We have already discussed What is not Zionism? and also what Zionism is not (not the same thing, exactly). We have not considered the question “What is Zionism?” A. B. Yehoshua claims that Zionism is not an ideology (see: What is not Zionism?) I am not sure it makes a difference, but Zionism, it seems to me, is almost certainly an ideology. Here is a dictionary definition of “ideology” the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.

This is a re- post from Israel News: What is Zionism Thank You Ami !

How could Zionism not fit the above definition? How could Zionism not be an ideology?

A. B. Yehoshua never defines Zionism, but he tells us:

“Zionism hoped for one thing and promised one thing: to establish a state for the Jews.”

Many might agree with the above statement, but it is untrue as we saw. The Jewish State, though it was the title of a fanciful utopia by Theodor Herzl, did not become a goal of any stream of Zionism until the Biltmore Conference of 1942. The idea created quite a stir in 1942, because it was novel and revolutionary, but it was not a promise or a central goal of Zionism. Arab anti-Zionists want to abolish the Jewish state, but Zionism should not define itself according to the program of its opponents. Jewish anti-Zionists were opposed to Zionism before there was a state of Israel, for quite different reasons.

Here is a definition of Zionism:

“Every people has the right to live in freedom and develop its own culture, language and society. Jews are people like any other people. The Jewish people is a people like any other. We, the Jewish people, have the right to self-determination in our own national home, where we can speak our own language and develop our own culture. Those are the basic ideas of Zionism.

If Zionism is made up of ideas, it probably is an ideology. The above definition captures the key ideas of the Zionist ideology, which was formed many years before the idea of a state was given formal voice:

The Jews are a people, a nation, and not primarily a religion. The Jews are like any other nation, for better or worse.

The “Jewish problem” results from the dispersal of the Jews among other nations. Jews were guests everywhere and at home nowhere,

After the first Zionist congress, Theodor Herzl, wrote secretly in his diary, “Today I founded the Jewish State,” but few people were aware of this aspiration. The state was an almost accidental byproduct of the perception that Jews are a people.

A people requires a national home. This right is granted to Jews just as it is granted to all other peoples. The Jews are not special or chosen, and our right to a state does not depend on good behavior.

The idea that Jews are a separate people was strenuously resisted by many Jews, and in particular by German and American Reform Jews, who declared that the Jews are not a people before the rise of Zionism.

Zionism gained acceptance among Jews because of anti-Semitism. But Zionism did not arise as an answer to anti-Semitism. Rather it arose as a solution to the problems created by the rise of nationalism and secular society. The closed communities of rabbinical Judaism had no future in a secular world. Forced to choose between the religion and the education and way of life required for success in modern society, the Jews of Russia, Germany and later the USA would inevitably choose modern society, and would assimilate in droves if only they could.

But other than the words “am Yisrael” – nation of Israel – and a shared, tragic destiny, Judaism had almost no national content. After the fall of the temple, the Talmud, and later the Shulkhan Aruch, had carefully removed almost all national content from Jewish life. Jewish law regulated every aspect of life except those aspects normally regulated by law: criminal law, state law, army service, taxes, because the Jewish people was politically powerless and did not rule itself. In every-day life, the Hebrew language was voluntarily abandoned in favor of different jargons. The holiday of Hanukka, a holiday of national liberation, was carefully converted into a holiday celebrating a religious miracle. How many people know that the coins of Hanukka commemorate the independent coinage of the Maccabees, symbol of national self-determination?

The important aspect of the first Zionist congress was not any particular resolution of the congress, but the fact that it happened and had a continuation. The Jews had a future as a political force, a people, and not just as a religion. Zionism could not be realized until Jewish peoplehood, in all its aspects, became a fact. A shared religion and a shared history of persecution were not enough. To realize Zionism, there would have to be Jewish workers, Jewish farmers, Jewish soldiers, Jewish politicians and even Jewish crooks, all doing their business in a Jewish national language in a Jewish state. All of these exist, to some extent, today, and all are the creation of Zionism.

The goal of Zionism is to revitalize the Jewish people, not simply to create a state, as A.B. Yehoshua thinks. The state of Israel is only a political framework that enables the physical and political survival of the Jewish people. The state came into being and defended itself against almost insuperable odds because Zionism was fundamentally correct: The Jews are a people and had the potential to be a people. It follows that the work of Zionism is ongoing and did not conclude with the foundation of the state.The W.Z.O. (World Zionist Organization) has an important function, though a rabbi wrote:

The 35th Zionist Congress is going to take place in Jerusalem, June 19th–June 22nd, 2006. Does it really matter a jot? Not one bit.

Doubtless, the rabbi was expressing the feelings of many when hr wrote the above. He continued:

In 1948 when the State of Israel was founded and a democratically elected government was installed, the full panoply of bureaucratic departments came into being. You would have thought that the Jewish Agency, the Zionist Organisation (now re-named The World Zionist Organization), would quietly disappear. Why wouldn’t the State take over their functions?

Formally, it would not be possible for the state of Israel to take over all those functions, since the various organizations would need to register as agents of a a foreign power in each country. A state takeover would also have defeated the entire purpose of these organizations. Zionism arose as a world political movement of the Jewish People. If Rabbi Rosen or his congregation decide they are not part of the Jewish people, there is nothing that any Israeli can do to change their minds. Zionist feeling among Diaspora Jews can be supported by Israel, but it has to come from the Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

The WZO (World Zionist Organization) is frequently characterized as moribund (see here and here for example). This is probably true, but it is disastrous for the Zionist cause. Perhaps nobody will support the WZO because of the incorrect belief that the work of Zionism was completed with the foundation of the state. Diaspora Jews think it is a task for the Israeli government. The Israelis don’t care, because they also think Zionism has finished its function. In reality, the work of Zionism only began with the creation of the state. National transformation will not happen of itself if we are passive. Israelis cannot just sit back and enjoy the ride and neither can Diaspora Jews.

It follows that the mere act of settlement in this or that place in Israel is not Zionism. My great grandfather settled in east Jerusalem in 1880. He came to pray in Jerusalem because his rabbi told him to do so. He was not a Zionist and that was not Zionism. My great grandfather had transported the ghetto to Jerusalem. He even dressed in a fur hat, inappropriate for the local climate, like an eastern European Jew. Anyone can understand that that is not Zionism. Zionism is about transforming a people as much as it is about settling the land. If this transformation does not continue, if Israel is not a Zionist society, the state will fail, because there will be no Jewish people, no matter how much real estate we conquer or settle.

An Israeli is a Jew on the way to becoming a different sort of Jew. The difference between A.B. Yehoshua and his fellow Jews in the Diaspora is not as great as he seems to think. It is not an “ethical” difference as he tells us. Paying taxes and voting for a Jewish government are only incidental aspects of the national transformation. Almost every Jew who is here in Israel was at one time in the Diaspora, or is descended from Diaspora Jews.

Ami Isseroff

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