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The Historical Imagination of Jacob Katz: On the Origins of Jewish Nationalism Yosef Salmon* (bio) Three articles by Jacob Katz on the “forerunners of Zionism” represent an important stage in the study of Jewish nationalism. 1 Even though these articles appeared in the 1950s and are not themost prominent of Katz’s studies, their methodological perspective and description of the beginnings of the Jewish nationalist movement have lost neither their freshness nor their relevance. Katz’s methodological study of the “forerunners of Zionism” and his monographs on Tsvi Hirsch Kalischer and Judah Alkalai have become an essential part of Zionist research. 2 Subsequent work on the various Jewish nationalist streams has indeed justified broadening the scope of scholarly enquiry from Zionism to Jewish nationalism in general. 3 However, regardless of whether the issue is the origins of Zionism or the origins of Jewish nationalism, the conclusions are basically the same. Today it is universally recognized that Zionism is a nationalist phenomenon and that it was the first expression of the nascent nationalist movement. In his article “The Forerunners of Zionism,” Katz asserted that “Zionist history deals with the process leading to the realization of the Zionist goal.” Hence, “we are bound to begin the history of the ‘forerunners of Zionism’ at the point at which the ideas advocated by the forerunners were translated into action, and not when these ideas were in formation.” 4 At first, this distinction seems simple enough, and it conforms to the dictates of common sense: the movement was not created by ideas themselves but by the institutionalization of these ideas. Nevertheless, [End Page 161] Katz’s innovation becomes all the more discernible in light of the approaches advocated by Nahum Sokolow, Adolf Böhm, Nathan M. Gelber, Benzion Dinur (Dinaburg), and Bernard Weinryb, who reached different conclusions. The choice of the late 1850s and early 1860s as the starting point of Zionism and the identification of particular figures as its first leaders came not as a result of abstract definitions concerning the nature of Jewish nationalism. These decisions were instead the product of positivistic reason. In other words, Katz studied Zionism with few, if any preconceptions and arrived at his conclusions solely on the basis of the sources at his disposal. The classification of Alkalai and Kalischer, along with Moses Hess, as the “forerunners” of Zionism had long been the accepted view among Zionist adherents. 5 In later years, questions were raised about the identity of these individuals and the qualities that made them “forerunners of Zionism,” or, alternatively, the “forerunners of Jewish nationalism.” Katz had explanations that he continued to perfect over the years. Indeed, neither Katz nor other researchers of Jewish nationalism had invented these personalities or rescued them from the dustbins of history. Alkalai, Kalischer, and Hess were recurring names in later Zionist literature; one would be hard pressed to find a comprehensive study of Zionism in the past 40 years that has not begun with the characters Katz describes. The work of scholars such as Israel Klausner, Arthur Hertzberg, Ben Halpern, David Vital, Shlomo Avineri, and even the pioneer historian of Hibat Tsiyon, Samuel Leib Zitron, conforms to this generalization. However, none of these historians adopted Katz’s theoretical framework, and some even put forward different conceptual approaches. 6 In other words, the basic Zionist narrative as understood by the Zionist rank and file as well as by many past and present historians of the movement seems to be in accord with Katz’s views. Katz only formulated his theoretical framework in order to bring about a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. He rejected the opinions of those scholars who brought to their research preconceived ideological and conceptual motives. For example, Sokolow wished to show that Zionism meant the founding of a Jewish state and that it had received international support for this goal. Weinryb argued that the major force behind Zionism was secularization, whereas Dinur felt that the national undertaking depended on a transformation of values and the realization of hopes for a return to the Land of Israel. Hence, from Dinur’s perspective, secularization and waves of immigration to the Land of Israel constituted the driving forces of the Zionist enterprise. 7 In short, those who saw Zionism as having a particular a priori essence had to adjust their “common sense” in order to bring it into line with their preconceived [End Page 162] opinions. Katz did not have such preconceptions about the meaning of Zionism, and thus the potential difficulty involved in being both a historian and an advocate of Zionism did not impede him in his work. Katz’s Methodology Katz saw Zionism as an ideological movement driven by a collective impetus, as opposed to Jewish emigration to other lands that was motivated by private concerns devoid of any ideological basis. 8 It is true that the Zionist settlement of the land began only in the 1880s, but practical discussions and organizational frameworks were evident 20 years earlier. None of the proposals for the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel or the establishment of a Jewish state prior to the 1860s had any connection with the historical emergence of Jewish nationalism. This movement was contingent upon the development of a Jewish self-consciousness and was bound up with the process of Jewish civil integration into the surrounding society. Moreover, Jewish nationalism echoed the evolution of European nationalism. The “forerunners” of Zionism were those whose opinions motivated a social process, “the first advocates of the Zionist idea who inspired any of the forms of social cohesiveness.” 9 Such individuals can be found in the late 1850s and the early 1860s. Katz identifies the rabbis Alkalai, Kalischer, and Elijah Gutmacher, the social activist Dr. Chaim Luria, and the socialist thinker Moses Hess as the “forerunners of Zionism.” As he understood it, these men joined together within the framework of the Colonisationverein für Palästina (Hevrat yishuv Eretz Yisrael) “united by personal and organizational bonds in the common belief in the future of the nation in its historical homeland.” 10 What they had in common with regard to Zionism overcame the vast differences in their personal background: Kalischer came from an Ashkenazi community on the fringes of Prussia and Poland; Alkalai hailed from a Sephardi community on the Serbian-Hungarian border; and Hess grew up and was active in Central Europe. Even in their basic beliefs, the “forerunners” differed from each other: Kalischer was an Ashkenazi rabbi, Alkalai was a Sephardi rabbi, and Hess was a secular author and journalist. These thinkers constituted for Katz a direct connection between the end of the emancipation and the rising demand for national auto-emancipation, a process that complemented the earlier development. He pointed out that Alkalai, Kalischer, and Hess had all harbored earlier thoughts about a national Jewish revival in the Land of Israel, each according to his own worldview and the specific [End Page 163] conditions of his times. However, it was only with the creation of suitable Jewish and general historical conditions that these notions were transformed into a platform for action and a motivating force. Katz also observed that all of the precursors lived on the fringes of Western and Central Europe where Jewish society was undergoing a process of relinquishing the belief in traditional redemption: Alkalai in the south, Kalischer in the east, and Hess in the west. Katz concluded, “What unites the forerunners as a limited historical phenomenon is therefore not the similarity in their way of thinking, but their common marginal position in society and the common aspirations which this position inspired.” 11 Individuals on the periphery of society may see what is happening at its center and yet are free to respond differently than the established norm. What also characterizes these men is that none of them assumed public roles in Jewish society. Katz moderated his conclusions somewhat in his monographs on Kalischer and Alkalai. He asserted that Kalischer’s motives were “different from those of Zionism. The connection between them, based on his role as a herald of a new era, derives not from identity of thought, but rather from the amalgamation of purposes and actions in the stream of history.” 