"At the root of Zionism" wrote Israeli prominent
historian Shlomo Avineri, "lies a paradox. On the one habd, there is no
doubt about the depth and intensity of the link between the Jewish people and
the land of Israel: there has always been a Jewish community, albiet small,
living in the Land of Israel, and there has always ben a trickle of Jews coming
to live and die in the Holy Land; much more important is the fact that during
eighteen centuries of exile, the link to the Land of Israel figured always very
centrally in the value-system of the Jewish communities all over the world and
in their self-consciousness as a group". Otherwise sustained Avineri,
"Judaism would have become a mere religious community, loosing its ethnic
and national elements", adding that "Jews were considered by others –
and considered themselves – not only a minority, but a minority in exile".
This is on the one hand. "On the other" continued
Avineri, "the fact remains that for all of its emotional, cultural and
religious intensity, this link with the Land of Israel did not change the praxis
of Jewish life in the diaspora: Jews might pray three times a day for the
deliverance which would transform the world and transport them to Jerusalem –
but they did not imiigrate there; they could mourn the destruction of the
Temple […] but they did not move there". Hence "the paradox: on the hand
a deep feeling of attachment to the Land of Israel, becoming perhaps the most
distinctive feature of Jewish self-identity; on the other hand, a passive,
quietistic attitude towards any practical or operational consequences of this
commitment". The fact though is that Zionism emerged 'all of a sudden', and
only at the last third of the 19th century. Even more so: Zionism was
the outcome of emancipated Jews, Herzl for instance, and not a direct reaction
to Jewish persecutions, that were part and parcel of Jewish history long before
1897 or 1884 (the year Pinsker published his Auto-emancipation). This issue
is even more puzzling, as Avineri neatly put it: "from any conceivable
point of view, the 19th century was the best century Jews have ever
experienced, collectively and individually, since the destruction of the
temple; for with the French Revolution and Emancipation, Jews were allowed for
the first time into European society on an equal footing. Equality before the
law was allowed for the first time to Jews; schools, universities and the
professions were gradually opened to them. Hence the persistence of the
question – if so, why did Zionism emerge in the 19th century rather
than in the Dark Ages? For if you compare the beginning of the 19th
century to its end, then it goes without saying that the 19th
century was the most revolutionary century in history for the Jews – economically,
socially, politically".
For Avineri, as for many other scholars, 19th
century should be located between 1815 and 1914. Whereas "Jews in Europe
in 1815" pointed Avineri, were "still at the margin of gentile
society" (not 'only' in rural areas in east Europe but also in all big
cities of the west), in 1914 "the balance of Jewish life have shifted from
the periphery to the center of European society". The examples are numerous.
In 1815 "Jews are excluded, in accordance with Christian theology, from
positions of public service; they are not allowed into schools and
universities, cannot be public servants or served in the army, are barred from
most professions". In contrast, by 1914 "Jews are heavily
concentrated in the metropolises of Europe: Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Warsw […]
Jews are prominent in the intellectual life of those metropolises far above and
beyond their proportion: universities, academies, and schools draw larger and
larger numbers of Jews into their activities; journalism, literature, music,
science, painting, philosophy, psychology are areas in which Jews are salient
and prominent […] to write a European history of 1914 without pointing out to
the prominence of Jewish presence is impossible". In short, Jews "have
become the great beneficiaries of the Enlightenment, Emancipation and the
Industrial Revolution. And all of this in less than a hundred years".
Hence THE question: "if the 19th century
was so good to the Jews, why did it, for the first time, give rise to a
movement which attempted to uproot the Jews from the continents in which they
have resided", and lead them to the Land of Israel? In a word, also used
by Avineri, the answer was (and still is) Modernity. In more than a
word, Avineri continues and explains that "this opening up of non-Jewish
society before the Jews" is behind the creation of "a completely
novel set of dilemmas and problems for which the traditional framework of the kehillah
was wholly inadequate […]". At this point Avineri again pointed out
numerous instances of such "novel set of dilemmas", from kindergarten
to university, from religion to the working-place. They were not abstractions
but "problems of daily behavior, life-style, self-identity and self-respect
[…] a whole universe of problems to which traditional mores had no answer".
Avineri did not forget to shed
light also on the darker side of the moon of modernity: "the forces unleashed by the French
Revolution", included "nationalism" which made people "view
themselves as Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Poles, Hungarians", identities
which included also suspicion towards Jews (in Avineri's words: "would
German students really view Jewish collegues as a true descendents of Arminius
[…or] would a Jewish boy schoolmates truly view him as a descendant of the
ancient Gauls?"), an attitude to be transformed sooner than later to anti-Semitism.
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