Silver, Abba Hillel

(1893–1963)

   US Reform rabbi and Zionist leader. A powerful orator with a massive frame, activist views and a belief in public pressures on government, Dr Silver dominated the American Zionist scene for the fifteen years prior to Israel’s statehood in 1948. Brought to the United States from Lithuania at the age of nine, he grew up on New York’s Lower East Side and from 1917 to his death was the rabbi of the Reform Temple in Cleveland, Ohio. He and Rabbi Stephen WISE stood out as fervent Zionists at a time when Zionism was anything but fashionable in the American Reform movement. He was elected president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1945–7. He published a number of works on Jewish religious and historical subjects. In 1943, Silver was elected chairman of the American Zionist Emergency Council, and launched into a vigorous campaign to gain bi-partisan support from Congress and public opinion for Jewish statehood in Palestine. He helped to gain valuable support from leaders of the Republican party, such as Senator Taft and Governor Thomas Dewey. After the end of World War II, Silver emerged as the acknowledged leader of American Zionism and held the positions of president of the Zionist Organization of America and chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency. He was an outspoken Herzlian political Zionist and scornful of any further reliance on the British connection. At the Zionist Congress in Basle in December 1946, he joined in the attack on Dr WEIZMANN, who resigned as president. During the United Nations debates of 1947–8 Silver shared the leadership of the Jewish Agency delegation with Moshe SHARETT, and appeared before the General Assembly Committee dealing with the question. After the Proclamation of Independence, Silver continued to be active on behalf of Israel, as chairman of the Board of Governors of the State of Israel Bond Organization and a member of the governing bodies of the Hebrew University and the Haifa Technion. The Agricultural Training Institute, Kfar Silver, near Ashkelon, carries his name.