12 It is true that Kalischer’s form of discourse in Derishat Tsiyon (Seeking Zion) allowed him to dispense with traditional homiletics and to deal practically with real problems of the times. However, his form of argument does not turn him into a modern nationalist. Even if his way of thinking was based on an optimistic appraisal of the ongoing process of Jewish emancipation, when he was confronted with the hardships faced by the Jews of Serbia, Hungary, Morocco, or Romania, he explained their situation as the work of God, who intended to gather the exiles and settle the Land of Israel. Katz is careful not to identify the nationalism of European countries as Kalischer’s source of inspiration, although he agrees that the documentation supports the fact that Kalischer was influenced by these trends. 13 Katz’s caution in analyzing the nationalist worldview of Kalischer comes from other explanations that the rabbi adopted, such as his “Providential explanation of Emancipation and the Messianic conclusion that Kalischer drew from it. . . . Nationalism as it concerns Rabbi Kalischer is that of ancient Judaism, which views the continued existence of the people and its unity as a solid fact.” 14 In order to dispel the idea that Kalischer was a modern nationalist, Katz notes the rabbi’s statement that the settlers in the Land of Israel must observe the religious commandments, otherwise there would be no purpose in their nationalist enterprise. Katz also states in principle that nationalism, even in its religious variety, regards religion as part of the national wealth, whereas [End Page 164] “to Rabbi Kalischer the nationalist values were included in the concept of tradition.” Katz has no doubt that Kalischer influenced those who succeeded him but adds that “his ideas were not accepted in their original form.” 15 Katz provided an important characterization of the group from which Kalischer had emerged. It was composed of the traditional elements of German Judaism at the time, “remnants” of the traditional Jewish leadership that had governed the community in previous generations, before the rise of the Liberal and neo-Orthodox trends. To this group, which saw itself as a besieged minority, nationalism seemed to be an attractive remedy. In his study of Alkalai, Katz shows that in the 1850s the rabbi had already reached the peak of his literary and public activity regarding the redemption and the return to the Land of Israel. This activity, however, bore no fruit. With the establishment of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Colonisationverein für Palästina in the 1860s, Alkalai, who failed to distinguish between the new organizations and his own views, believed that his redemptive goals had been fulfilled He declared his era to be that of the “Messiah, Son of Joseph,” the period when redemption is brought about through natural means. In Alkalai’s arguments were “recognizable elements of modern nationalism,” which however did “not add up to a structured approach.” 16 His nationalist values included normalization, the revival of Hebrew as a national language, the unification of the nation, and a rejection of the extreme elements in Jewish society—the Reform and the Orthodox. 17 Katz had no doubt that Alkalai’s ideas fell into a modern nationalist framework, even if they had not yet matured into a complete system of thought. Moreover, Katz was certain that Alkalai had been influenced by the Serbian and Hungarian nationalist movements in his immediate surroundings. 18 As is well known, in 1871 Alkalai settled in the Land of Israel, where he spent his last years. Katz supplemented and altered his perspective somewhat in his article “Raayon u-metsiut ba-leumiyut ha-yehudit” (Idea and Reality in Jewish Nationalism), first published in 1959. There he stated explicitly that “Jewish nationalism was at the beginning an immanent historical process” and not the result of external pressures, as certain other Zionist historians would have it. He added, “nationalism is a synthesis as opposed to the thesis of traditional Judaism and the antithesis of rebellion against it.” This synthesis constituted not a return to the original thesis but rather a new stage in which even those who called for a restoration of the traditional world realized they had to cooperate with nationalist Jews who rejected the yoke of tradition. Katz described the parallel [End Page 165] forces that propelled the Zionist movement: antisemitism and a system of values related to Jewish identity. On the one hand, “the emergence of political Zionism would have been inconceivable without the antisemitic movement in the West and the decrees and pogroms in tsarist Russia.” On the other hand, “Jewish distress led to dispersion and, at most, to Jewish solidarity when the conditions were suitable. Only a set of values accepted by large segments of the population could bring about the internal consolidation of a new society. This set of values was provided by Jewish nationalism.” It was this phenomenon that Katz called “the spontaneous nationalism of the 1860s and the 1880s.” Here Katz consciously blurred the line separating the “forerunners” and the “Lovers of Zion.” 19 Other essays by Katz on this topic can be found in the collection of his essays, Leumiyut yehudit (Jewish Nationalism), published in 1979. While these rely for the most part on empirical material drawn from the aforementioned articles and do not represent fundamental research regarding the phenomenon of nationalism itself, they do provide additional insights for an understanding of Jewish nationalism. It must be emphasized that Katz developed his views as a result of his vigilance in keeping up to date with research on the subject, even when his own work no longer focused on this topic. In “The Jewish National Movement: A Sociological Analysis” (1968), Katz suggested new ways to understand Jewish nationalism. He began with a general definition of modern nationalism as “the transforming of ethnical facts into ultimate values.” 20 The Jews indeed lacked two clear attributes of ethnicity: territory and language. In spite of this deficiency, they constituted an outstanding ethnic group that was more prepared for nationalism than any other ethnic group in Europe. This readiness was not realized at the time, because as Jews began to acculturate into their surrounding environment they relinquished their essential ethnic qualities. It was only through a dialectical process that involved a reaction against acculturation that Jews also adopted nationalism. 21 The transformation of Jewish messianism from miraculous expectation to political and social activism was critical for the move from an ethnic to a modern national identity. Here Katz revised his previous assessment that Kalischer belonged to the old variety of nationalist thinkers due to his traditional messianic beliefs. Alkalai and Kalischer on the one hand, and Hess on the other, were now seen as representatives of the two principal types of Jewish nationalism: the first had to overcome the unrealistic aspects of traditional Jewish messiansm, whereas the second had to recover the cultural and political implications inherent in this idea. 22 Katz established historical causation between the “forerunners” of the [End Page 166] 1860s and 1870s and the nationalist movement that crystallized in the 1880s: “the ideas and activities of these early nationalists [were] leading the way to the full-fledged national movement.” 23 He asserted that there was a definite historical continuity between the “forerunners” and the “Lovers of Zion,” in contrast to the guarded language of his previous articles. The “forerunners” succeeded in “the uniting of the adherents of their idea.” This unity expressed itself in the writings and discussions among them as well as in various initiatives to advance their common interest. 24 We may summarize Katz’s entire methodology in the following points: • The period during which the “forerunners” of Jewish nationalism appeared extended from the 1860s to the 1870s. • The historical contribution of the forerunners was primarily the crystallization and dissemination of the nationalist idea. • Jewish nationalism was advocated by two main revisionist groups that evolved in Central European Jewish society: “remnants” of traditional society, and acculturated Jews who sought a connection with their ethnic identity. • The Jewish nationalist awakening was an immanent process; external pressures served only as a catalyst for the movement’s development. • There was a causal relationship between the “forerunners” and the nationalist movement that came afterward. • The “forerunners” had a solid nationalist worldview. • In the 1860s and 1870s, historical circumstances and organizational frameworks were created that transformed the ideas of individuals into a historical process. Katz’s views are well suited to the new trends of research on the subject of nationalism in general. In applying the approach of the British sociologist Anthony D. Smith to Jewish nationalism, Gideon Shimoni has recently shown the validity of Smith’s perspective for an understanding of the Jewish nationalist movement. 