katalog-overlapping voices - Ritesinstitute

led. Zionism emerged in the shadow of dashed hopes
for Jewish emancipation in Russia, following the
wave of pogroms that hit southern Russia in 1881.
it continued to evolve as a reaction to the racist antisemitism
that reared its ugly head as an influential
political power in western and central europe during
the last quarter of the 19th century.
for theodor herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement,
Zionism was a response to his being rejected
by the germans: we Jews did everything we could
to integrate into the nations among which we lived,
but they do not want us. thus, herzl concluded,
“we are a nation, one nation”, in need of a state of
our own. only someone socialized and educated
within european culture and exposed to the threatening
and creative power of nationalism could
reach such a conclusion. european nationalism intensified
Jews’ problems as a national minority living
among nation states. it was an exclusive type
of nationalism, rejecting those considered not to
be authentic members of the nation. on the other
hand, european nationalism also pointed out to
Jews the solution to their predicament: adoption
and application of the national concept to their own
condition. the catchphrase “the Jewish state”
(the title of a small pamphlet published by herzl)
was electrifying. But what was decisive was the establishment
of the Zionist congress, a sort of parliament
of the segments of european Jewry that
identified with the revolutionary idea of a Jewish
state. thinking in political terms was herzl’s unique
contribution to the Zionist movement. his insight
regarding the need to create a body in whose name
he could negotiate with world leaders – a sort of
fictional representative body of the Jewish people
– was appropriated from the history of european
national movements. the symbols that he fostered
– including a flag and an anthem – were also taken
from european history.
herzl endowed the Zionist movement with the savoir-faire
of someone who had been exposed to european
politics and knew its ways. in eastern europe,
still in the pre-emancipation phase, Jews had
no opportunity to gain such knowledge about the
state and its workings. hence, the first generation
of leadership of the Zionist movement came from
central europe. however, the heart of the movement
– the masses that supported it – was to be
found in eastern europe.
at the end of the 19th century, Jews experienced
a revolutionary change of heart: they stopped passively
accepting their miserable fate. the masses
emigrated to america in search of a better future.
another group joined the Russian revolutionary
movement, in the hope that the world that would
emerge after the revolution would accept Jews as
equals. still others viewed Zionism as the path to
redemption, for Jewish individuals as well as for
the Jewish collective. thus a movement was born
whose leaders came from one cultural world, while
its rank and file came from another.
52 OVERLAPPING VOICES
herzl was a disciple of german culture, and his
Jewish roots were rather shaky. however, the
masses in eastern europe were imbued with Jewish
tradition. their secularization did not lead to
abandoning the Jewish collective, rather to emphasizing
its national character. in eastern europe,
millions of Jews lived in close proximity, spoke the
same language, were party to the same fate and
shared a common culture. Zionism was perceived
not only as offering redemption from the Jews’ humiliation
and oppression, but as a movement of
spiritual and cultural rebirth that strove to reshape
Jews as individuals, as a society and as a culture.
the new Jewish society would preserve the bond
with Jewish tradition and its historical symbols. But
it would also adopt new norms, first and foremost
the return to nature and a simple way of life through
the cultivation of the soil. clearly, the Zionist movement
did not invent these concepts, rather appropriated
them from european romanticism. Yearnings
for primordial forms of life, the original simplicity
of man and society, the desire to find refuge from
the hypocrisy of the big city by adopting the ethical
purity of physical labour in general, and agriculture
in particular, had characterized every movement
that rebelled against the alienation of
industrialization and the anonymity of modern life
ever since Rousseau. these ideas carried special
meaning for Jews, who for centuries had been primarily
city dwellers that valued intellectual capabilities
over physical prowess. the modern Jew was
identified with the sophisticated intelligentsia, not
with the simple-minded peasants. Zionism challenged
traditional Jewish values. the Jewish entity
in eretz Yisrael would represent a complete transformation
of Jewish society and the Jewish individual.
the new Jew would adopt skills and abilities
needed by a nation-building people assuming responsibility
for the state. he would be able to fulfil
the two roles regarded as essential for any state
– the tiller of the soil and the soldier. he would be
honest, proud and brave, and free of pretense and
obsequiousness. he would be a loyal citizen of his
state and a worthy citizen of the world.
european nationalism regarded language as one
of the essential indicators of nationhood. Peoples
that reshaped their national identities therefore attempted
to revive their original languages, like
czech and gaelic. Jewish nationalism sparked a
revival of hebrew, which had been primarily a language
of prayer and of the holy scripture. in everyday
life Jews spoke Yiddish, ladino and Judeoarabic.
however, during the second half of the
19th century, hebrew literature and journalism began
to appear. from the early 20th century onward,
hebrew became a spoken language, in which
scholars conversed, children shouted and works
of literature were written. the culture of the new
Jewish community in Palestine was conducted in
hebrew. an integral component of the emerging
hebrew culture was the Bible. in traditional Jewish
culture the Bible had been considered as inferior
to the talmud. now it was elevated to a place of
honour in Zionist mythology, both as the sublime
intellectual and ethical achievement of the Jewish
people and as the source and testimony of the Jewish
people’s historic ties to their land. hence Zionism
transformed the holy land into the Jewish
state, the holy language into an everyday spoken
language and the holy scriptures into a national
epic.
the first half of the 20th century was saturated with
hopes of imminent redemption of the world through
daring revolutionary utopian movements that attempted
to better society. for more than five decades
Zionism was guided by socialist trends. the
desire to build a completely new society, free of the
distortions, injustices and inequalities of the old
world, lit up the Zionist horizon and endowed it with
moral and human depth. the Jews in Palestine
would establish a model society that, ethically, would
serve as an example for the world. the exemplary
Jewish society was supposed to achieve on a small
scale and without coercion what enlightened people
had assumed (mistakenly, of course) was taking
place in the soviet Union. the utopian trends in Zionism
inspired innovation and creativity. it was an
attempt to establish a just society through voluntary
means, based on the enthusiasm, dedication and
education of its members. the cooperative movement,
the kibbutzim and the federation of labour
were just a few of the many innovative creations that
resulted from this unique combination of social
ideals and national needs.
one area of dissent between historians and sociologists
is the question of using the comparative method.
sociology is on the lookout for common denominators,
highlighting the universal characteristics
of social phenomena, while history emphasizes the
unique nature of events, and the singularity of the
one-time occurrence in human experience. in analyzing
the origins of Zionism, i have attempted to
place it in the context of the era during which it had
evolved, and to integrate it into the general historical
processes and predominant trends that had
constituted the Zeitgeist of that era. this approach
is not applicable, however, to explaining the Jewish
people’s return to the land of Yisrael. at the end of
the day, Jewish history is sui generis. no other nation
existed continuously from antiquity to the modern
era; no other people existed for centuries as a
dispersed people without a territorial base; and no
other nation turned back the wheel of history and
returned to its historical homeland.
the Jews’ return to the land of their ancestors was
not an obvious development: the land of Yisrael,
which had come to be known as Palestine, was a
poor, thinly populated province under ottoman
rule, dangerous and backward. considering possible
havens for the Jewish people, a number of
early Zionist leaders proposed establishing a Jewish
state in rich, developed argentina or in fertile