a no less ill-fated, completely un-Jewish direction

“As we look back today, it was more than one hundred years ago that European Jewry also faced a trying time. A generation filled with human kindness sought to make good on crimes committed in past centuries against the Jewish people, and opened the gates of emancipation into European culture for our people — which had abundantly clear consequences. Spokesmen for emancipation were leaders of the so-called Reform movement, resulting inevitably in total estrangement and mass baptism. God’s eternal wisdom has always shown that assimilation would lead to a rekindling of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism led to the Zionist movement, which hung a different flag on assimilation and guided it on a no less ill-fated, completely un-Jewish direction.” R’ Joseph Breuer, “At the End of the Year,” Mitteilungen, Vol. 2, September 1940 in A Unique Perspective, Rav Breuer’s Essays, pp. 291-2.