Abstract
This paper examines the contribution to Zionist thought of two Americans: Horace M. Kallen and Judah L. Magnes. Each was involved in the Zionist movement in the early 20th century, Kallen mostly during World War I and Magnes for nearly the first 50 years of the 1900s. Independently of each other, these two thinkers fused the American ideas of liberalism and democracy with Jewish nationalism to create a distinctly American Zionism. In this paper we explore how Kallen and Magnes define democracy, and how they utilize this concept in creating a Zionism that would be positively perceived by a broad swath of American Jews.