels sticking out into the isles. When I entered, I asked the person in charge if he had the set I was looking for. He pointed to the Chumash section (two ‘U’ shaped groups of bookshelves, along with a bunch of piles in the middle open-space, each shelf about 3 feet wide and 10 feet tall. It was standing room only :), and told me to look around – maybe I’d find it. I wasn’t encouraged.
There is no order to what was in front of me, except that the bookshelves had seforim that were all Chumash related. I began to go through the shelves methodically, and to my great surprise, came across 2 volumes (Bereishis and Bamidbar) of the set I was looking for! I was thrilled.
I kept at it, now confident that I could find more volumes. I found a Shemos, and then two more copies of Shemos. The manager said he also found a Vayikrah for me through his second-hand-seforim network. I was hooked.
I decided to explore further. I found a volume of the Minchas Asher I didn’t have, and a volume of Rav Zilberstein’s teshuvos in English by the parsha, which we read and discuss as a family every Friday night. It was awesome.
Toward the end, there was a section that I think was titled “history,” but felt a little random. I saw a book with the title: Pastor Charles Taze Russell: An Early American Christian Zionist. History and Zionism – right up my alley. It was only $7, so why not?
The book was written and published in 1990 by a man named David Horowitz, who seems just as interesting as the titular Russell (you can learn more about him here in this short and fascinating obituary), and who needs a little introduction to understand the biography. Horowitz was a journalist who published a periodical called the United Israel Bulletin, through the organization he founded, the United Israel World Union. Through the former, he was a reporter at the UN for over 40 years. He was a committed Zionist, and knew many of the important Israeli politicians of his day, including Ben Gurion and Golda Meir. The obituary even claims that he was influential in getting 3 South American countries to vote for the establishment of the State of Israel at the UN in 1947. In any case, through his periodical, he wrote a series on the early Christian Zionist, Charles Taze Russell. It was this article, and the many follow up articles and letters to the editor, that form the book.
So who was Charles Taze Russell? He was born in 1859 to a Presbyterian (Calvinist), upper middle class family in Pittsburgh, though he never connected to this form of Christianity. Instead, he felt drawn to Adventism, a late American 19th century form of Christianity that emphasized messianism and devotional worship. Although he remained in business for much of his life (quite successfully), he also began a form of Christian practice that emphasized close readings of the Bible (a word I use intentionally, as he was a Christian), as well as predications from the text of the Bible about future messianic events. Through this approach, he built up a large group of loosely affiliated churches, as well as over 50,000 pages of his own writings and ideas. Through his readings of the Old Testament, he became entirely convinced of the need for Jews to move back to and establish a state in the land of Israel – this was in the 1880s! He also publicly committed to not proselytizing, saying that the Jews needed to live as Jews, according to the Torah. He became so popular that in 1909, he spoke to a crowd of over 4,000 Jews at the New York Hippodrome about the need for Zionism and the importance of them being proud Jews!
Russell died in 1916, but his story doesn’t end there. The organization he created, in particular the publishing arm he founded – The Watchtower – was supposed to run by a group of Directors after his death, and the affiliated churches he worked with were meant to run autonomously. However, a man named Judge Rutherford maneuvered his way into the leadership, centralized it all under himself, and ran it as his own, though deviating from Russell’s ideas (even though he kept the publishing arm, The Watchtower). Eventually, in 1931, he re-branded this organization The Jehovah’s Witnesses – the very organization that still functions today. Unlike Russell, he was rabidly anti-Zionist, on top of many other ideas that Russell never held. The Jehovah’s Witnesses still claim Russell as their founder, despite breaking with his teachings, most obvious of those was his love of Israel. I note all this not just because it’s interesting historically, but because Horowitz used his publication to correct the historical record, praised Russell for his Zionism, and demonstrated how Rutherford diverged from Russell’s teachings.
I loved this little book, as well as its author. I tried to get a copy of an early book he wrote called 33 Candles, which also sounds fascinating, but it was only available from a secondhand book-site for over $230. I didn’t want to read it that much! If anyone has a copy, I’d love to borrow it.
Both Russell and Horowitz are people worth learning about. I feel fuller for the time I spent with both of them.
Just Because I Liked it:
- This was a fabulous, down to earth, and honest conversation with Scottie Sheffler, one of today’s best golfers. He has an exceptionally healthy perspective on the meaning of golf, and where it belongs in the hierarchy of values.
- Not everything in this blog post by Seth Godin is wise or meaningful, but there are some really good nuggets in his life of wise aphorisms.