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Israel
Cultural Zionism
The counterpoint to Herzl's political Zionism was provided by
Asher Ginsberg, better known by his pen name Ahad HaAm (One of
the People). Ahad HaAm, who was the son of a Hasidic rabbi, was
typical of the Russian maskalim. In 1886, at the age
of thirty, he moved to Odessa with the vague hope of modernizing
Judaism. His views on Zionism were rooted in the changing nature
of Jewish communal life in Eastern Europe. Ahad HaAm realized
that a new meaning to Jewish life would have to be found for the
younger generation of East European Jews who were revolting against
traditional Jewish practice. Whereas Jews in the West could participate
in and benefit from a secular culture, Jews in the East were oppressed.
While Herzl focused on the plight of Jews alone, Ahad HaAm was
also interested in the plight of Judaism, which could no longer
be contained within the limits of traditional religion.
Ahad HaAm's solution was cultural Zionism: the establishment
in Palestine of small settlements aimed at reviving the Jewish
spirit and culture in the modern world. In the cultural Zionist
vision, a small number of Jewish cadres well versed in Jewish
culture and speaking Hebrew would settle in Palestine. Ahad HaAm
believed that by settling in that ancient land, religious Jews
would replace their metaphysical attachment to the Holy Land with
a new Hebrew cultural renaissance. Palestine and the Hebrew language
were important not because of their religious significance but
because they had been an integral part of the Jewish people's
history and cultural heritage.
Inherent in the cultural Zionism espoused by Ahad HaAm was a
deep mistrust of the gentile world. Ahad HaAm rejected Herzl's
notion that the nations of the world would encourage Jews to move
and establish a Jewish state. He believed that only through Jewish
self-reliance and careful preparation would the Zionist enterprise
succeed. Although Ahad HaAm's concept of a vanguard cultural elite
establishing a foothold in Palestine was quixotic, his idea of
piecemeal settlement in Palestine and the establishment of a Zionist
infrastructure became an integral part of the Zionist movement.
The ascendancy of Ahad HaAm's cultural Zionism and its emphasis
on practical settlement in Eretz Yisrael climaxed at the Sixth
Zionist Congress in 1903. After an initial discussion of settlement
in the Sinai Peninsula, which was opposed by Egypt, Herzl came
to the congress apparently willing to consider, as a temporary
shelter, a British proposal for an autonomous Jewish entity in
East Africa. The Uganda Plan, as it was called, was vehemently
rejected by East European Zionists who, as before, insisted on
the ancient political identity with Palestine. Exhausted, Herzl
died of pneumonia in 1904, and from that time on the mantle of
Zionism was carried by the cultural Zionists led by Ahad HaAm
and his close colleague, Chaim Weizmann. They took over the WZO,
increased support for Hibbat Tziyyon, and sought Jewish settlement
in Palestine as a prerequisite to international support for a
Jewish state.
Data as of December 1988
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