The History of Zionism

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The History of Zionism

• Ethnicity, Nationalism and the origins of Zionism

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Herzl After the first Congress
Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word
which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly,
it would be this At Basel, I founded the Jewish
State. If I said this out loud today, I would
be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in 5
years, certainly in 50 everyone will know
it Herzls Diary, 3 September 1897
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Zionism - Definition

• Zionism From the biblical word "Zion", often
  used as a synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of
  Israel (Eretz Yisrael).
• Encyclopedia Britannica A Jewish nationalist
  movement that has had as its goal the creation
  and support of a Jewish national state in
  Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews
• The Basel Program( program determined by the
  first Zionist Congress in Basel in August 1897)
  Zionism strive to create for the Jewish people a
  home in Palestine secured by public law.

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Two Fundamental Problems

• Are the Jews a Nation or a
• Religious/Cultural Group ?
• The Right of the Jews to the Land Do
• they have a right to establish a
• homeland in Palestine?

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Are The Jews a Nation Or a Religious/Cultural
Group?
Yom Kippur, 1878 Maurycy Gottlieb
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Nation and Nationalism

• Nation a named human population (The French
  People, British) possessing a myth of common
  descent, common historical memories, elements of
  shared culture, an association with particular
  territory and sense of solidarity.
• Nationalism An Ideology which requires
  political independence, self determination within
  the nation units own territory. It holds that
  political and national unit should be identical.
• ( Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of
  Nations G. Simony, The Zionist Ideology)

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Nationalism and Nations

• Primordial and perennial phenomena
• Modern and even an invented phenomena

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Nation and Nationalism

• I am driven to the conclusion that no
  scientific definition of nation can be devised
  yet the phenomenon has exited and exits. All that
  I can find to say is that a nation exists when a
  significant number of people in a community
  consider themselves to form a nation, or to
  behave as if they form one
• Hugh Seton-Watson

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Ethno-symbolic hypothesis Anthony Smith

• Ethnicity
• Ethnicism
• Nationalism

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Ethno-Symbolic hypothesis

• Ethnicity The mere presence of ethnic
  attributes such as consciousness of common origin
  (whether mythic or actual) religion and territory
  (or association with territory)

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Ethno-Symbolic hypothesis

• Ethnicism A state of mind, the conversion of
  such attributes of ethnicity into highly ranked
  attributes/values

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Ethno-Symbolic hypothesis

• Nationalism Aspires to political self
  determination for the ethnic group in its own land

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THE DECLARATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
STATE OF ISRAELMay 14, 1948
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The right to the land From THE DECLARATION OF
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

• "The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the
  Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious
  and political identity was shaped. Here they
  first attained to statehood, created cultural
  values of national and universal significance and
  gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
• After being forcibly exiled from their
  land, the people kept faith with it throughout
  their dispersion and never ceased to pray and
  hope for their return to it and for the
  restoration in it of their political freedom.
• Impelled by this historic and traditional
  attachment, Jews strove in every successive
  generation to re-establish themselves in their
  ancient homeland.

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Main Zionists ArgumentationsRegarding the Right
to the Land

• 1. The Land of Israel is the birthplace of
  the Jewish people. Here their
• spiritual, religious and National
  identity was shaped.
• 2. They were forcibly exiled from their
  country
• 3. Nevertheless while in exile they pray and
  did not lose faith and hope
• to return and to restore the sovereignty

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• 4. Despite all manner of restrictions, and
  persecution and insecurity, Jews continued to
  maintain some presence in Palestine and Jews as
  groups and Individuals never ceased to return.
• 5. Since the destruction of the Jewish
  Commonwealth by Rome
• it became a backward province of successive
  empires, but never
• been an indigenous statehood and until the
  20 century the Jews were the only people who
  regarded Palestine as their homeland

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The Divine Promise

• And the lord appeared unto Abram and said unto
  him. I am God AlmightyI will established my
  covenant between me and thee and thy seed after
  thee throughout the generations for the
  everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and
  thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee
  and to thy seed after theethe land of Canaan for
  the everlasting holding and I will be their God
  (Gen 171 7,8)

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Israels Ancient History From Kingdom to
Destruction and Exile

• The First Temple built
• 1000 BC Isreals tribes became a monarchy
  (According to the bible Kings Saul, David and
  Salomon). First Temple built
• 925 BC Partition of ancient Israel into the
  Kingdoms of Judah and Israel
• 722 BC - Assyrians invaded northern kingdom The
  end of the Kingdom of Israel. Part of the
  population was deported to the eastern frontier
  of Assyrian. many people fled south to Judah who
  became much more populated

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• 587 BCE Judah fell to the Babylonians, Temple
  destroyed, Main Babylonian exile begins. Large
  part of the population of Judah (the upper and
  the middle class was deported) to Babylon. Part
  of the Jewish population fled to Egypt, Syria,
  Mesopotamia the beginning of the Jewish
  Diaspora
• 537 BCE After the overthrow of Babylonia by the
  Persian Empire, in the Persian ruler Cyrus the
  Great gave the Jews a permission to return to
  their native land. A post exiled Jewish community
  was established in Judah comprised of 125,000 to
  130,000 souls
• 516 BCE Second temple built

