Zionism

Zionism 1) Jewish Messianic aspiration 2) Consequences of the pogroms of the late 19th c. 3) National movements – esp. Poland and Austro-Hungarian Emp. (1848)

Why Did Zionism Emerge? Antisemitism – racist theories in France & Germany Pogroms in Russia 1881/1882 and the Kishniev killings 1903 Dreyfus affair

Birth of Zionism 1880´s Hibbat Zion 1897 Basel Congress

Moses Hess Rome and Jerusalem, 1862 Herzl: „Everything we tried is already there in his book.“

Moses Hess „But even an act of conversion cannot relieve the Jew of the enormous pressure of German antisemitism. The Germans hate the religion of the Jews less than they hate their race – they hate the peculiar faith of the Jews less than their peculiar noses. Reform, conversion, education and emancipation – non of these open the gates of society to the German Jew; hence his desire to deny his racial origin.“ „We shall always remain strangers among the nations.“

Eastern Europe Russia, end of the 19th c.: more than 5 milion Jews (about 10 x as many as in Germany) Only about 200 000 permitted to live in towns outside of the Pale Biggest European communities in Warszaw and Odessa Leading center of haskala in Russia Relatively open and liberal new city

Hibbat (Hovevei) Zion Moshe Lev Lilienblum Odessa: integration does not lead anywhere The 1st organisation for Jewish settlement in Palestine „The opponents of nationalism see us as uncompromising nationalists, with a nationalist God and a nationalist Torah; the nationalists see us as cosmopolitans, whose homeland is wherever we happen to be well off. Religious Gentiles say that we are devoid of any faith, and the freethinkers among them say that we are Orthodox and believe in all kind of nonsense; the liberal say we are conservative and the conservatives call us liberals. Some bureaucrats and writers see us as the root of anarchy, insurection and revolt; and the anarchists say we are capitalists ...“

Hovevei Zion Leo Pinsker Physician, Odessa Autoemancipation, 1882 „Help yourself and G-d will help you.“ Judeophobia : disease – incurable, at least as long as its cause is not removed Sick nation: don´t feel the need for and independent national existence in the same way as a man affected by disease does not feel the desire for food and drink.

Hovevei Zion: Leo Pinsker „For the living, the Jew is a dead man; for the natives an alien and a vagrant; for property holders a beggar; for the poor an exploiter and a millionaire; for patriots a man without a country; for all classes, a hated rival.“

Hovevei Zion: Leo Pinsker Setting a National Directorate to buy land : expects mass emigration to Palestine 1882-1903 25 thousand settle in Palestine = FIRST ALIYA (ASCENT) PINSKER – president of Hibbat Zion LILIENBLUM – secretary of Hibbat Zion As secularists were opposed by the RABBIS Hibbat Zion: since 1884 main office in Odessa – main Zionist body in Russia untill WWI

BILU

Political Zionism

1897 The First Zionist Congress Theodor Herzl The Jewish State, 1896 Alteneuland, 1902 „The persecutions were social and economic. Jewish merchants were boycotted, Jewish workingmen starved out, Jewish professional men proscribed [...]. The blood libel was revived; and at the same time the Jews were accused of poisoning the press, as in the Middle Ages they had been accused of poisoning the wells. As workingmen the Jews were hated by their Christian fellows for undercutting the wage standards. As businessmen they were dubbed profiteers. Whether Jews were rich or poor or middle-class, they were hated just the same.“

1897 The First Zionist Congress Basel Est. WZO – effective political institution Herzl: 1st Zionist Bank Jewish National Fund – purchasing land