A revisionist account of Zionist history, challenging the inevitability of a one-state solution, from a bold, path-breaking young scholar The Jewish nation-state has often been thought of as ...Zionism's end goal. In this bracing history of the idea of the Jewish state in modern Zionism, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century until the establishment of the state of Israel, Dmitry Shumsky challenges this deeply rooted assumption. In doing so, he complicates the narrative of the Zionist quest for full sovereignty, provocatively showing how and why the leaders of the prestate Zionist movement imagined, articulated, and promoted theories of self-determination in Palestine either as part of a multinational Ottoman state (1882-1917), or in the framework of multinational democracy. In particular, Shumsky focuses on the writings and policies of five key Zionist leaders from the Habsburg and Russian empires in central and eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-Leon Pinsker, Theodor Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and David Ben-Gurion-to offer a very pointed critique of Zionist historiography.
Antisemitism has returned as a major issue across the Western world. But while concern about antisemitism is growing, agreement on what constitutes antisemitism is shrinking. Nowadays, charges of ...antisemitism are hotly disputed, often accompanied by accusations of bad faith, particularly when they concern criticisms of Israel or anti-Zionism. This article contends that one reason why antisemitism has become increasingly contested is because there are different ways of thinking about antisemitism and identifying it. We examine four common and contrasting approaches to identifying antisemitism, highlighting the challenges each presents when it comes to identifying antisemitism in practice. Since these alternative approaches yield different answers about whether something is antisemitic or not, disagreement and debate over allegations of antisemitism is unavoidable. Hence, we conclude by offering suggestions for how antisemitism claims should be addressed in a way that minimizes conflict and promotes greater awareness about the various ways that antisemitism can operate.
The present study traces the role of veteran Jewish Communist editor Paul Novick, editor of the Morning Freiheit, in CPUSA discussions about Zionism, Israel, the Soviet Union, and anti-Semitism up ...until the June 1967 Middle East war. It assesses the deterioration of Novick's status in the CPUSA and the development of conflicts culminating in his expulsion in 1973.
In several lectures and essays in the 1950s and 1960s, Leo Strauss offered a succinct critique of Zionism: that despite its ostensible rejection of religious authority, political Zionism would ...ultimately slide into religious Zionism, which would in turn negate the aims of Zionism itself. In this essay, I argue that this analysis is not only surprisingly prescient but is much more central to Strauss's mature thought than generally recognized. In this, I agree with scholars who have suggested that Strauss's engagement with Zionism as a young man in Germany in the 1920s was formative for the development of his mature accounts of both politics and Judaism. Yet in contrast to existing scholarship, I argue that Strauss grew increasingly critical of Zionism as he concluded that the Zionist rejection of religious authority amounted ultimately to a rejection of morality. In this, Zionism reflected in the most blatant form the failure endemic to modern politics. I suggest that this point provides the hinge between Strauss's early Zionism, his mature critique of modern politics, and his account of Judaism's political power. The force of the critique also, counterintuitively, helps explain Strauss's lifelong attachment to Zionism. Strauss, I argue, remained committed to Zionism not despite but because it was destined to fail. I suggest that Strauss's analysis remains provocative and relevant, particularly for those who might disagree with his conclusions.
In July 1950, Moroccan Rabbi Yahya Ben Harosh wrote a letter to his students chastising those exposed to ultraOrthodox anti-Zionist influences for disparaging and denigrating Zionist leaders and the ...founders of the State of Israel. This article discusses the historical background to the letter, including the ideological foundation of the rabbi's vigorous protest: from his position regarding the messianic concept to the religious affirmation of Zionism as a national-liberation movement. As such, Ben Harosh's stimulating letter is not an isolated episode but a reflection of the longstanding religious and ideological antecedents of Zionism, dating back to the 16
th
century, which contained the main elements of the would-be Zionist endeavour. So much so that it is arguable that the 16
th
century set in motion a fundamental process worthy of being the departure point of Zionist historiography.
Top World Guild Award Winner This book is about an idea—namely, that Scripture mandates a Jewish return to the historical region of Palestine—which in turn morphed into a political movement, rallied ...around a popular slogan ("A country without a nation for a nation without a country"), and eventually contributed to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. A Short History of Christian Zionism
This article examines the last utopian novel of early Zionist thought and literature. The utopia Jerusalem Rebuilt was written after the First World War and published in the mid-1920s by Boris ...Schatz. This work combined artistic utopian vision and Jewish nationalism, and it reflected the early Zionist vision at the turn of the twentieth century. This article discusses Schatz's work against the backdrop of Zionist utopian literature that was written between the 1880 s and the end of the First World War. The article suggests that a careful reading of early utopian Zionist literature points to the clear connection between the revolutionary Zionist vision and pre-modern Jewish cultural heritage. Despite the revolutionary character of Zionism, the early utopian literature points to the evolutionary and cultural dimensions of Jewish nationalism.
