24: Zionism is a Tree

Let’s talk Zionism! A perennially confusing topic on the Israel trips I lead, not least because it’s become such a loaded (and often negative) term these days. But let’s get back to the classical understanding of Zionism and work our way up from there. Bring on Theodore Herzl!

THE PLOT

I like to say that Zionism provided an innovative solution to two separate problems. The first problem was Eastern Europe, where Jews lived under mortal threat. The second problem was Western Europe, where Judaism itself seemed to be under threat: the Jews weren’t in danger of being killed so much as assimilating away their Jewish culture. In both cases, it seemed that Jews and Judaism didn’t have much of a future left in Europe.

But Zionism provided an elegant solution, solving both problems while also fulfilling a millennia-old spiritual dream of re-establishing the Jewish homeland. If they had their own state, they could both live as Jews AND live Jewishly, since Jewish culture would be the majority and no one would have to hide their identity. 

The Zionist thinkers thought that a return to Israel would not just create a new kind of Jew (one that was strong, physically fit, proud, educated, socialist), but would also benefit the world. The Arabs in Palestine, for instance, would benefit from the modernity that Israel would bring.

I like to think of Zionism as a tree. The roots are the situations in Eastern and Western Europe. Then you have the main trunk, which is the central idea of Zionism: re-establishing a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel under the aegis of Jewish self-determination (also referred to as Jewish nationalism). That’s the basic message: that Jews have an historic need to create their own state to ensure their own survival.

Each branch off the main trunk represents a different stream of Zionism, each with its own ecosystem of ideology, ideas, individual leaders and heroes (the leaves).

Theodore Herzl led one of the most prominent branches: Political Zionism. This branch saw the success of Zionism as rooted in politics: Herzl thought that Zionism was a “national question, which can only be solved by making it a political world-question to be discussed and settled by the civilized nations of the world.”

To that end Herzl wrote a book, Der Judenstaat, or The Jewish State, that laid out precisely how this future Jewish nation would come about, and how its society would be organized. The Society of Jews would be created to represent diplomatically the Jewish pre-nation to the governments of Europe, and the Jewish Company would organize the economic logistics involved in moving the Jews out of Europe and building a new economy in Israel. He envisioned either a democratic monarchy or an aristocratic republic as the form of government. Herzl expressly wanted Judaism kept out of government administration, so that, having learned the lessons of anti-Semitism in Europe, there would be freedom of religion and full legal equality for all citizens. 

Ultimately, though, Herzl fell short in putting the “Jewish” in the future Jewish state, opening the door for other Zionist thinkers to advocate for Israel to become a spiritual center for Judaism, and to embody secular Jewish values, culture, history, and traditions — what came to be known as Cultural Zionism. 

FUN FACTS

  • Theodore Herzl thought that the Jewish State would destroy anti-Semitism, since there wouldn’t be a need for it anymore.

  • The term “Zionism” was coined in 1890 by the Jewish writer Nathan Birnbaum.

  • Herzl thought was democracy was too extreme a form of government for the Jewish State, and would involve “that objectionable class of men — professional politicians.”

  • Herzl rejected Hebrew as the language for the Jewish state: he considered it useless. “Who amongst us has a sufficient acquaintance with Hebrew to ask for a railway ticket in that language! Such a thing cannot be done.”

  • Herzl envisioned a white flag with seven gold stars for the Jewish state. White to represent the pure new life of the Jews in their new state. And the golden stars to represent the seven golden hours of the work day.

 

NAMES TO KNOW

  • Theodore Herzl: considered the founding father of the Zionist Movement, it would be more accurate to describe him as the leader of Political Zionism — the branch of Zionism that was focused on politically and practically establishing the Jewish state. He was wrong in so many of his predictions about the future state, but he got right that it would be created. He died in 1904 and was reburied in Jerusalem in 1949.

KEY CONCEPTS TO KNOW

The early Zionist thinkers were right. Between 40-80 years before the Holocaust, they were correct in concluding that Jews and Judaism had no future in Europe. In the East, Jews were being horribly oppressed, and in the West they were assimilating away their Jewish identity. That “fear factor” which still motivates talk about Israel today (to varying degrees of success), was very real then, and all the Zionist leaders were in agreement that essential for the preservation of Jewish life was the creation of a specifically Jewish homeland.

