1011 Hezron (Person) 1012 Hezron (Person) Tsiyyon (“Lovers of Zion”), and they later formed a large part of the membership of the new Zionist 1. Third Son of Reuben organization created by Theodor Herzl in 1897. Their reevaluation of the importance of the Bible ˆ σρων Hezron (MT Ḥ eṣron; LXX Α ) is the name of two made itself felt particularly in two fields which later individuals in the Bible. One is the third son of became major focuses of Zionist politics – territory Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn (Gen 46 : 9; Exod 6 : 14; and language. 1 Chr 5 : 3). He is the eponymous ancestor of the The rise of Hibbat Zion took place against the Hezronites (Num 26 : 6). In 1 Chr 4 : 1, two of the background of a profound social and cultural crisis sons listed as sons of Reuben in Gen 46 : 9 (Hezron among the Jewish population in the Russian em- and Carmi) are listed instead as sons of Judah, per- pire, Romania, and Habsburg Galicia. Jewish na- haps suggesting that their clans may have been as- tionalism constituted a third avenue of Jewish re- similated into the tribe of Judah. sponse to modernity, which combined aspects of two earlier movements, Jewish enlightenment (Has- 2. Son of Perez kalah) and Jewish orthodoxy, and which joined to- Hezron is also the name of one of two sons of Perez gether members of both groups (Bartal). In the late and, thus, a grandson of Judah and Judah’s daugh- Russian empire, where the Odessa branch of Hibbat ter-in-law, Tamar, who came together in an un- Zion, officially sanctioned only in 1890, was titled usual sexual union (Gen 38 : 29; 46 : 12). The Juda- “Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Ar- hite family line of Hezron included several tisans in Syria and Palestine,” the fragile alliance important biblical figures: his son Caleb (the faith- between freethinkers and traditionalists in the Hib- ful Israelite spy in Num 13 : 30; 14 : 22–24; see 1 Chr bat Zion movement was stabilized by external pres- 2 : 18–24), King David (1 Chr 2 : 10–15; Ruth 4 : 18– sure. Hibbat Zion thus included heterogeneous 19), and Jesus (Matt 1 : 3; Luke 3 : 33). groups of Jews from a variety of social and ideologi- Dennis T. Olson cal backgrounds, and their attitudes towards the Bi- ble varied according to their world-view. One of the founding documents of Hibbat Zion Hezron (Place) was Leo Pinsker’s (1821–1891) manifesto “Auto- Hezron (MT Ḥ eṣroˆ n; LXX Ασωρων) was the name of emancipation! Ein Mahnruf an seine Stammesge- a border station or village located between Kadesh- nossen von einem russischen Juden” (“Auto-eman- barnea and Addar which marked the southern cipation: A Warning to his Fellow People, from a boundary of the land allotted to the tribe of Judah Russian Jew,” 1882). To Pinsker it was obvious that (Josh 15 : 3). A parallel description of Judah’s south- antisemitism was a non-curable disease. He there- ern boundary in Num 34 : 4 lists instead “Hazar- fore urged western Jewry to come to the aid of their addar” which may represent a mistaken assimila- eastern brothers and sisters, while at the same time tion of Hazar and Addar in Josh 15 : 3. Hezron he invoked the ethos of self-help and “auto-emanci- should not be confused with another southern Ju- pation.” His proposed solution was a form of Jew- dahite town, Kiriath-Hezron (Hazor). ish sovereignty, preferably on a kind of national ter- Dennis T. Olson ritory. Even if Ottoman Palestine – at least for Pin- sker – was not the only possible place for a future Hezronite Jewish body politic, the majority of Ḥovevei Tsiyyon preferred it to any other territory. For the Ḥovevei The Hezronites (MT Ḥeṣrônî; LXX Ασρωνι) are listed Tsiyyon who had a traditionally observant back- as a clan of the Israelite tribe of Reuben in the cen- ground, the longing for Zion was a familiar con- sus list in Num 26 : 6. Further down in the same cept. The majority of the observant Jewish popula- census list, another clan of Hezronites is listed tion of Eastern Europe never embraced political among the clans of the tribe of Judah as descend- Zionism, because they understood it – correctly – ants of Perez, the son of Judah who himself had as a secular political movement. two sons (Hezron and Hamul – Num 26 : 21). While the Orthodox members of Hibbat Zion Dennis T. Olson did not disengage themselves from the central reli- See also /Hamul, Hamulites; /Hezron (Person) gious meaning of the Torah and the life of mitswot and biblical norms, the non-observant members saw the biblical scriptures as the national literature Hibbat Zion of the Jewish people, and as its holiest treasure. Pin- sker put it this way: Hibbat Zion (Ḥibbat Tsiyyon, lit. “Love of Zion”) was We are in need of nothing except a large enough por- a movement, founded in 1881, that promoted Jew- tion of land for our poor brethren, which remains ours ish settlement in Palestine and secular Jewish na- and from which nobody can evict us. To this place we tionalism. The members called themselves Ḥovevei will bring the holiest of our treasures saved from the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Brought to you by | Universitaetsbibliothek Basel © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Authenticated Download Date | 7/10/18 1:56 PM 1013 Hick, John 1014 shipwreck of our ancient fatherland: the idea of God Revolution (Berkeley, Calif./Los Angeles, Calif. 