The "Negation of the Diaspora" in Zionism

According to Eliezer Schweid, "shlilat ha'galut", or the rejection of life in the Diaspora, is a central assumption in all currents of Zionism. The concept encourages the dedication to Zionism's enterprise and it is used to justify the denial of the feasibility of Jewish emancipation in the Diaspora. Life in the Diaspora would either lead to discrimination and persecution or to national decadence and assimilation. A more moderate formulation says that the Jews as a people have no future without a "spiritual center" in the Land of Israel. [Schweid, p.133]

Before 1948

According to Schweid in the early twentieth century Yosef Haim Brenner and Micha Josef Berdyczewski advocated an extreme form. In his literary work Brenner describes Jews in the Pale of Settlement as poor, mentally, morally and spiritually disfigured, panicky, humiliated, disoriented, with no realistic view of life, depressed, despised, slovenly of dress, lacking taste, at the same time feeling inferior and feeling part of a Chosen People, unwilling to defend oneself against violence, and desperate. According to Schweid Brenner thought that despair was good, as it would leave only one option: Zionism. [Schweid, p.134-140] Yezekhel Kaufmann held a more scientific view. He saw Jews in the Diaspora as territorially assimilated, religiously segregated and in other matters semi-assimilated. Even the languages were often a mixture of Hebrew and the local language. Kaufmann viewed this life as flawed, misshapen, poor and restricted. After ghetto's were abolished assimilation became more probable. However assimilation was difficult because, though secularising, the European nations kept their Christian ethos. [Schweid, p.140-146]

According to Schweid Ahad Ha'am and A.D. Gordon held a more moderate view in that they still saw some positive traits or possibilities in life in the Diaspora. As he thought the creation of a homeland in Palestine would take several generations, Ahad Ha'am wanted to improve life in the Diaspora by creating a "spiritual center" in Palestine. This would give Jews more self-confidence and help them resist assimilation, which he saw as a deformation of ones personality and a moral failing with respect to ones family and people. Jews should have a feeling of historical continuity and organic belonging to a people. [Schweid, p.146-150] Gordon perceived nature as an organic unity. He preferred organic bonds in society, like those of family, community and nation, over "mechanical" bonds, like those of state, party and class. Since Jewish individuals were cut off from their nation, they were cut of from the experience of sanctity, and the existential bond with the infinite. In the Diaspora a Jew was cut of from direct contact with nature. Gordon wrote::" [W] e are a parasitic people. We have no roots in the soil, there is no ground beneath our feet. And we are parasites not only in an economic sense, but in spirit, in thought, in poetry, in literature, and in our virtues, our ideals, our higher human aspirations. Every alien movement sweeps us along, every wind in the world carries us. We in ourselves are almost non-existent, so of course we are nothing in the eyes of other people either" [Sternhell, p. 48]

The poet Bialik wrote::"And my hart weeps for my unhappy people ...":"How burned, how blasted must our portion be,":"If seed like this is withered in its soil. ..."According to Schweid Bialik meant that the "seed" was the potential of the Jewish people, which they preserved in the Diaspora, where it could only give rise to deformed results. However once conditions changed the "seed" could still give a plentiful harvest. . [Schweid, p.157] Schweid says the concept of the organic unity of the nation is the common denominator of Ahad Ha'am's , Gordon's and Bialik's views, which holds them from completely rejecting life in the Diaspora, still appreciating the remaining creativity. [Schweid, p.150-154]

Sternhell distinguishes two schools of thought in Zionism. One was the liberal or utilitarian school of Herzl and Nordau. Especially after the Dreyfus Affair they held that anti-Semitism would never disappear, and saw Zionism as a rational solution for Jewish individuals. The other school, prevalent among the Zionists in Palestine, saw Zionism as a project to rescue the Jewish nation and not as a project to rescue Jewish individuals. Zionism was as a matter of the "Rebirth of the Nation". In "Rebirth and Destiny of ISRAEL", a collection of speeches and assays by Ben-Gurion, he describes his horror after discovering, shortly after his arrival in Palestine in 1906, that a moshava, a private Jewish agricultural settlement, employed Arabs as guards: "Was it conceivable that here too we should be deep in Galuth (exile), hiring strangers to guard our property and protect our lives?" [Ben-Gurion, p. 14] The question of security, apart from the shame of Jewish inability to defend their lives and honor during pogroms, was not central to their thinking. For instance in 1940 Katznelson wrote about Polish Jews in areas conquered by the Soviet Union: " [They] are unable to fight even for a few days for small things like Hebrew schools. In my opinion that is a terrible tragedy, no less than the trampling of Jewry by Hitler's Jackboots." [Sternhell, p. 49-51]

