The Roots of Zionist Ideology
Hey all, a while back I posted a brief paper on the roots of British interest in Palestine for my Origins of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, which didn't spark any discussion, (or rep, or thanks) but in that same spirit, I offer the following brief summary of the roots of Zionist ideology. It is far from complete, I especially would have liked to talk about the imperialist motivations of a colonizing project, and the contradiction inherent in Marxian Labor Zionism, but it's a 5 page paper, so I can't expect too much from myself. Of course, anyone reading this should keep in mind that what the early Zionists said means very little to what Zionism is today, since they formed their ideas independent of the reality that there were already people living in Palestine. Today's Zionism is much more influenced by that conflict than by the words of Herzl, Pinsker, Borochov etc.
Since I'm too too lazy for listing footnotes, let me say here that I used James Gelvin's The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War (New York: Cambridge UP, 2007) as a secondary source, and my primary sources are the following: "Auto-Emancipation: An Appeal to His People by a Russian Jew" by Leo Pinsker, "The Jewish State" by Theodor Herzl, "People and Labor" by Aaron David Gordon, and "The National Question and the Class Struggle" by Ber Borochov. All of these are found in Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg's The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1997). The poem "City of Slaughter" by Hayim Bialik is translated by Abraham M. Klein and found in The Complete Works of Hayim Nahman Bialik, ed. Israel Efros (New York: Histadruth Ivrith of America, 1948).
So here you have it:
Themes, Goals and Historical Narratives of Early Zionism
The assimilated Polish Jew Leo Pinsker, who was claimed after his death as one of the forerunners of Zionism, summed up the problems of any future Jewish nationalism when he wrote that the Jews “lack most of those attributes which are the hallmark of a nation. It lacks that characteristic national life which is inconceivable without a common language, common customs, and a common land” . It was the job of his followers to provide the basis on which a distinctly Jewish nationalism, or Zionism, was to be built. In the end, the early Zionist ideology may be seen as a standout case among the many nationalisms that were born in late nineteenth century Europe. It developed as both a reaction to, and a distorting mirror of, the anti-Semitism prevalent in the time and place where it emerged. Furthermore, like all fellow nationalisms, it aimed to create a sovereign nation-state with its own “characteristic national life”, based on the doctrine of land and labor from the socialism with which Zionism was infused early on.
Any coherent historical understanding of Zionism must begin by placing it in its historical context, and identifying it as just one of many nationalisms that nineteenth-century Europe gave birth to and caused the breakup of the pan-national empires – the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and invested the breakaway peoples with their own states. Historian James Gelvin writes, “That in a world of nation-states Jews would become nationalists was inevitable. That they would become Jewish nationalists was not” . He goes on to say that Zionism was partially a reaction to various European nationalisms that excluded Jews from their respective identities. The success of these other nationalisms was seen as indicative of the future success of the Zionist project as well. As Leo Pinsker writes, “The general history of the present day seems called to be our ally. In a few decades we have seen the rising into new life nations which, at an earlier time, would not have dared to dream of resurrection…” .
The peculiar character that Jewish nationalism took is partially attributable to the climate of anti-Semitic persecution to which Jews were subjected in the late nineteenth century. It was this persecution that inspired the founders of Zionism to look for solutions to “the Jewish question”. Pinsker moved toward Jewish nationalism as a result of the Russian pogroms of 1881 , and the man regarded as the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, did so as a result of the trial of the Jewish French army captain Albert Dreyfus on charges of spying for Prussia . Both men drew a similar conclusion from these events: it was impossible for Jews to assimilate whether in Russia, France, or anywhere in Europe. In the words of Herzl,
Thus the starting premise of Zionism was that Jews should not attempt to fit in with other nations where they lived, and should instead look to building their own nation. For Zionists, “…the fight against this hatred, like any fight against inherited predispositions, can only be in vain” (Pinsker). Anti-Semitism, in Herzl’s words, would “disappear everywhere” once the project of removing the Jews to a new land had begun: “For it is the conclusion of peace”.
From its beginning Zionism was a good fit for those Jews who sought an immediate solution to the problem of anti-Semitism. In its development as a reaction to persecution, however, Zionism began to assume many of the same assumptions and narratives about the people it sought to liberate as those who persecuted them. Pinsker characterized the Jewish people as a “parasites, who are a burden to the rest of the population, and can never secure their favor”. Similar ideas are found from the Ukrainian-born Hebrew poet Hayim Bialik, later the national poet of Israel. In his poem “City of Slaughter”, written in response to the Kishinev pogrom, Bialik writes:
Like Bialik, the early Zionists were preoccupied with the image of the Jew as nothing more than a pathetic victim of the anti-Semitic persecutions that cowered while watching as “the sacred bodies” of their wives and daughters were defiled. Bialik’s poem is representative of Zionism as a distorting mirror of the anti-Semitism that saw the Jews in their present state as “parasites”, “roaches”, and worse.
The project of nation building for the Jews was touched upon by the early Zionists Pinsker and Herzl, the latter of whom spoke of having the poorest, working-class Jews going to the new land first to “construct roads, bridges, railways… regulate rivers, and provide themselves with homesteads” and thus creating markets to attract new settlers. However, the task of nation building was elaborated on most fully by the socialist ideologists of Labor Zionism, which grew to be the most prevalent ideology within the Zionist movement in the twentieth century. Both utopian socialists and social-democratic Marxists were among the proponents of labor Zionism. Labor Zionism took as its cue the need for Jews themselves to work the new land, which had by their rise been settled on as Palestine. This doctrine found as its main proponent Aaron David Gordon, who himself adopted the life of a manual laborer in Palestine. In "People and Labor", Gordon writes,
For Gordon, physical labor was the redeemer of the Jews from their “imprisoned” life “within city walls”. It is worth noting that his image of Jews as non-laboring, and thus presumably emasculated, bears a certain resemblance to that of other Zionists like Bialik and Pinsker. Physical labor is what would give the Jews their own national existence. The Jews, he writes, “must ourselves do all the work, from the least strenuous, cleanest and most sophisticated, to the dirtiest and most difficult… then, and only then, shall we have a culture of our own, for then we shall have a life of our own”.
Similarly, Marxist socialists in the Labor Zionist movement stressed the importance of labor as the foundation of the Jewish national existence. It was key that this task should be taken on by the Jewish working class. Those who sought to reconcile Marxism and Zionism put forth that the Jewish proletariat should participate in the national project as a precondition for the class struggle against Jewish capitalists, and eventually for the creation of a Jewish socialist society. Ber Borochov, a founder of the Poale Zion movement, wrote:
Therefore, both utopian and Marxist strains of Labor Zionism sought to place Jewish workers as the foundation of the new, not necessarily socialist, Jewish nation. The participation of socialists, who in Palestine would seek the “conquest of labor”, was crucial to the success of Zionism in general.
Thus, a clear picture of the early Zionist movement has emerged. Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, starting from the premise that it was futile to attempt assimilation of the Jews into European nations, proposed an independent Jewish nation in Palestine. To do this, it cast itself as the redeemer of an emasculated Jewish people that would not act in its own defense. The dominant strain of Labor Zionism further put forth that the new Jewish nation would have to be founded upon manual labor that would engender a Jewish national life.