25 Zionism, on the basis of its content and character, is seen as the nationalism of an ethnic group, a unit defined by Smith as “a named human population possessing a myth of common descent, common historical memories, elements of shared culture, an association with a particular territory and a sense of solidarity.” 26 Shimoni shows that Katz was the first to claim that Jewish nationalism was based on “the transforming of ethnical facts into ultimate values.” 27 If we also accept the definition of Ernest Gellner that “nationalism is primarily a political principle which holds that the political and national [End Page 167] unit should be congruent,” 28 it would seem that the “forerunners” of the 1860s and 1870s certainly adhered to the approach that Katz described. The streams identified by Yehezkel Kaufmann as “cultural nationalism,” “spiritual nationalism,” and “exilic nationalism” emerged only afterward. 29 Shimoni concludes that “not only religious traditionalists but also part of the Jewish intelligentsia . . . rose to the defense of Jewish cultural distinctiveness. . . . The genesis of Jewish nationalism is traceable to their ethnically self-affirming sentiments and views, which antedated the appearance of anti-semitism as a major factor.” 30 Even more interesting is Smith’s identification of the triangular structure of human reactions that led to nationalism. The ethnic group’s intelligentsia, “socialized in, and in some sense alienated from a double frame of reference—the traditional religion, on the one hand, and the modernizing state on the other,” stood before three possible responses to the dilemma of their identity: “the assimilationist” (the desire to merge into a common humanity); “the neo-traditionalist” (a withdrawal into religious traditionalism); and “the reformist” (the generators of nationalism). The reformist option sought “a serviceable synthesis between tradition and modernity,” an integration of the ethnic identity. 31 This search for a synthesis also characterized the beginnings of the Jewish nationalist movement, including the rabbis for whom ethnicity had a clearly traditional meaning. Shimoni calls this option in Jewish society “transformist” (as opposed to “reformist”), which refers to the integrationist movement for religious reform that the Jewish nationalists adamantly rejected. The origins of Jewish nationalism thus conform with Smith’s model, both in regard to the persistent role played by ethnicity in the consciousness of the nationalists and in regard to the basic typology of the intelligentsia. According to Shimoni, the most prominent of the early nationalists were Hess, David Gordon, Perets Smolenskin, and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. 32 Apparently surprised somewhat by his own conclusions, Shimoni labeled these leaders “cultural nationalists,” even though in the teachings of Hess, Gordon, and Ben-Yehuda the territorial and the political elements are unmistakable. Among the early Zionists from the traditional camp, Shimoni identifies only Rabbi Joseph Natonek as a distinctly nationalist thinker, an assessment with which I shall disagree below. 33 Shimoni’s linear approach to the development of nationalism—from ethnicism to cultural nationalism and only then to “unqualified nationalism”—is questionable, because cultural nationalism was a later development, whereas political nationalism appeared at the very beginning. 34 This approach is, moreover, inconsistent with Shimoni’s own [End Page 168] claim that “in the contemporary Diaspora, Zionism continues to be in essence a manifestation of such Jewish ethnicism.” 35 It would thus appear that there is no linear progression; rather, different elements of nationalism appear at different times, to varying extents and in diverse combinations. Shimoni presents the views of Elie Kedourie and Benedict Anderson that nationalism is an artificial invention of the intelligentsia who create, in the words of Anderson, “imagined communities.” These ideas are applicable, according to Shimoni, to Jewish nationalism in the 1860s and 1870s, when there was no common territory or language on which to base a nationalist movement. 36 Criticism of This Methodology A systematic critique of Katz has never been published. It is more of an oral tradition uttered by the Hebrew University’s Shmuel Ettinger and adopted by a number of his pupils. 37 In fact, Ettinger only echoed the approach conceived earlier by Yehezkel Kaufmann in his book Golah ve-nekhar (Exile and Alienness). The link between Kaufmann’s Zionist ideology and the historiography of Ettinger was provided by the Zionist theories of Benzion Dinur. Kaufmann claimed that the Jewish nationalist movement resulted from the failure of the “messianic” attempt at assimilation: “a loss of the faith that assimilation would bring redemption.” He argued that “the desire to be redeemed from exile was the primary basis for the Jewish nationalist movement. . . . The social failure of assimilation was the beginning of the movement for national redemption.” 38 Kaufmann saw the “failure of assimilation” and the “advent of redemption” in the rise of modern antisemitism as well as in the Russian pogroms at the end of the 1870s and the beginning of the 1880s: “The riots of the 1880s brought the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia back to its people.” Therefore the Jewish nationalist ideas of Smolenskin and Ben-Yehuda, which preceded the Zionist ideologists of the early 1880s, were, in Kaufmann’s opinion, only “literary ideas” held by a few individuals. Kaufmann had already maintained that the trend known as “cultural nationalism,” which began with Smolenskin and continued with Ahad Ha-am, appeared as a result of the drive toward redemption, the “redemption from the exile.” This nationalism was born out of disappointment with the fact that a movement for earthly redemption was never realized. 39 Kaufmann’s theory was based on two concepts: the aspiration to leave the exile, and the struggle against assimilation. He saw both of these [End Page 169] processes as occurring in the same time period, the early 1880s. (It can be stated parenthetically that common to all of the “forerunners” was the fight against assimilation in Jewish society.) From this perspective, Katz and Kaufmann differ in only one minor aspect: Katz dated the beginning of this process from the 1860s, not the 1880s. One must remember that, in his book, Kaufmann chose “exile and alienness” as his key terms, a decision that reflected a Zionist ideological approach, and his thesis was based on this approach. 40 He did not see himself as a historian of the Jewish nationalist movement. Benzion Dinur agreed with Kaufmann’s approach that the rebellion against exile was the backbone of the Zionist movement, the beginning of which occurred in the 1880s. According to Dinur, the granting of emancipation to Jews in Central Europe in the 1860s actually inhibited the desire for a Zionist redemption: “The realistic element in the vision of the state became blurred. . . . [I]ts absolute necessity was no longer appreciated and the number of visionaries diminished.” In contrast, “only in the early 1880s, when the revolt against Jewish fate became a rebellion against exile . . . did the vision become a realistic cause and constitute a crucial turning point in Jewish history. 41 In other words, the 1880s were a watershed for the Jewish nationalist movement. Dinur in fact based his ideas on only part of the foundation of Kaufmann’s theory: the departure from the exile. In another study Dinur divided Jewish history into periods, the last of which (1881–1947) he termed the nationalist period, “the period of political revolt, of the organization of the Jewish masses for self-defense, and the strengthening of Jewish nationalism.” 42 In a survey of Zionist achievements from the perspective of state-building, Dinur pointed out the physical development of the Jewish settlement in Palestine from the 1880s until the establishment of the State of Israel. This is what he termed “the resettlement of Israel in its own land”—it was not only a principle of the nationalist Zionist enterprise but “the very essence of Jewish history.” 