According to Frankel some Zionists of the Second Aliyah, like Zerubavel, advocated a new Jewish mentality that would replace the old one. The old mentality, the Galut (exile) mentality, was one of passivity, of awaiting salvation from the Heavens. According to Zerubavel after the final defeat of Bar Kochba by the Romans began "the tragedy of our passivity". For him, to work the soil in Eretz Israel, to settle the country and to defend the settlements was a complete break with Exile and meant picking up the thread where it had been dropped after the defeat by the Romans. The Jew with the new mentality would fight to defend himself. According to David Ben-Gurion "to act as guard in Eretz Israel is the boldest and freest deed in Zionism." Zerubavel wrote that the remark by which a fallen guard, Yehezkel Ninasov, was remembered, revealed the image of being guard in all its glory. Ninasov had once said: "How is it that you are still alive and your animals are gone? Shame on you!". According to Yosef Haim Brenner " [the pioneers in Palestine are] a new type among the Jews". [J. Frankel, 'The Yizkor book of 1911', in 'Essential Papers on Zionsm', ed. By Reinharz & Shapira, 1996, ISBN 0-8147-7449-0, p.422-448]

In an address to the youth section of Mapai in 1944 Ben-Gurion said::"Exile is one with utter dependence - in material things, in politics and culture, in ethics and intellect, and they must be dependent who are an alien minority, who have no Homeland and are separated from their origins, from the soil and labor, from economic creativity. So we must become the captains of our fortunes, we must become independent - not only in politics and economy but in spirit, feeling and will." [Ben-Gurion, p. 137]

According to Sternhell the Zionist views underlying the negation of the Diaspora, e.g. the view of the Jews as a parasitic people, were often quite similar to the views underlying modern European anti-Semitism. [Sternhell, p. 49]

Hebrew revival

According to Itamar Even-Zohar in the late 19th century secular Jews in Eastern Europe conceived Jewish culture to be in a state of decline or even degeneration. The assimilationists among them were prepared to give up everything. The Zionists sought a return to the "purity" and "authenticity" of the existence of the "Hebrew nation in its land", a pastoral vision in line with the romantic stereotypes of that time. [I. Even-Zohar, 'The emergence of a Native Hebrew culture in Palestine, 1882-1948', in 'Essential Papers on Zionsm', ed. By Reinharz & Shapira, 1996, p.727-744, ISBN 0-8147-7449-0]

This vision manifested itself by counterposing "new Hebrew" to "old Diaspora Jew" in various ways. Even-Zohar mentions several: [I. Even-Zohar, 'The emergence of a Native Hebrew culture in Palestine, 1882-1948', in 'Essential Papers on Zionsm', ed. By Reinharz & Shapira, 1996, p.727-744, ISBN 0-8147-7449-0]
* the transition to physical labor, mainly agricultural or "working the land", as it was called,
* self-defense and the concomitant use of arms,
* the supplanting of the old, "contemptible" Diaspora language, Yiddish, with a new tongue, "authentic" Hebrew, adopting the Sephardi rather than the Ashkenazi pronunciation,
* discarding traditionally European dress and adopting other, Middle Eastern fashions, like the Bedouin-Circassian, and
* dropping East-European family names and adopting Hebrew ones instead.

After 1948

According to Schweid since about 1970 the idea of the negation of the Diaspora was removed from the basic premises guiding national education in Israel. One reason for this was the need of the state to "reconcile" itself with Jews in the Diaspora. Schweid advocates a reintroduction of the idea in education, along the lines of the more moderate views of Ahad Ha'am and A.D. Gordon. [Schweid, p.134-135]

According to an article in the Guardian in 2007 the Israeli government started a campaign in Germany to encourage Jews from the former Soviet Union in Germany to emigrate to Israel, in order, according to the decision of the Israeli Cabinet, to "counter the dangerous assimilation of former Soviet Jews in Germany". [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2218097,00.html 'Israeli migration agents target German Jews'] Kate Connolly, The Guardian, 28 November 2007.]

Footnotes

Bibliography

*Ben-Gurion, 1959, 'Rebirth and destiny of Israel', Thomas Yoseloff Ltd., London
*E. Schweid, 'Rejection of the Diaspora in Zionist Thought', in 'Essential Papers on Zionsm', ed. By Reinharz & Shapira, 1996, ISBN 0-8147-7449-0
*Z. Sternhell, 'The founding myths of Israel', 1998, p. 3-36, ISBN 0-691-01694-1