Zionism and Non Zionists Essays

Reflect on several ways in which the contemporary nation state of Israel may be viewed by various Christian communities.

Moreover, In 1897 Theodore Herzl, the first Zionist Congress, gave the Jewish people the right to a national rebirth in their country. In document 1 it is stated, "...the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National home." For that reason, the Jewish people must have Israel back, and the Palestinians must give it

When asking someone there first thought about Israel, each person will have their own version of what they believe that it is. One might say that it is the land of the Jews, while others say that it is Jesus Christ’s birthplace. The excerpts from My Promised Land by Ari Shavit capture the true essence of what Israel really is.

Before anyone can comprehend the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one must understand the theory of Zionism. Theodor Herzl was the first Jew to have the idea of creating Israel. He was a witness of the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish officer was accused of treason, solely because he was Jewish. Herzl also witnessed mobs of people shouting “Death to the Jews”. This was the last straw for Herzl. Herzl decided that there needed to be a change so he made it one of his life goals to create a successful movement in which Jews founded a Jewish state. One of his main arguments was that discrimination against Jews could be eliminated if they had their own Jewish State, and so modern Zionism was formed. The idea of modern Zionism is so pertinent to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because much of the reason for Israel becoming a Jewish state is behind the fact that Jews were perpetrated throughout the years before Zionism even came into play of the situation.

Labeled “Zionism,” this movement advocated for the return of Jews to Palestine, and that Jews constitute one nation and should have a state of their own. This was not met with wholehearted support, however. Both Jews and non-Jews disputed the need for, and right to exist, of the Jewish state. Jews that clung to more traditional values emphasized that the Zionists did not speak for all Jews, and that many do not wish for such a state to exist. Additionally, non-Jews disliked the particularity of the Zionist movement, viewing it as holding Jews as separate, and more significant, than other peoples.

In 1948, the Zionist movement realized its goal of creating a national home for the Jewish people by founding the State of Israel. Zionists had been working toward this goal for decades, but only won decisive international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust, a catastrophe that supported the Zionist argument that the Jewish people would only be safe in their own state, where they could live as they chose and defend their culture. Indeed, the Holocaust was the single most important factor in the creation of Israel, in large part because the international community was shocked by the scale of the Holocaust and felt responsible for aiding the Zionist project.

As one would imagine there are differing opinions of whether we should be concentrating on Ethnic Israel or the Church. This paper will attempt to view the research as a unified

Dr. Leon Pinsker was a Zionist pioneer and activist. His views over time changed based on his experiences. At first, he believed that Jews can assimilate and be part of a nation if equal rights were granted. He believed the Jews were one people, but not one nation. He said, “They home everywhere, but are nowhere a home... The Jews are not a nation because they lack a certain distinctive national character, inherent to all other nations, which is formed by common residence in a single state.”

The beginning of the 1960’s for American Jewry showed no difference in motivation than the previous decade. The choices made over the next two decades accurately convey a path for the emergence of two types of Jews in America. In a New York Times article written in 1962, Rabbi Rosenblum expresses his concern for Jews during this time. He says, “What we Jews wants is what others desire, just to be let alone to enjoy life liberty, and happiness along with our neighbors.” It marked a point of realization that if Jews uniformly wanted to assimilate without conflict, this could be achieved. The question however still remained whether this could be done while also retaining a Jewish identity. If the choices of the fifties did not offer much foresight into this question, the decisions of the sixties and seventies solidify this concern when “American Jews saw the sixties open with a promise of

Zionism and Hassidism are two entirely responses to one of the greatest questions in Jewish thought; how are the Jews to rule themselves without a sovereign? The immensity of this pondering has birthed many movements, though Zionism and Hassidism were both particularly successful at capturing the imagination and allegiance of many. While Hassidism adopts a highly spiritual outlook on exile, redemption and the return to Zion, Zionism supports a territorial and political approach to the question of Jewish sovereignty. Hassidism tackles the issue of sovereignty through the embracement of seclusion, anti-modernity and spirituality, while Zionism embodies a much more politicized, nationalized and modernistic approach: while Hassidism takes great lengths to essentially freeze Jewish history, Zionism adapts its ideologies to the surrounding, contemporary world.

A common adage is that the pen is mightier than the sword. The amount of power that a pen truly holds can be observed by viewing the influence writing has had on the formation of the Jewish state of Israel. Before there was a Jewish state, around the time of 1,300 BCE there was a Jewish nation that rose up in response to Moses’ leadership and contribution of the Torah. Over 3,000 years later, Theodor Herzl’s pamphlet “The Jewish State” sparked the nationalist movement of Zionism that eventually led to the formation of the state of Israel. The immense impact written works can have on the development of nations and eventually states is exhibited through the influence of Moses’ writing of the Torah and Herzl’s creation of “The Jewish State” on

Considering this “It is also not unusual that one community should be the majority within a nation and seek to maintain that status” (Mitchell) the status of the pure Jewish society because “The Jewish people are a nation with a shared origin, religion, culture, language, and history”.( Mitchell). Meaning each individual Jewish person is held close by the community and the society that they live in. In other words the Israel should be a state itself with the addition of Palestine because of the Jewish society and the people Jewish that need to maintain the status of having a Jewish state.

In the years just after World War II, Zionism (the desire to rebuild a Jewish national presence in the Promised Land) became a popular Jewish cause all around the world. Many Jews who were not practicing Judaism at all with religion became involved with the establishment of the State of Israel. Even today, many years after the successful founding of the State of Israel, there are Jews whose only real tie to Judaism is their belief in Zionism and their support for the State of Israel. They are joined by many Jews who are members of synagogues and support a modern Jewish religious movement, but who also find their prime identity as Jews in the Zionist cause.

Religion is a vital part of daily life in every Middle Eastern country, informing the ways in which most ordinary citizens understand politics as well as their own place in the world. Today, the political left in Israel views the Israel state more as a protector of the Jewish community than as a strictly religious state. On the right, Zionism is broadly viewed as an effort to realize God’s intention that the Jewish people establish a Kingdom of God in that specific land. Today, Judaism

The end of the 19th century brought with it the rise of Arab nationalism and Zionism, which called for the existence of a permanent Jewish State. Herzl’s 1896 manifesto “The Jewish State”, popularized the idea of Isaac’s promised land and influenced the Jewish peoples of Eastern Europe and Russia to proclaim Israel their own. The Jewish people took their first steps