43 Ettinger himself, in his History of the Jewish People in the Modern Period, 44 made a distinction between the “national ideals” of the 1860s and 1870s and the “crystallization of a national movement in the 1880s.” He conceded that, as opposed to the 1840s and 1850s, the next two decades constituted a stage in the development of the nationalist movement. 45 According to Ettinger, the events of the 1860s and 1870s—the unification of Italy, the nationalist awakening of the Balkans, the pro-nationalist policies of Napoleon III, and the unification of Germany—brought home to the enlightened Jews “the positive example of those nationalist movements that had achieved their objectives,” especially those in Italy and Germany. The 1880s revolved around “disillusionment with the [End Page 170] universalist ideals of the Enlightenment” following the pogroms in Russia and the rise of modern antisemitism in Western and Central Europe. Ettinger agreed that the nationalist ideas were born and crystallized in the 1860s and 1870s, and he asserted that this was the period when the first nationalists appeared. Among those he counted were Alkalai, Kalischer, Natonek, David Gordon, Hess, the historian Heinrich Graetz, and the authors Smolenskin and Ben-Yehuda. However, Ettinger asserted, their ideas “met with little response among the Jewish public in the West.” “Enthusiasm . . . gained momentum only after the outbreak of the pogroms in Russia in the spring of 1881.” 46 In an article entitled “Yihudah shel ha-tenuah ha-leumit ha-yehudit” (The Uniqueness of the Jewish Nationalist Movement), Ettinger explicitly took issue with Katz’s approach. Ettinger made a semantic distinction between the “first nationalists,” who were active in the 1860s and 1870s, and the “forerunners of Zion,” who appeared afterward. In other words, those designated as “forerunners” by Katz were referred to by Ettinger as the “first nationalists.” A proper distinction between “the first nationalists” and the “forerunners” could be made, according to Ettinger, on the basis of the different motives of the two groups: The first “nationalists” were proponents of the emancipation and advocated Jewish nationalist activity on its basis . . . whereas the organized Jewish nationalist movement sprung from a disappointment with the “benevolence of nations”; from a sense of alienation on the part of Jews in their countries of residence. . . . Therefore one cannot separate the rebirth of the Jewish nationalist movement from the emergence of modern antisemitism in the late 1870s and early 1880s. 47 Ettinger concluded that the “first nationalists” had no connection with the later nationalist movement: “the attempts to define them as ‘forerunners’ reflect a more recent, anachronistic perspective that projects later phenomena onto earlier ones.” 48 It is interesting to note that, in a later article, Ettinger identified the beginning of the nationalist movement as the 1870s, a period “stamped with the conspicuous seal of disbelief about any possibility of the Jews merging with their non-Jewish environment,” 49 and thus he bound together the 1870s and the 1880s. From this analysis two claims emerge, put forward by Ettinger against Katz’s approach. First, the nationalist awakening of the 1860s and 1870s was an episode that had virtually no effect on the rise of the nationalist movement of the 1880s and 1890s. Second, the nationalist awakening of the 1860s was born of optimism and faith in the future of the Jewish emancipation, whereas the movement of the 1880s was pessimistic about [End Page 171] the chances of Jewish civic integration into European society. A third claim, less explicit but nevertheless implied in the discussion, was that as a modern phenomenon Jewish nationalism could not include an Orthodox stream. Following a brief response to Ettinger’s claims, we shall turn our attention to the position that calls for a revision of Katz’s thesis. Regarding the claim that the “forerunners” constituted only an episode, it is sufficient to show that they were active in promoting their ideas throughout their lives. Even Hess did not cease his activity after the publication of Rome and Jerusalem and continued for years to correspond with those who were close to his nationalist outlook: Graetz, Natonek, Joseph Zevi Duenner, and others. Hess clearly influenced the writings of David Gordon and Perets Smolenskin, the most prominent of the first nationalists according to Ettinger. Hess played a considerable role in later Zionist literature: Rome and Jerusalem was translated and published in the Zionist press in the 1880s; Nahman Syrkin relied heavily on Hess; and Theodor Herzl stated in 1899, “Who knows whether I would have dared to publish my book if I had been familiar with the more important writings of the German, Hess and the Russian, Pinsker?” Farther down he continued, “The ideas of Hess . . . contributed much to the education of our youth in Eastern Europe.” 50 As for the rabbis Alkalai, Kalischer, Elijah Gutmacher, and Natan Friedland, one might stress the centrality of their teachings in Religious Zionist thought down through the generations. The basic positions of Religious Zionist thought were formulated in the 1860s and 1870s, and, with the exception of Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook’s innovations, these underwent few changes or additions. Moreover, in replying to the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Dr. Moritz Güdemann, whose attack on Herzl’s Der Judenstaat had appeared as a pamphlet entitled National-Judentum, the Zionist leader noted as a reminder that it had been the rabbis among the “forerunners” who had combined their settlement plans with the idea of a Jewish state. 51 When Herzl eulogized Rabbi Samuel Mohilewer at the Second Zionist Congress, he stated that “from 1875, he stood within our movement.” 52 It would seem that Herzl himself saw the 1860s and 1870s not only as the years of the “forerunners of Zionism” but also as the years in which the Zionist movement itself began to develop. For his part, David Gordon not only carried on with his Zionist propaganda well into the 1880s, but from the moment that he became editor and publisher of Ha-magid in1880 he transformed the newspaper into the organ of Hovevei Zion. He continued to take part personally in all of the movement’s activities until he died in 1886. In one of his later articles, Ettinger stated explicitly that “the traditional element in the formation of Hibat Zion was drawn partly from the [End Page 172] attempts on behalf of settling the Land of Israel in the 1860s and 70s.” 53 In spite of his doubts regarding the degree of continuity between the 1860s-1870s and the 1880s, it appears from Ettinger’s description of events that he himself found the links connecting the two periods. Regarding Ettinger’s argument that the early and later nationalists were motivated by different factors, it should be noted that both Hess and Smolenskin based their national views largely on antisemitism, whereas Gordon’s point of departure was the Jews’ distress as a minority, facing competing national loyalties. With regard to the rabbinic elements, even if they did not base their nationalist beliefs on antisemitism, they were certainly well aware of the hardships of exile, and the settlement of the Land of Israel was for them a response to that suffering. In light of these facts, the claim that the writers of the 1860s and 1870s were carried along solely by a current of optimism regarding Jewish integration into European society appears to be rather one-sided. Ettinger conceded in his later research that some of the Eastern European maskilim in the 1870s were pessimistic about the possibility of Jewish integration into Russian society and thus arrived at a nationalist alternative. 54 Even later Zionists, desirous of international support for their initiatives, placed their hopes in the Jewish magnates: the Rothschilds, Moses Montefiore, and Baron Maurice Hirsch. This optimism continued into the 1880s and 1890s. Consider, for example, the draft of Herzl’s Der Judenstaat (1896), which was originally formulated as a letter to the Rothschilds. As for the claim that modernity is a prerequisite for nationalism and therefore Orthodox Zionism cannot be a part of it, suffice it to say that the Orthodoxy of which we speak went through concurrent processes of modernization and nationalization, a fact that accounts for the differences between this trend and its opponents within traditional and Orthodox Jewry. In the end, even Ettinger had to admit that the Religious Zionist awakening could not be removed from the general rise of Jewish nationalism and that Orthodoxy was essentially a modern movement. 