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Second Temple

• 331 BCE - Defeat of The Persian Empire by
  Alexander the Great. Judah part of the new empire
• 323 BCE Death of Alexander. The division of the
  empire between Alexanders generals
• 174-163 BCE Judah part of the Seleucid Empire
  (established by Seleucus, one of the Generals)
• attempts to impose the Greek culture
  (Hellenization) on the Jews instead of Judaism

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The Borders of the Hasmonean Kingdom

• 168-142 BCE The Maccabee Rebellion (Hanukkah
  Festival)
• 140-37 BCE - Hasmonean Kingdom

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• 63 BCE - The Roman Empire enforced its rule on
  Judah made it a Roman province
• 66-73 CE- Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire.
  The destruction of the Second Temple. It is
  estimated that over 100,000 Jews were killed, and
  nearly 100,000 were taken to Rome as slaves. Many
  Jews fled to countries around the Mediterranean
• 132-135 - the Bar-Kochba revolt began led by
  Simon bar Kokhba . 135 the revolt was crushed.
  The end of Jewish Sovereignty.

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• The Roman Suppress any remnants of Jewish
  Sovereignty changing the name of the whole
  country to Palestine. From now on it will be
  referred by all its future rulers as part of
  Syria, called Syria-Palestine. (After Philistines
  mentioned In the Bible, the area inhabited by
  them was known as Pleshet, in cities along the
  coast (Gaza Ashkelon Ashdod)
• (330640 CE) - Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire)
  rule
• (6381099 CE) - Arab (Islamic) Caliphate rule

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Hope of Redemption In the Land of Israel

• By the Rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,
  yea, we wept when we remembered Zion,
• If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand
  forget its skill Let my tongue stick to the roof
  of my mouth if I don't remember you, if I don't
  prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy".

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The Messiah

• "The anointed King is destined to stand up
  and restore the Davidic Kingdom to its antiquity,
  to the first sovereignty. He will build the
  Temple in Jerusalem and gather the strayed ones
  of Israel together
• "??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ??? ?? ??
  ???????, ?? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?????."
• "I believe with full faith in the coming of the
  Messiah. And even though he tarries, with all
  that, I await his arrival with every day"

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Jewish Wedding
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Symbols of the Zionist Movementand the State of
Israel

• Theodore Herzl
• The visionary of the
• Jewish state

The MenorahAncient Seven-Armed Candelabrum
The Flag of Israel
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The Menorah Ancient Seven-Armed Candelabrum
The Menorah on a Hasmonean coin from the
1st century BC

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The Menorah on the Arch of Titus, Rome About
70 AD
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Language

• The revival of the Hebrew Language
• The prefix re,
• rebuilding,
• renewing,

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The Tallit and the Flag
A man wearing a prayer shawl
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Festival of Weeks
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Emancipation

• But, they say to me, the Jews have their
  own judges and laws. I respond that is your fault
  and you should not allow it. We must refuse
  everything to the Jews as a nation and accord
  everything to Jews as individuals. We must
  withdraw recognition from their judges they
  should only have our judges. We must refuse legal
  protection to the maintenance of the so-called
  laws of their Judaic organization they should
  not be allowed to form in the state either a
  political body or an order. They must be citizens
  individually. But, some will say to me, they do
  not want to be citizens. Well then! If they do
  not want to be citizens, they should say so, and
  then, we should banish them. It is repugnant to
  have in the state an association of non-citizens,
  and a nation within the nation. . . . In short,
  Sirs, the presumed status of every man resident
  in a country is to be a citizen.
• ClermontTonnerre, "Speech on Religious
  Minorities and Questionable Professions" (The
  French National Assembly 23 December 1789)

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• Responses to European Emancipation

ASSIMILATION
REFORM
TRADITION
Christian-Converts
German-Jews
Modern Orthodox
Ultra- Orthodox

Haskallah
Reform Judaism Conservative Judaism
Western Haskalah
Eastern Haskalah
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The Ultra-Orthodox attitude
The Exile is the punishment of god. It will end
by a miracle redemption and the coming of the
messiah. He will come if people will continue to
pray and to observe Jewish laws and tradition
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Haskalah ( Sekhel), learnedness scholarliness,
enlightenment

• Mskilim- enlightened, learned, scholarly
• Haskalah movement advocated adopting
  enlightenment values, pressing for better
  integration into European society, and increasing
  education in secular studies
• and Jewish studies in a modern way

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Precursors of Zionism

• A person who expressed ideas that precede in time
  the emergence of social movement
• aroused by much the same ideas

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Common denominator of the Zionist Ideology 4
propositions

• Definition of the Jews as social entity
• (ethnic group)
• Diagnosis of the perceived problematic
• situation of the Jews
• Advocacy of a solution
• proposals of means for attaining this solution