ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF ZIONISM: Vision and Reality — Reality and Vision ALVIN I, SCHIFF, PH.D. Irving Stone Distinguished Professor of Education, Yeshiva University and Chairman, American Advisory Council, Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education As the national liberation feature of Zionism comes to a close, it is time to turn to the historical. Judaic vision of Zionism. Each component—the Hebrew language, the Jewish religious tradition, and the land ofIsraeli-must become operative principles of Jewish life. Then Zionism can become a unifying factor, creating a sense of Jewish peoplehood with a common heritage and a common destiny. wo guiding principles serve as the frame Jews exiled to Babylonia. And, since that Tofreference for this article: (1) the vision time, Jews, young and old, would recite be­ and the reality of Zionism must be viewed as fore grace after their weekday meals: "By the an historic continuum, and (2) there always waters of Babylon, there we sat and cried has been and continues to be a mutual intrin­ when we remembered Zion" (Psalms 137:1). sic relationship between Jews in the Diaspora and Jews in Eretz Yisrael concerning the THE VISION OF ZIONISM vision of Zionism and its fulfdlment. AND MESSIANISM The term "Zionism" was first used in 1892 The vision of Zionism, expressed as the by Nathan Birnbaum at a meeting in Vienna coming of the Messiah, suffuses the entire (Laquer, 1972). Yet, the concept of Zionism Judaic tradition. It was this fervent belief that is another matter. The idea of Zionism is lightened the yoke of exile for generations. thirty-eight dmes older than the anniversary So strong was the messianicbelief that no less of the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Swit­ a rabbinic luminary than the Hatam Sofer at zerland. It is as old as the Jewish people, and even older. According to the first Rashi the beginning of the nineteenth century re­ commentary on the Pentateuch, the Zionist quired his students to study the legal portions vision was fashioned by the Almiglity at the of theTalmud applicable only inEretz Yisrael, time of the creation of the world when He such as the halakhot relating to yovel and declared that the land to be conquered by the shmitah and the regulations concerning Israelites rightfully belongs to them because korbanot that would become operative with the Creator of all the lands bequeathed Eretz the rebuilding of the Temple once the Mes­ Israel to the children of Israel (Genesis 1:1). siah arrived. While Jews lived physically in the Diaspora Jews throughout the ages prayed for the for two thousand years, emotionally and spiri­ day they would occupy this land as a nation. tually they resided in Eretz Yisrael. Twelfth- The hope of returning to their ancestral home­ century Judaii Halevi's poetic outcry captures land was first expressed 2,500 years ago by the profound vision of the Zionist tradition of two millennia when he proclaimed: "My •Presented at a Yom lyun on One Hundred Years of heart is in the East; but I am in the far end of Zionism: Vision and Reality, sponsored by the Council the West." And, as a good Zionist, Halevi of Jewish Education, the Board of Jewish Education of made aliyah to the Holy Land. Greater New York, The Departments of Education and Culture and Torah Education of the Joint Authority of To be sure, messianic fervor and biblical Jewish Zionist Education, JESNA and the Department belief in the Promised Land a Zionist do not of Education of the Jewish National Fund, February, make. What is needed is the combination of 1997. 187 Journal of Jewish Communal Service / 188 personal desire and actual involvement to historic homeland" (quotedin Shimon, 1996). make Shivat Zion a reality. The many exilic That unbroken connection is the historic Zi­ examples of belief coupled with willingness onist link. and personal participation in the redemption A dramatic story about Shmuel Yosef process "prove that [modern] Zionism had an Agnon expressed the power of the Zionist impressive genealogy in Jewish history and vision. During the ceremony when he was that it was but the awakening of an ever awardedthe Nobel Prize for literature, Agnon imminent national spirit acknowledged by was asked where he was born. His response Jews and Gentiles alike" (Sokolow, 1969). startled his listeners. "My parents gave birth According to a recent study of Zionist to me in P'chach, Galicia" he said, "but like ideology, the common denominator of mod­ all Jews, I was born in Jerusalem." After the ern Zionist visions comprises four major King of Sweden, who asked him the question, propositions (Shimon, 1996). expressed his amazement at his answer, Agnon explained: "Physically I was born in 1. Jews are a distinctive entity possessing Galicia, but my spiritual birth was in Israel. attributes