What Was Zionism? Reconstructing a Maligned Idea
This course of study examines the idea of Zionism from its ancient sources to the establishment of the State of Israel and its aftermath. We begin with the promise and purpose of the Jews as a people rooted in a land yet forced into exile. Although it never lay fully dormant, the importance of Jewish nationhood reclaims the attention of Jews and others in the 19th century, as life in exile becomes an existential threat. How to defuse that threat emerges as the key question of Zionism. Is the rise of modern nationalism a providential answer? Is the nation-state a political answer? Is a renaissance of Hebraic spirit a cultural answer? What does it mean to reawaken as a nation after centuries of political slumber? Is there any other answer to the Jewish question?
The essays, memoirs, action programs, and philosophical reflections, which are selected for this course of study, reveal how some of the main and most intellectually vital thinkers of Zionism until 1948 answered and debated the questions above. They provide a portrait of what the idea of Zionism was, is, and may yet be.
This reader was developed by Dr. Josh Tolle.