55 In sum, Ettinger’s critique of Katz on these issues has lost most of its force. The distinctions between the concepts of “forerunners” and “first nationalists” are insignificant; they denote the same phenomenon. Even though the extent to which the early nationalists influenced succeeding generations still requires careful examination, the fact that their influence existed is irrefutable. Moreover, as I have demonstrated, the distinction between the early “optimists” and later “pessimists” is untenable. [End Page 173] Conclusion Katz’s research on Jewish nationalism was limited to specific areas—primarily the Zionist movement. Jewish nationalism did not stand at the center of his approach, and therefore he did not expand his analysis of the topic. Today, we know that the nationalist awakening of the 1860s and 1870s was much broader than he described. It was impressive in its nuances, in the literature and journalism that it produced, and in the ideological essays that it inspired. To the latter category belong not only the programmatic works Rome and Jerusalem and Derishat Tsiyon but also the nationalist poems of Judah Leib Gordon, Smolenskin’s Am olam (Eternal People), the nationalist essays and historiography of Heinrich Graetz, the historical novels of Abraham Mapu, the nationalist polemics of David Gordon, and the essays of Y. M. Pines, 56 just to name some of the more prominent examples. Those who were active among the “forerunners” kept in contact with each other, and they planned actual programs to further their objectives. Their appeal to the Rothschilds, their efforts to win the support of the major Jewish organizations through the insistent energies of the rabbis Alkalai, Friedland, and Natonek, and the mission of Natonek to the Turkish government—all of these initiatives were coordinated by or at least reported to the leadership of the “forerunners.” This chapter in history still awaits serious investigation. Already in the 1840s and 1850s the Jewish nationalist idea had emerged in Western circles through the British-Jewish newspaper The Jewish Chronicle and Julius Fuerst’s Der Orient. The Damascus Blood Libel and the messianic disappointments of 1840, together with the dashed hopes for Jewish emancipation after the Revolution of 1848, certainly contributed to Jewish nationalist consciousness. The initiatives in the 1840s and 1850s were individual and sporadic, as Katz has shown in the case of Alkalai. In the 1860s, these private initiatives underwent a process of organization and institutionalization. The societies for the settlement of the Land of Israel and the individuals who labored on their behalf in the various Jewish communities were only one part of the process that originated in those early initiatives. The center of the national awakening in the 1860s was Western Europe, as opposed to the 1870s when it was transferred to Eastern Europe. Among those who took an active part in the nationalist movement of the 1860s were Joseph Zevi Duenner, head of a rabbinical seminary and later the rabbi of Amsterdam, Natan Friedland of Taurage, Lithuania, and Joseph Natonek from Hungary. 57 We are speaking of a gallery of rabbis who cannot be characterized simply as Orthodox. Natonek was closer to the conservative stream of Zacharias Frankel, whereas Duenner [End Page 174] was closer to neo-Orthodoxy. The degree to which they were willing to absorb modernity is what distinguished between them. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, two East European elements joined the new nationalist wave: secular maskilim such as Smolenskin and Moses Leib Lilienblum, and religious maskilim such as Pines and Mohilewer. These people expressed themselves in the Hebrew periodicals Ha-shahar (Vienna), Ha-magid (Lyck), Ha-meliz (St. Petersburg), Ivri anokhi (Brody), Ha-levanon (Mainz), and other smaller newspapers. If all of the members of this group are taken into consideration, then some of Katz’s observations are no longer applicable. Many of these men did not come from the margins of Jewish society. Only some hailed from areas where nationalism was a heated issue, such as Alkalai from the Balkans, Kalischer from Posen, and Natonek from Hungary. Smolenskin in Vienna had personal contact with the problem of nationalism in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Hess encountered it in his travels in Paris and Belgium. Ettinger stated correctly that European nationalism influenced Jewish nationalism more during this period than in subsequent years. The demand for the normalization of the Jewish people resulted from the analogy made between the Jews and other nationalist groups. Such ideas resonated in the works of Alkalai and Kalischer, as they did with Hess and David Gordon. Kalischer, like his friends in the Colonisationverein für Palästina, had a firm nationalist worldview. It was expressed in the introduction to Derishat Tsiyon (1864) and even more so in his commentary to the Passover Haggadah that appeared years afterward: “Those who come to settle the Land of Israel are the ones who are called Messiah.” 58 The transformation of the traditional Messiah into national activism is one of the telltale signs of Jewish nationalism, as Katz pointed out. Some of the early nationalists continued to believe in the future of Jewish emancipation, as evidenced in the words of Kalischer, but others, like Hess, David Gordon, Smolenskin, and even Lilienblum, had serious doubts regarding its future. What they held in common was a fear that the Jewish ethnic collective was in danger of deterioration. The Western liberals were the whipping boys of the “forerunners.” They were attacked sharply by Kalischer, Alkalai, Hess, David Gordon, Smolenskin, Pines, and Natonek. The national awakening was motivated by a concern that Jewish national identity would be lost as a result of the rise of liberal social movements within Jewish society and the modern state’s demand to relinquish Jewish collective identity as a prerequisite for emancipation. The nationalist movement offered a third way: it rejected the assimilationist tendencies of Central European Jewry to blend into the surroundings while it [End Page 175] refused to accept the attempt of traditional East European Jewry to close itself off from modernity. The modernization of Judaism within the framework of nationalism allowed, as Katz understood, the simultaneous acceptance of tradition and modernity. Yosef Salmon Yosef Salmon is Professor of Modern Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University. Most recently he has written an introduction to and annotated an edition of Shivat Zion (1998). His book Religion and Zionism will appear in English this year with Magnes Press. Footnotes In memory of my teacher, Prof. Jacob Katz who passed away on the 25th of Iyyar 5758 (May 21, 1998) 1. Jacob Katz, “Le-verur ha-musag ‘Mevasrei ha-tsiyonut,’” Shivat Tsiyon 1 (1950): 91–105; Katz, “Demuto ha-historit shel ha-rav Tsvi Hirsch Kalischer,” Shivat Tsiyon 2–3 (1951–52): 26–41; and Katz, “Meshihiyut u-leumiyut be-mishnato shel ha-rav Yehudah Alkalai,” Shivat Tsiyon 4 (1955–57): 9–41. These articles were also published in a later anthology: Katz, Leumiyut yehudit (Jerusalem, 1979), 263–356. For English versions of the first two articles, see Katz, “The Forerunners of Zionism,” The Jerusalem Quarterly 7 (Spring 1978): 10–21, and Katz, “Tzevi Hirsh Kalischer,” in Guardians of Our Heritage, Leo Jung, ed. (New York, 1958), 209–27. 2. Tsvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795–1874), the rabbi of Thorn, explained to the traditional society of his time his ideas about the Jewish return to the Land of Israel in Derishat Tsiyon, which was published in 1862. Judah ben Solomon Hai Alkalai (1798–1878) became the reader and teacher of the Sephardi community of Semlin, near Belgrade, at the age of 28. Some years later he was appointed rabbi of the community, serving in this capacity until his emigration to the Land of Israel. 3. Katz revised his terminology over the years. During the 1950s he used the word “Zionism,” but by the end of that decade he began to employ the broader term, “nationalism.” See Jacob Katz, “Raayon u-metsiut ba-leumiyut ha-yehudit,” Molad 17 (Jan.–Feb. 1959): 8–13, reprinted in Leumiyut yehudit, 3–14; and his “The Jewish National Movement: A Sociological Analysis,” Cahiers d’Histoire Mondiale 11 (1968): 267–83. 4. Katz, “The Forerunners of Zionism,” 13. 5. See Zeev Jawitz, “Migdal ha-meah,” Knesset Yisrael 1 (1887): 148–49. Moses Hess (1812–75) was a German socialist who published Rome and Jerusalem in 1862; it became a classic of Zionist literature. 