1993). ■ Luz, and the Bible. For these are the things which made our E., Parallels Meet: Religion and Nationalism in the Early Zionist ancient fatherland the Holy Land, not Jerusalem or the Movement (1882–1904) (Philadelphia, Pa. 1988); trans. of id., Jordan. (Schoeps: 54) Maqbilim nifgashim: dat u-leumiyut ba-tenuah ha-Tsiyonit be- The conflict between Orthodoxy and secularism Mizraḥ-Eropah be-reshitah (1882–1904) (Tel Aviv 1985). ■ Vi- ■ was also felt in the new agricultural settlements in tal, D., The Origins of Zionism (Oxford 1975). Vital, D., Zi- onism: The Formative Years (Oxford 1982). ■ Zipperstein, Palestine. Orthodox Jews wanted to keep the settle- S. J., Elusive Prophet (Berkley, Calif. 1993). ments in Palestine subsidized by Hibbat Zion under Alexis Hofmeister the influence of traditional Judaism, while secular Ḥovevei Tsiyyon dreamed of transforming Jewish so- ciety through the landscape and soil of the Holy Hick, John Land. An example for the resulting conflict was the Educated in the UK at Edinburgh, Oxford, West- controversy over the question of whether the fields minster Theological College, and Cambridge, the should lie fallow in the seventh (shemitah) year as British philosopher of religion John Hick (1922– required by biblical and talmudic law. 2012), who taught in the US at Cornell, Princeton, The reevaluation of Jewish heritage in the Hib- and Claremont, and in the UK at Cambridge and bat Zion movement also led to the introduction of Birmingham, is credited by some with having Hebrew as a spoken language. The practice of read- helped to revivify his field in the latter half of the ing the Holy Scriptures independently of their 20th century. Converting to a Christian fundamen- function in traditional Jewish liturgy and religion talist outlook in his late teens, Hick later aban- signaled a radical break with the rabbinic tradition, doned his youthful evangelicalism and was trained but in general, Hibbat Zion’s use of biblical Hebrew in the analytic tradition of philosophy. He is best was not aimed at creating a substitute for the Bible, known for his advocacy of an Irenaean theodicy but rather at its renaissance. Biblical names, allu- (Hick [1981] 1990a; [1966] 2007), and of religious sions and metaphors were put into new contexts. pluralism as a philosophical means of reconciling For example, names of Hibbat Zion groups echoed “the conflicting truth claims of different religions” the Bible while emphasizing new nationalistic (Hick 1990b: 109). Throughout his development as meanings. In 1882 groups of Jewish students from a thinker, the Bible remained for him a crucial Khar’kiv who wanted to emigrate to Palestine gath- touchstone as “a medium of revelation”; as the ered under the name “Bilu,” an acronym for “O place where the religious truths revealed first House of Jacob, come, let us walk” (Isa 2 : 5). Other through the prophets, and later through Jesus and societies for the Jewish settlement of Palestine his apostles, “are authoritatively written down”; called themselves “Ezra” and “Nehemiah.” Simi- and hence as “not a merely human, and therefore larly, when Asher Ginzberg (1856–1927) chose the fallible, book” (Hick 1990b: 56, 57). pen-name Aḥad Ha-Am (lit. “one of the people”) While a young law student at University Col- he played with the different layers of its meaning lege, Hull, Hick “underwent a powerful evangelical from biblical times (Zipperstein: 61). conversion under the impact of the New Testament Ginzberg wrote a major essay on Moses as a pro- figure of Jesus” (Hick 2002: 33; cf. 1993: 139). This phet (Aḥad Ha-Am 1912), while one of his proté- experience, together with his association with the gés, Joseph Klausner (1874–1954), later wrote a bi- evangelical campus organization, led him to accept ography of Jesus. Another outstanding proponent unquestioningly “the entire fundamentalist theo- of the reevaluation of once sacred texts in the guise logical package – the verbal inspiration of the Bible; of national literature was H ayyim Naḥman Bialik creation and fall; Jesus as God the Son incarnate, (1873–1934; Bialik: 55–59). All three are telling ex- born of a virgin, conscious of his divine nature; amples of the new perspectives on the Bible fos- [etc.]” (Hick 2002: 34; cf.