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Israel
Index
The counterpoint to Herzl's political Zionism was provided by
Asher Ginsberg, better known by his pen name Ahad HaAm (One of the
People). Ahad HaAm, who was the son of a Hasidic rabbi, was typical
of the Russian maskalim. In 1886, at the age of thirty, he
moved to Odessa with the vague hope of modernizing Judaism. His
views on Zionism were rooted in the changing nature of Jewish
communal life in Eastern Europe. Ahad HaAm realized that a new
meaning to Jewish life would have to be found for the younger
generation of East European Jews who were revolting against
traditional Jewish practice. Whereas Jews in the West could
participate in and benefit from a secular culture, Jews in the East
were oppressed. While Herzl focused on the plight of Jews alone,
Ahad HaAm was also interested in the plight of Judaism, which could
no longer be contained within the limits of traditional religion.
Ahad HaAm's solution was cultural Zionism: the establishment in
Palestine of small settlements aimed at reviving the Jewish spirit
and culture in the modern world. In the cultural Zionist vision, a
small number of Jewish cadres well versed in Jewish culture and
speaking Hebrew would settle in Palestine. Ahad HaAm believed that
by settling in that ancient land, religious Jews would replace
their metaphysical attachment to the Holy Land with a new Hebrew
cultural renaissance. Palestine and the Hebrew language were
important not because of their religious significance but because
they had been an integral part of the Jewish people's history and
cultural heritage.
Inherent in the cultural Zionism espoused by Ahad HaAm was a
deep mistrust of the gentile world. Ahad HaAm rejected Herzl's
notion that the nations of the world would encourage Jews to move
and establish a Jewish state. He believed that only through Jewish
self-reliance and careful preparation would the Zionist enterprise
succeed. Although Ahad HaAm's concept of a vanguard cultural elite
establishing a foothold in Palestine was quixotic, his idea of
piecemeal settlement in Palestine and the establishment of a
Zionist infrastructure became an integral part of the Zionist
movement.
The ascendancy of Ahad HaAm's cultural Zionism and its emphasis
on practical settlement in Eretz Yisrael climaxed at the Sixth
Zionist Congress in 1903. After an initial discussion of settlement
in the Sinai Peninsula, which was opposed by Egypt, Herzl came to
the congress apparently willing to consider, as a temporary
shelter, a British proposal for an autonomous Jewish entity in East
Africa. The Uganda Plan, as it was called, was vehemently rejected
by East European Zionists who, as before, insisted on the ancient
political identity with Palestine. Exhausted, Herzl died of
pneumonia in 1904, and from that time on the mantle of Zionism was
carried by the cultural Zionists led by Ahad HaAm and his close
colleague, Chaim Weizmann. They took over the WZO, increased
support for Hibbat Tziyyon, and sought Jewish settlement in
Palestine as a prerequisite to international support for a Jewish
state.
Data as of December 1988
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