I was particularly interested in Armstrong’s discussion of
Zionism in chapter 16, “Revival”, which mainly focused on Hess, Graetz, and
Herzl. Given my own position as a post-Zionist Jew, I was somewhat disappointed
with the limited account of Zionism provided in that it does little to really
represent the diversity of ideas within Zionism as well as the challenges that
existed to Zionism within the Jewish community at the same time as the forms of Zionism
she presents. It seems like there is a tendency to assume that all Jews are
Zionists and a particular kind of Zionist on top of that. I don’t think this
reading did much to challenge this issue.
Within Zionism, there are multiple types of Zionism
including liberal Zionism, labor Zionism, nationalist Zionism, green Zionism,
and religious Zionism and more. In addition, there are neo-Zionists and
post-Zionists.
The reading mentions that Graetz did not advocate migration
to Palestine, but makes this sound mostly like it was an issue of the city
being “backward-looking.” There were a number of other Zionists who were not
interested in migration to Palestine as a way to “negate the Diaspora”
including Simon Rawidowicz.
A point that seems to be often overlooked is that not all
Jews were Zionists or are Zionists today. For example, many Haredi Orthodox
organizations are not Zionists in part because they see Zionism as secular, not
religious. At the conference of rabbis at Frankfurt am Main, July 15-28, 1845,
Reformed Jews deleted from the siddur all prayers for a return to Zion and a
restoration of a Jewish state. The same was done at the Philadelphia conference
in 1869. “The Pittsburgh conference, 1885, reiterated this Messianic idea of
reformed Judaism, expressing in a resolution that ‘we consider ourselves no
longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a
return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the
restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state’” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism).
Hertzberg, A. (1959). The
Zionist Idea. Garden City: New York.
Pianko, N. (2010). Zionism
and the Roads Not Taken: Rawidowicz: Kaplan, Kohn, Bloomington: Indiana.
Jennifer- I think your post is really interesting. Growing up I assumed all Jews were "pro-israel". However, living in Jerusalem for 6 months showed me that this was clearly not the case. I was really surprised to come across religious Jews that sided with Palestinians because they were waiting for the "mesiah" and thought that until then the Jewish people did not belong in the "holy land" . This makes it clear that Jews are not all in harmony with one another; I wonder what the future will bring and if a sense of cohesion will ever be achieved.
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting. Would you define Zionism as a sect or "denomination" of Judaism, or perhaps as more of a political idealism?
ReplyDeleteI would never define Zionism as a denomination of Judaism. Here is an interesting part of a speech that philosopher Judith Butler just gave on Thursday that seems to relate:
ReplyDelete"The second point, to repeat, is that the Jewish people extend beyond the state of Israel and the ideology of political Zionism. The two cannot be equated. Honestly, what can really be said about “the Jewish people” as a whole? Is it not a lamentable sterotype to make large generalizations about all Jews, and to presume they all share the same political commitments? They—or, rather, we—occupy a vast spectrum of political views, some of which are unconditionally supportive of the state of Israel, some of which are conditionally supportive, some are skeptical, some are exceedingly critical, and an increasing number, if we are to believe the polls in this country, are indifferent. In my view, we have to remain critical of anyone who posits a single norm that decides rights of entry into the social or cultural category determining as well who will be excluded. Most categories of identity are fraught with conflicts and ambiguities; the effort to suppress the complexity of the category of “Jewish” is thus a political move that seeks to yoke a cultural identity to a specific Zionist position. If the Jew who struggles for justice for Palestine is considered to be anti-Semitic, if any number of internationals who have joined thus struggle from various parts of the world are also considered anti-Semitic and if Palestinians seeking rights of political self-determination are so accused as well, then it would appear that no oppositional move that can take place without risking the accusation of anti-Semitism. That accusation becomes a way of discrediting a bid for self-determination, at which point we have to ask what political purpose the radical mis-use of that accusation has assumed in the stifling of a movement for political self-determination.
When Zionism becomes co-extensive with Jewishness, Jewishness is pitted against the diversity that defines democracy, and if I may say so, betrays one of the most important ethical dimensions of the diasporic Jewish tradition, namely, the obligation of co-habitation with those different from ourselves. Indeed, such a conflation denies the Jewish role in broad alliances in the historical struggle for social and political justice in unions, political demands for free speech, in socialist communities, in the resistance movement in World War II, in peace activism, the Civil Rights movement and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. It also demeans the important struggles in which Jews and Palestinians work together to stop the wall, to rebuild homes, to document indefinite detention, to oppose military harassment at the borders and to oppose the occupation and to imagine the plausible scenarios for the Palestinian right to return". (Butler, 2013)