6. See Israel Klausner, Be-hitorer am (Jerusalem, 1962); Arthur Hertzberg, ed., The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader (Philadelphia, 1959); Ben Halpern, The Idea of the Jewish State (Cambridge, Mass., 1961); David Vital, The Origins of Zionism (Oxford, 1975); Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism (London, 1981); and Samuel Leib Zitron, Toledot Hibat Tsiyon (Odessa, 1913). See also Samuel Leib Zitron, Anashim ve-soferim (Vilna, 1921). 7. Benzion Dinur refers to “the sanctity of life instead of the sanctification of the name [ie. martyrdom]”; see his Be-mifneh ha-dorot (Jerusalem, 1972), 9. See also Katz, “Le-verur ha-musag ‘Mevasrei ha-tsiyonut,’” in Leumiyut yehudit, 263–67. An abridged discussion appears in Katz, “The Forerunners of Zionism,” 10–13. 8. Katz, “The Forerunners of Zionism,” 13–14. 9. Ibid., 17. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., 21. 12. Katz, “Tzevi Hirsh Kalischer,” 211. 13. Ibid., 223–26. 14. Ibid., 224, 226. 15. Ibid., 226, 227. I have taken the liberty of going into some detail regarding these points as I believe that there is a need for their revision, as indeed Katz himself tended to do from time to time. 16. Katz, “Meshihiyut u-leumiyut be-mishnato shel ha-rav Yehudah Alkalai,” in Leumiyut yehudit, 332. 17. Ibid., 333–35. 18. Ibid., 337. 19. Katz, “Raayon u-metsiut ba-leumiyut ha-yehudit,” in Leumiyut yehudit, 11, 13, 14. 20. Katz, “The Jewish National Movement,” 267. 21. Ibid., 269–70. 22. Ibid., 275. 23. Ibid., 278. 24. Ibid., 279. 25. Gideon Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology (Hanover, N.H., 1995), 3–51. 26. Ibid., 5–6; Anthony D. Smith, “The Myth of the ‘Modern Nation’ and the Myths of Nations,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 11, no. 1 (Jan. 1988): 9. 27. Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology, 4, 397–98. 28. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, 1983), 43. 29. Yehezkel Kaufmann, Golah ve-nekhar, 2 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1929–30), vol. 2, part 1, pp. 265, 274–75, 281, 289, 296, 302. 30. Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology, 8. 31. Ibid., 11. 32. David Gordon (1831–86), a Hebrew journalist and editor, was one of the early supporters of the Hibat Zion movement and became editor of the Hebrew periodical Ha-magid in 1880. Perets Smolenskin (1842–85) was a Hebrew novelist, editor, and journalist. A leading exponent of the Haskalah in Eastern Europe, he was an early advocate of Jewish nationalism. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858–1922), the Hebrew writer and lexicographer, is considered the father of modern Hebrew and was one of the first active Zionist leaders. He settled in Palestine in 1881 and was the publisher and editor of various Hebrew periodicals. 33. Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology, 78. Joseph Natonek (1813–92) was a rabbi and Zionist pioneer in Hungary. In 1867, he negotiated with the Turks in order to obtain a charter allowing the reclamation of Palestinian soil for Jewish settlement. 34. Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology, 394. 35. Ibid., 395. 36. Ibid., 7, 52–53. 37. Barnai, Historyografyah u-leumiyut, 41–42. 38. Kaufmann, Golah ve-nekhar, 266–67. 39. Ibid., 267–76. 40. In his introduction, Kaufmann explained the nature of his research: “My intention was to clarify and provide a historical basis for the ancient idea that was put aside long ago and forgotten—that in the foreseeable future there could be no other solution to the exile aside from the nationalist one. My faith in the actual value of this theoretical clarification is based on my ‘ideaistic’ belief . . . on the belief in the critical practical value of idea” (ibid., 8). 41. See Benzion Dinur [Benzion Dinaburg], “Ha-nes shel tekumat Yisrael,” Shivat tsiyon 1 (1950): 26. See also Benzion Dinur, “Ha-mered ba-galut hu ha-yesod,” in Be-maavak ha-dorot (Jerusalem, 1975), 284. 42. Benzion Dinur, Israel and the Diaspora (Philadelphia, 1969), 155–56. 43. Ibid., 166–69, 186. 44. Shmuel Ettinger, Toledot am yisrael ba-et ha-hadashah (Tel Aviv, 1967), published in English as Part 6 of Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, ed., A History of the Jewish People (London, 1976), 725–1096. All following references are to the English edition. 45. Ettinger, History, 891–92. See also Shmuel Ettinger, “Yihudah shel ha-tenuat ha-leumit ha-yehudit,” in Ideologyah u-mediniyut tsiyonit, Ben-Zion Yehoshua and Aaron Kedar, eds. (Jerusalem, 1978), 15; and Shmuel Ettinger and Israel Bartal, “The First Aliyah: Ideological Roots and Practical Accomplishments,” The Jerusalem Cathedra 2 (1982): 201–2, 207–8. 46. Ettinger, History, 891–93. By the way, Ettinger was not consistent in this position. In his introduction to Ideologyah u-mediniyut tsiyonit, he claimed that the turning point occurred in the 1840s following the Damascus Blood Libel (“Yihudah shel ha-tenuah ha-leumit ha-yehudit,” 15). However, he returned to his earlier position in “The First Aliyah.” 47. Ettinger, “Yihudah shel ha-tenuah ha-leumit ha-yehudit,” 16. 48. Ibid. 49. Ettinger and Bartal, “The First Aliyah,” 202. 50. Theodor Herzl, “Zionism” (Fall 1899), in Zionist Writings, trans. Harry Zohn, vol. 2 (New York, 1975), 115. 51. Theodor Herzl, “Dr. Güdemann’s National-Judentum” (April 23, 1897), in Zionist Writings, trans. Harry Zohn, vol. 1 (New York, 1973), 65. See also Abraham Slutzki, ed., Shivat tsiyon (Warsaw, 1891–92). It is interesting to note that Alex Bein, Herzl’s biographer, found connections between Herzl’s grandfather who resided in Semlin and Rabbi Judah Alkalai, the rabbi of this border city (Bein, Theodor Herzl: A Biography [Philadelphia, 1948], 5). He also speculates about a connection between Herzl and Rabbi Joseph Natonek (Bein, Theodor Herzl: Biyografyah [Tel Aviv, 1961], 9). 52. Theodor Herzl, “Mi-divrei Hertsel ba-kongres ha-tsiyoni ha-sheni,” in Bifnei am ve-olam, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1961), 239. Samuel Mohilewer (1824–98), a rabbi and early member of Hovevei Zion, was one of the early leaders of Religious Zionism. A prominent rabbi in Suwalki, Radom, and Bialystok, Mohilewer propagated Zionist ideas before and after the pogroms of the 1880s. 53. Shmuel Ettinger and Israel Bartal, “Shorshei ha-yishuv he-hadash be-Eretz Yisrael,” in Sefer ha-aliyah ha-rishonah, Mordechai Eliav, ed., vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1981), 16. 54. Ettinger and Bartal, “The First Aliyah,” 202. See also Steven J. Zipperstein, “Jewish Enlightenment in Odessa: Cultural Characteristics, 1794–1871,” Jewish Social Studies 44 (1982): 30. 55. See also Ettinger and Bartal, “The First Aliyah,” 218–20. 56. Yehiel Michael Pines (1843–1913) was a writer and early exponent of religious Zionism. In 1878 he came to Palestine, where he was a prominent leader of the Yishuv. 57. Natan Friedland (1808–83), rabbi of Taurage, Lithuania, spread ideas of Jewish nationalism within a traditional Jewish context. His books, Kos yeshuah u-nehamah, published in 1859, and Yosef Hen, which appeared in 1878, became part of the forerunners’ literary campaign. 58. See Tsvi Hirsch Kalischer, Haggadah shel Pesah (Warsaw, 1864), 100.

Nationalism of Jews

Nationalism, Jewish identity and the call of Zion An excerpt from Antony Polonsky's 'The Jews in Poland and Russia' Sept. 16, 2011 In recent years there has been considerable debate on the nature of nationalism. Nationalist ideologues have stressed the timeless and primordial character of national identity. In fact, it is clear that nationalism is, above all, a product of the political changes of the nineteenth century—the waning of supranational ideologies and the growing importance of popular sovereignty. What has marked the debate about the character of nationalism has been, rather, a difference of emphasis. On the one hand there are those, like Benedict Anderson, who see nationalism as a wholly new phenomenon and the nation as an ‘imagined community’ which emerged in response to the development of modern methods of communication and new political conditions. This position is disputed by people like Anthony Smith who accept the modern character of nationalism as a political movement, but emphasize the extent to which the national idea in different areas was built on an older core of ethnic self-consciousness—what he calls the ‘ethnie’. In the case of the Jews, it is clear that, within the traditional Jewish identity, there were many elements, above all the call for the return to Zion and the constant emphasis on Jewish life in Erets Yisra’el, which provided nationalist ideologues with a firm foundation on which to build a modern national identity. Indeed, one of the reasons why the national idea proved rather more successful