 

Herzl’s book The Jewish State, published in 1896, laid out precisely how the state would be created, and then how its society would be formed. The book was designed to convince the Jews of Europe to back the Zionist project, and it propelled Herzl forward as the most influential leader of the movement. 

 

Herzl wasn’t the original leader of the Zionist Movement, or even its only prominent one. He was, however, the leader of what became known as Political Zionism — the effort to resolve the Jewish question and bring about a Jewish state through political means. Herzl argued that the Jews needed full political sovereignty in order to begin building their own homeland, and that this could only be achieved by working with the “civilized nations of the world” to make this happen.

23. J'Accuse!

Today we meet a secular, assimilationist Hungarian Jewish journalist unengaged with Jewish history, culture, religion, Torah, or Hebrew. Theodore Herzl nevertheless had one of the most significant impacts on the Jewish People in our history. “All the deeds of men are dreams at first,” he once said, and in the 1890s he had a really big dream: to create a Jewish state. He was heavily influenced by the trial of Alfred Dreyfus in France, which would lead him and other western European Jewish leaders to the same conclusion as their counterparts in the east: that the Jews had no future in Europe and therefore needed a homeland of their own. 

THE PLOT

The story of the trial of Alfred Dreyfus — or the Dreyfus Affair — begins in the early 1800s with Napoleon. Napoleon ushered in the age of what became known as the Jewish Emancipation, in which the Jews were freed of restrictive laws and given the same rights and privileges as any other French citizen. Jews mainly responded to this equality in two ways: they either doubled-down on their traditional Jewish observance, further separating from mainstream society; or they assimilated, dropping most aspects of their Jewish identity to become fully mainstream Frenchmen and women. 

But there was one problem: in assimilating into French society, they refused to take up Christianity. So while the Jews thought that they had finally been accepted by mainstream society, their neighbors still resented them. This dynamic was repeated throughout Western Europe. 

In 1862 the Jewish writer Moses Hess wrote a book called Rome & Jerusalem, arguing that Europe would never fully welcome the Jews. In 1881, the German publicist William Marrcoined the term “anti-Semitism” to argue that Jews could never fully assimilate, and that they posed a threat to the racial purity of Germany. 

In Paris, in the fall of 1894, French counterintelligence agents discovered that military secrets had been leaked to Germany. Evidence was falsified to blame Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the only Jew at the General Staff Headquarters. A year later he was found guilty and stripped of his rank, with the crowd outside the trial yelling (according to Herzl, who was observing the trial), “Death to the Jews!”

Motivated by what he witnessed, Herzl published Der Judenstaat, or The Jewish State, in 1896, considered the groundbreaking book of the Zionist Movement.  He began traveling around Europe to promote his ideas about re-establishing the Jewish homeland in Eretz Yisrael — the Land of Israel.

Meanwhile, the sensation over Dreyfus’ guilt or innocence had become a proxy fight between the voices of tolerance and intolerance in France. The Dreyfusards were those who expounded his innocence and criticized French anti-Semitism, such as Marcel Proust, Emile Zola, Anatole France, and future political leaders. In 1898 Emile Zola published an open letter titled “J’Accuse!” (“I Accuse!”), warning that “this odious anti-Semitism will destroy freedom-loving France.” Zola forced the issue of anti-Semitism out into open debate.

Dreyfus wasn’t officially exonerated until 1906, when he went back on duty in the army. Wounded in an assassination attempt at Zola’s funeral in 1908, Dreyfus served during World War I, and died in 1935.

FUN FACTS

  • Theodore Herzl claimed that the one time he went to synagogue as an adult, he didn’t even know the words to the basic Shabbat blessings.

  • William Marr, who coined the term anti-Semitism, had four wives, three of whom were Jewish or half-Jewish. He later recanted his beliefs, blaming the Industrial Revolution, not the Jews, for the plight of Germany.

