Introduction to Zionism and Israel: From Ideology to History

With the conversion of Shabbatai Zevi in the seventeenth century, Jewish preoccupation with messianic calculation diminished. Many Jews became disillusioned with centuries of messianic anticipation and disappointment: the longing for the Messiah who would lead the Jewish people to the Holy Land and bring about the end of history seemed a distant hope. Instead eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Jewry hailed the breaking down of the ghetto walls and the elimination of social barriers between Jews and Christians. In this milieu the belief in the Kingdom of God inaugurated by the Messiah-king receded in importance. In this milieu there emerged a number of leading secularists who were preoccupied with the problem of antisemitism rather than messianic deliverance. Moses Hess, for example, argued that anti-Jewish sentiment is unavoidable. No reform of Judaism can eliminate Jew- hatred from Western society. According to Hess, the only solution to the Jewish problem is the creation of a Jewish state which will enable world Jewry to undergo a renaissance and serve as a spiritual centre for all of humanity. Similarly, Leo Pinsker contended that Judeophobia is an extricable part of Western society – the only remedy for antisemitism is for Jewry to reconstitute themselves as a separate people in their own land. Echoing such sentiments Theodor Herzl espoused the creation of a Jewish homeland and undertook political steps to bring about its realization. Among Jewish activists who joined this quest to deliver the Jewish nation from their wanderings was Ber Borochov who attempted to integrate Jewish nationalism with Marxist ideology. For Borochov, the national struggle will liberate Jewry from its dependence on non-Jewish economic structures and enable Jews to be integrated with the universal revolutionary movement. Another major thinker of this period was Vladimir Jabotinsky who stressed the importance of armed struggle in the quest for national autonomy. Although these various figures departed radically from traditional patterns of Jewish thought about Jewish redemption, like their religious and spiritual counterparts they foresaw the need for a Jewish state in contemporary society. Their desire for a return to Israel was a modern expression of a deep longing within the Jewish soul.