than its socialist rivals among the Jews of eastern Europe was because it harmonized so well with the traditional Jewish view of the world. In the emergence of the Jewish national movement, one can distinguish three different components, which were often combined. There were those who became nationalists because of the persistence of antisemitism and what they perceived as the impossibility of Jewish integration. Then there were those who became nationalists because they believed integration was being bought at too high a price. Assimilation would lead to the disappearance of the Jewish people or, at best, to the loss of all that was authentically Jewish. Finally, there were those who attempted to fuse nationalism with another ideology, either with socialism or with some form of Jewish religious identity. Among those who became Zionists because of their belief in the incurable Judaeophobia of the Christian world were the former integrationist and veteran of the Crimean War Leon Pinsker (1821–91) and the repentant maskil Moses Leib Lilienblum (1843–1910). Pinsker, a doctor in Odessa, had in the 1860s been one of the editors of the integrationist weekly Sion. In his pamphlet Autoemancipation (published in 1882) he argued that emancipation in Russian conditions was a chimera. Judaeophobia was too deeply ingrained. It resulted neither from the economic or social position of the Jews nor from the religious prejudices of Christianity. The Jews were incomprehensible to the larger society: were they a religious, a national, or a social group? They were seen as a ghost, an unnatural survival, and they aroused the panic which ghosts provoke. The answer was to ‘normalize’ the situation of the Jews, and through self-emancipation make them like the other nations which were coming to political maturity in nineteenth-century Europe. The Jewish ‘ghost’ should be transformed into a real being by establishing the Jewish people on a territory of their own, whether in Palestine or in America. In order to achieve this goal a general Jewish Congress should be called and entrusted with the preparation of a plan to achieve this. Lilienblum had been a major figure in the earlier Hebrew revival and had advocated radical religious reform. From the autumn of 1881 he began in a series of articles to call for Jewish colonization in Palestine. The Jews were everywhere alien, because total assimilation was not possible. They were tenants, tolerated by the landlord as long as they were convenient. But at the first conflict between them the landlord will evict the tenant. In the Middle Ages this was justified on religious grounds; now national and economic factors were cited. Jewish suffering could only be ended if the Jews could find a country where they themselves could be the landlord. Such a country was Palestine, the ancient Jewish fatherland. ‘We must undertake the colonization of Palestine on so comprehensive a scale that in the course of one century the Jews will be able to leave inhospitable Europe almost entirely and settle in the land of our forefathers to which we are legally entitled.’ Other people who fell into this category, believing integration to be impossible, were the founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, and his fellow-journalist Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880–1940), born in Odessa. Herzl, who worked for the liberal Neue Freie Zeitung in Vienna, became convinced in the 1890s that assimilation was a mirage. Jabotinsky distinguished between the ‘antisemitism of people’ and the ‘antisemitism of things’. The former was the result of prejudice and could be minimized; the latter was the consequence of the inevitable economic conflict caused by the competition between Jewish middlemen and the rising middle class of nations like the Poles and Ukrainians and could not be avoided. He rejected liberalism as an illusion: It is a wise philosopher who said, ‘Man is a wolf to man’ . . . Stupid is the person who believes in his neighbour, good and loving as that neighbour may be; stupid is the person who relies on justice. Justice exists only for those whose fists and stubbornness make it possible for them to realize it. Among those who saw assimilation and the loss of the Jewish national substance as the principal dangers facing the Jewish people was Asher Ginsburg (1856–1927), who wrote under the pen-name Ahad Ha’am (One of the People). (For more on Ahad Ha’am, see Chapter 7.) Ginsburg, educated at a yeshiva and subsequently at a Jewish high school, was the most brilliant Hebrew essayist of his generation. He was convinced that before large-scale colonization of Palestine could prove successful, the Jewish people would have to be transformed and permeated by the national idea. He saw this idea in elevated terms: ‘We must propagate the national idea and convert it into a lofty moral ideal.’ This was his goal in establishing an elitist semi-masonic organization, the Benei Moshe, in 1890s. He believed that Palestine could never accommodate all of the Jewish people and opposed the ‘negation of the diaspora’ of Herzl, Nordau, and similar thinkers. The goal should be to establish a national centre on the historic soil from which the Jewish people had sprung, which would radiate its influence over the whole of the diaspora. Only in such a centre could the Hebrew language revive and Jewish culture develop freely and naturally. It was these ideas which he propagated tirelessly in his essays. Similar views were held by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (pseudonym of Eliezer Yitshak Perelman, 1858–1922), the architect of the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language who in his youth had been close to the Russian Populists (Narodniki), and by the younger German Zionist Martin Buber (1878–1965). Finally, there were those who combined Zionism with socialism or religion. Of the Zionist Socialists, the most important were Nahman Syrkin (1868–1924), Ber Borochov (1881–1927), and Aharon David Gordon (1865–1922). Syrkin had joined Hovevei Zion (the Lovers of Zion) but had also been close to the Russian revolutionary movement. After a brief imprisonment for revolutionary activity he moved to Germany and attended the first and subsequent Zionist conferences, where he attacked the dominance of ‘bourgeois and clerical elements’. At the same time he denounced Jewish socialists for whom ‘socialism meant first of all the abandonment of Jewishness just as the liberalism of the Jewish bourgeoisie led to assimilation’. He thus called for Jewish communal settlement in Palestine and the creation of a Jewish society there in which workers would predominate. He set up a number of small Zionist–socialist groups in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and wrote pamphlets for distribution in the tsarist empire. He briefly returned to Russia between 1905 and 1907, settling subsequently in the United States, where he became the leading figure in Po’alei Zion (the Workers of Zion). Ber Borochov was the main ideologue of the Po’alei Zion movement. He argued that the world was divided vertically into classes and horizontally into nations. The class struggle takes place in these horizontal groupings. If an entire nation is subjugated by another, the dominant group attempts to impose its values on those it has conquered. The conquered nation is therefore oppressed by the bourgeoisie of the victorious group and culturally subjugated. National liberation has to precede the class struggle in the nation. The specific problem of the Jews resulted from both national oppression and their unhealthy class structure. The Jewish people was like an inverted pyramid, with a narrow base and too large a summit. It needed to be transformed by making the majority workers and peasants. This could only be accomplished in Palestine, where socialism could be built on the basis of the toiling Jewish masses. In the diaspora one should seek cultural autonomy, as was advocated by the ideologists of Austro-Marxism, the supranational socialist movement in the Habsburg empire, which had a considerable influence on Borochov and his followers. Aharon David Gordon was influenced by Russian Populism and Slavophile romanticism, and settled in Palestine in 1903. In his view the Jews were unhealthy because they had lost their connection with the land. For them to become a nation again, they needed to transform themselves into farmers in the ancient homeland. In his words: We have as yet no national assets because our people have not paid the price for them. A people can acquire land only by its own effort, by realizing the potentialities of its body and soul, by unfolding and revealing