  • Herzl at first wasn’t particular about where the Jewish state would be located. He thought that Argentina would do nicely. But at the end of The Jewish State he insisted that “Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland,” and that “the Jews who will it shall achieve it.”

  • After his conviction, Dreyfus was sent to the infamous Devil’s Island prison off the coast of French Guiana in South America. The stone hut where he lived still exists today.

  • French Jews only numbered only around 100,000, out of a population of 40 million.

 

NAMES TO KNOW

  • Napoleon: Emperor of France in the early 1800s, he initiated the Jewish emancipation, ensuring that Jewish citizens of France enjoyed equal rights and freedoms.

  • Moses Hess: French Jewish writer and Zionist, wrote Rome & Jerusalem, an influential book arguing that the Jews would never be fully accepted in Europe and should look to re-establish their homeland in Palestine.

  • William Marr: German publicist who coined the term “anti-Semitism” in 1881. He argued that Jews and Germans were in a racial struggle for superiority in which the Jews were in danger of winning. He later renounced his arguments.

  • Alfred Dreyfus: French Jewish military officer falsely accused of espionage in 1894, whose conviction sensationalized France and led to much debate about the place of the Jews in French society.

  • Emile Zola: Non-Jewish French writer who took up the cause of Dreyfus, and whose forceful denunciations of anti-Semitism opened up that debate in France.

  • Theodore Herzl: secular Hungarian Jewish journalist, playwright, and author. Upon witnessing Dreyfus’ trial, he wrote The Jewish State in 1896, arguing that the Jews should seek political support to realize the Zionist dream.

KEY CONCEPTS TO KNOW

Beginning in the early 1800s under Napoleon, the Jewish emancipation meant that the Jews were treated as equal citizens under the law, enabling them to further assimilate and integrate into European society. Unlike their counterparts in Eastern Europe, Western European Jews thought they had finally conquered anti-Semitism and would be accepted by mainstream Europeans. But these neighbors weren’t quite as enamored of the Jews as the Jews thought. And so while Western Europe in the 1800s was an era of increased Jewish participation, achievement, and assimilation, it also saw the flourishing of new theories about the perils of Judaism. 

 

Although Jews thought that their embrace of modernity would end anti-Semitism, it actually had the effect of increasing it. The Jews were hated because of their assimilation, blamed for economic problems and invading and corrupting local culture and European society. Building on these concepts, William Marr posited a racial struggle between Jews and ordinary Germans, a war which he warned the Jews were winning. 

 

Theodore Herzl, having watched the impact of the Dreyfus Trial, developed his own brand of Zionism. He came to the same conclusions as other Zionists — that the only hope for Jewish life lay in re-establishing a Jewish homeland. But he took it a step further by promoting Zionism as a political solution, based on Jewish national identity, and one that the nations of the world would come together to support. So he combined political Jewish self-determination with the spiritual notion of returning to the Jewish homeland in Palestine, to form this root of Zionism in Western Europe. 

22. The Czar Is Dead

I want to tell you a unique story about the Jewish People and how we returned to Eretz Yisrael — the Land of Israel. Since the first century the Jewish People kept alive the idea of someday returning to their ancient homeland in order to live freely as Jews. After 1,800 years of galut (exile), in the historical blink of an eye, we suddenly found ourselves once again a sovereign people in our ancient homeland and with a modern nation state of our own making, and in our own image. But the movement to make that happen, called Zionism, began earlier, in the latter half of the 1800s. 

This season we’re going to explore the beginnings of modern day Israel, the Zionist Movement, and the key factors, people, choices, and events that led us to where we are today: with a Jewish State the size of New Jersey with 8.9 million people, that dominates in economics and science and diversity and headlines and, yes, global conflict.

Let us begin.

THE PLOT

In the 1800s, the Jews of Russia were kept in abject poverty and oppression in an area known as the Pale of Settlement, a strip of land running north-to-south from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. On March 13, 1881, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Czar Alexander II, a reformist czar who made small but welcome improvements to Jewish life, was assassinated by Russian revolutionaries. His heir, son Alexander III, was a notorious anti-Semite who reversed the gains made under his father to repress the Jews even further through a series of legislation known as the May Laws.