associated with the modern con­ Were it not for the spirit of Jerusalem cept of nation, as well as attributes asso­ (Yirushalayim shel ma'alah) that pervaded ciated with religion. my home, I never would have studied Judaica, 2. The situation of the Jewish entity under I never would have mastered Hebrew, I never conditions of dispersion is critically de­ would have become a Hebrew writer, I never fective. would have made aliyah; and I would not be here to receive the Nobel Prize." Agnon's 3. The solution ranges from the ingathering response was the epitome of the fulfillment of and settlement of Jews in Eretz Yisrael a Zionist dream. under conditions of religious and cultural autonomy to the more radical aspiration The dual aspiration of Zionism is ex­ for a sovereign Jewish state and the gath­ pressed poignantly in the daily amidah, by ering therein of a major part of the Jewish (1) the prayers for the rebuilding of Jerusa­ people. lem and the speedy renewal of "the kingdom 4. The fulfillment of the visions involve of David," a clear reference to the Davidic Jewish self-help; the renewal of national Messiah, and (2) by the prayer for freedom self-respect, morale, and culture; settle­ from exilic oppression and persecution. For ment in Eretz Yisrael; and diplomatic the Jewish masses throughout the ages, the activity to facilitate such settlement. national purpose of the Jewish religion was reinforced by the reality of Jew-hatred and If we examine these criteria for defining persecution. modern Zionism we must conclude that Zion­ ist activity did take place over the centuries. MODERN ZIONIST PROPHECY Althougli the main strands of modern Zion­ AND REALITY ism are essentially secular, its historical ante­ After being elected as the first President of cedents were religiously rooted and the World Zionist Organization, at the first messianically motivated. Zionist Congress, Theodore Herzl, the mod­ Whether moved by religious fervor, con­ ern prophet of Zionism, wrote in his diary: "If cerned primarily with the alleviation of dis­ I were to sum up the Congress in a word, it tress, or driven by feelings of national pride, would be this: At Basel, I founded the Jewish the efforts to settie in Eretz Yisrael or to make State. If I said this aloud today, I would be it a homeland for Jews are Zionist activities. greeted by universal laughter. In five years, In Ben Gurion's words, the Jewish right to perhaps, and certainly in fifty, everyone will Eretz Yisrael "emanates from the unbroken see it" (quoted in Parzen, 1962). connection of the Hebrew nation with its Fifty-one years later, the prophecy is a SUMMER 1998 One Hundred Years of Zionism / 189 reality. But the father of the modern Jewish From Assimilation to Zionism state did not guarantee its welfare or its For Moses Hess, the Marxist Socialist Jewish character. The establishment of a ideologue who advocated assimilation and modern Jewish state by no means suggested later realized that "even conversion itself the fulfillment of all Zionist aspirations. The does not relieve the Jew from the enormous fledgling state had to be safeguarded against pressure of German Jew-hatred," increasing Arab terrorism and warfare. It had to be anti-Semitism resulted in a turn to a Zionist supported economically. It had to be made a soludon for the Jewish problem (Shimon, viable homeland for hundreds of thousands of 1996). Jewish immigrants. It had to develop a Another example of an assimilationist- distinct Jewish character and continue the turned-Zionist was Leon Pinsker, a devout Jewish people's national, cultural and He­ leader of a failed movement to russify Rus­ braic renaissance. Finally, it had to develop sian Jews. In his biting pamphlet. Auto the ability to disseminate Jewish culture and Emancipation, which appeared in 1882, he Jewish consciousness and reinforce the idea emphasized that Jews must emancipate them­ of Jewish peoplehood. selves from galut by becoming a nation like Preceding Herzl in the nineteenth century other nations, and by attaining a territory— were the ideological precursors of modern not necessarily Eretz Yisrael—to achieve Zionism. Their visions varied significantly, nationhood. but their solutions to the problems of Jewish Herzl was an assimilationist who literally exilic existence had one element in common: was shocked into becoming a Zionist. Were a physical space over which Jews ruled. Chief it not for his assignment to cover the Dreyfus among the precursors were two rabbis—a trial, who knows whether there would be a Balkan Sephardic Jew, Yehudah Alkalai, and Jewish state today. It could very well be that an East European talmudic scholar, Zvi the Jewish people would have had to continue Hirsch Kali scher, each of whom developed to exist in the post-Holocaust era as a nation plans and advocated for the physical, cul­ in exile.