its inner self. This is a two-sided transaction, but the people comes first—the people comes before the land. But a parasitical people is not a living people. Our people can be brought to life only if each one of us recreates himself through labour and a life close to nature. Among those who sought to combine Zionism with religion were Isaac Jacob Reines (1839–1915) and Ze’ev Jawitz (1847–1924). Reines, who was born in Karolin, in Belarus, studied at the yeshiva in Volozhin before holding the post of rabbi in Šaukėnai (Shavkany), Švenčionys (Święciany), and Lida. He attempted while in Lida to found a modern yeshiva where secular subjects would be studied. His first attempt in 1891 was frustrated by Orthodox opposition, but after 1905 he succeeded in creating a thriving institution. He was one of the first supporters of Hovevei Zion and was immediately attracted to Herzl’s political Zionism, participating in the first Zionist conferences. In 1902 he convened a meeting of a group of rabbis and traditional laymen who founded a religious–Zionist movement to which they gave the name Mizrahi (from merkaz ruhani, spiritual centre; the name also alluded to the fact that Jews were returning to the East (Mizrah)). Another of those involved in its foundation was the writer Ze’ev Jawitz, who was born in Kolno, in the western part of the Kingdom of Poland, and was a contributor to Perets Smolenskin’s monthly journal Hashahar. He set out his views in an article, ‘Migdal hame’ah’ (Tower of the Century, published in 1887), in which he united his support for a romantic version of the return to Zion with German-style religious orthodoxy. The emergence of Jewish nationalism was a phenomenon which took place on a wider stage than the tsarist empire. Indeed, one of its strengths was that it brought together Jews from the areas of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who still retained strong links with their Jewish heritage with more acculturated Jews from central Europe. The latter were concerned both with the disruptive effect which the crisis of Russian Jewry would have on the position of the more integrated Jews of central and western Europe and with the unnecessary and humiliating compromises that had been made in pursuit of the goal of integration into their societies. The evolution of the Zionist movement owed much to the interaction between these two groups, and its development was encouraged by the movement to central Europe of east European Zionists, among them ideologists like Smolenskin, who established himself in Vienna, and the later generation of Russian Jewish university students who were compelled to study in the West because of restrictions in the tsarist empire. There now began to emerge in the tsarist empire Zionist groups, such as Ahavat Zion (The Love of Zion), Kibbutz Nidhei Yisrael (The Ingathering of the Wanderers of Israel), and, most important, Hovevei Zion, the brainchild of Pinsker and Lilienblum. The organization held its initial meeting in November 1884 in Katowice, in German Silesia, just across the border from the Kingdom of Poland, in order to evade the surveillance of the tsarist police. By 1885 it had nearly 14,000 members and began to encourage agricultural colonization in Palestine. It was granted legal status in the tsarist empire in 1890 as the Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Palestine. It never became a mass movement and was unsuccessful in its goal of obtaining the support of the Russian Jewish financial elite. However, it did create a new sort of Jewish settlement in Palestine. As a result of the waves of immigration which became known as the ‘first aliyah’, some fifteen agricultural colonies were estab-lished and 20,000 new settlers brought to Palestine, who differed strikingly in their nationalist ideology from the existing Jewish inhabitants, the ‘old Yishuv’. Some progress was also made in the creation of a Hebrew and national school system in Palestine and in reviving the Hebrew language. Needless to say, these achievements, significant though they were to be for the later development of the Yishuv, could not significantly alleviate the growing crisis of Russian Jewry. A second wave of Zionist activity was sparked off by the development of political Zionism and the holding of the first International Zionist Congress in Basel in August 1897 organized by Theodor Herzl. Herzl’s call for a Jewish state, expressed in the pamphlet Der Judenstaat, which was published in 1896, echoed many of Pinsker’s ideas in its call for the concentration of the Jews in a separated territory, whether in Palestine or in Argentina. What was new about Herzl was his charisma as a repentant supporter of integration and a well-known columnist for the Viennese Neue Freie Presse, the strongest protagonist of the integrationist cause in the Habsburg monarchy. In addition, like Pinsker, Herzl had a clear, if oversimplified, political vision. The establishment of the Jewish homeland was to be achieved by the creation of Jewish representative bodies. These would enter into negotiations with governments who would cede to the Jews an appropriate territory under an international protectorate in which the Jewish masses could be resettled. The financial costs of this operation would be borne jointly by the governments concerned and by the international Jewish financial elite. This bold plan, with its assertion that all that was necessary was the exercise of political will—‘If you only will it, then it is no dream’, in Herzl’s phrase— electrified the flagging Hovevei Zion movement in the tsarist empire. Representatives of both Western and Eastern Jewry assembled at the first Zionist Congress. Already the conflict between the two aspects of the movement—that which sought a haven for the threatened Jewish masses and that which was above all concerned with the creation of an authentic Jewish national culture—was clear. Of the four articles of the programme adopted at this conference, three dealt with the political and financial aspects of the attempt to settle the Jewish masses in Palestine and only one called for the ‘strengthening of Jewish national feeling and self-respect’. Generally speaking, the principal supporters of political Zionism were to be found in German-speaking central Europe, while the stronghold of cultural Zionism was located in the tsarist empire, as was evident in subsequent annual conferences, in Basel in 1898 and 1899, in London in 1900, and again in Basel in 1901. Great efforts were made on both the political and the cultural planes. On the political front, a Jewish Colonial Trust and a Jewish National Fund were created, and diplomatic negotiations were undertaken with the Turkish and other governments in order to obtain a ‘charter’ which would make possible the Jewish colonization of Palestine. On the cultural front, strong efforts were undertaken to promote Hebrew, to create a Jewish school system based on national principles, and to ‘conquer the communities’ for Zionism. When the Russian Zionists met at their conference in Minsk in 1902, they paid particular attention to cultural issues, establishing two educational committees, one Orthodox, the other progressive, which were to foster national principles in their respective school systems. Ahad Ha’am was also invited to submit a report on the ‘spiritual regeneration of Judaism’, and a resolution was adopted which called for the intensification of Zionist cultural activity. The rapid growth of Zionism in the tsarist empire after the first Zionist Conference can be gauged by the fact that, by the year of the Minsk conference, nearly 70,000 shekel payers (members) had been organized into almost 500 societies. Religious Zionism also began to expand, and by its second conference in Lida in March 1903 Mizrahi had over 200 branches in the tsarist empire and had also established groups in central and western Europe. On the larger political scene less was achieved. Herzl’s negotiations with the Turkish sultan, the German emperor, and a number of other European governments in order to obtain a Zionist charter making possible the Jewish colonization of Palestine all proved abortive. The Jewish Colonial Trust proved unable to achieve its objective of raising $10 million for its purposes, a sum which was in any event much less than would have been needed. The attempt to accelerate Jewish settlement in Palestine was also unsuccessful. Indeed, as Dubnow has pointed out, ‘the strength of the movement lay, not in the political aims of the organization, which were mostly beyond reach, but in the very fact that tens of thousands of Jews were organized with a national end in view’.

Palestine--Past & Present