These events form the roots of the Zionist Movement, which is the national movement of the Jewish People to re-establish a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel. While many Jews left Russia during this era, those that stayed began to develop social action around the two thousand year old spiritual notion of the Jews returning to Israel; they began to see this ideal not as a fantasy, but as a tangible goal necessary for the survival of the Jewish People. 

Beginning in the 1870s, even before the assassination of the czar, small organizations began to form in the small villages inside the Pale of Settlement. They were known as Chovevei Zion — Lovers of Zion. They were not political clubs but rather social and cultural, organized around the ideas of Zionism. So they did things like teach Hebrew and Jewish history, and raise small funds to support fledgling agricultural settlements in Palestine. 

A leader for the Lovers of Zion soon emerged named Leon Pinsker. In 1882 he wrote a book, Auto Emancipation, in response to the persecution he witnessed in Russia. It was probably the most influential Zionist work before Herzl would begin publishing 14 years later. Pinsker’s main argument was that the Jews, lacking a nation of their own, had no “center of gravity” to provide national dignity. They would never be accepted into European society, so they had to establish their own independent national homeland. The effect of his book was to wake up the Jews of Eastern Europe to their profound vulnerability. Pinsker put Zionism on the map, and between 1884 and his death in 1891, he built an effective grassroots organization around these Zionist ideas, propelling the movement forward to the next stage. 

FUN FACTS

  • Jews, hated as they were by Czarist Russia, made up only 1/24th of the population.

  • Czar Alexander II sold Alaska to the United States for $7 million in 1867.

  • The oppression of the Jews of Russia was so great that in 1891 President Benjamin Harrison wrote in his State of the Union address to Congress that the United States had lodged a formal complaint to the czar. Presidents Chester Arthur (in 1882), Grover Cleveland (in 1895), and Teddy Roosevelt (in 1904) also spoke out against Jewish repression in Russia.

  • The Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah (“The Hope”), originated with the Chovevei Zion movement. It was written in 1877 by the Ukrainian Jew Naftali Herz Imber, and was back then known by the name Tikvateinu, which means “Our Hope”.

 

NAMES TO KNOW

Czar Alexander II (1818-1881): The reformist, yet autocratic, czar of Russia from 1855-1881, he instituted measures to improve the lives of Jews. He was assassinated in 1881, touching off a wave of repression against the Jewish community.

Czar Alexander III (1845-1894): son and successor to Alexander II, he responded to his father’s murder with a severe crackdown on civil liberties, especially targeting the Jews.

Leon Pinsker (1821-1891): a writer from the Ukraine, he penned the deeply influential Zionist book Auto-Emancipation, making him the first major Zionist leader, at least in Eastern Europe.

KEY CONCEPT TO KNOW

Anti-Semitism was official policy in Czarist Russia. While Jewish life in Europe went through ups and downs over the millennia, the Jews in Russia in the 1800s led extremely proscribed lives. They were kept in abject poverty and severely restricted in terms of property, jobs, travel, education, even clothing. They were totally at the mercy of the local princes and petty officials. Jews suffered under the pogrom — violent riots that frequently targeted Jewish business for destruction, and led to outright murder. 

 

In response to this persecution, Jewish communities formed independent clubs known as the Chovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion). These clubs formed the beginnings of the Zionist Movement in Eastern Europe, pursuing social and cultural activities to instill national pride and hope amongst the Jews, and dedicated to the idea of a return of the Jewish People to their ancient homeland in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel). They weren’t engaged in political activity but in small-scale efforts like teaching Hebrew and funding small agricultural communities in Palestine.

 

Leon’s Pinsker’s book Auto Emancipation, published in 1882, laid out some of the early arguments of Zionism. Because the non-Jewish majority hated and feared the Jews, they would never be accepted into society. In order to preserve their lives and live as Jews, they needed to establish their own homeland in their own territory. Zionism, then, was an effort to ensure the survival of the Jewish people by re-establishing their ancient national homeland.