Zionism's Greatest Conceit Essay

Meanwhile, Zionists had been organizing small but steady waves of immigration into Palestine as early as 1882. The new, Jewish settlements, dubbed the “new Yishuv”, grew in strength; though it initially faced serious financial setbacks, the new Yishuv had become a viable political community by the eve of World War I. Arab resentment toward the Zionists emerged due to economic and political concerns: the local Palestinian population were justifiably afraid that the Jewish population would monopolize trade or provide unwanted economic competition, while the Arab nationalists were anxious that Zionism not interfere with their own political aspirations.

In order to carry out the aims of Zionism, and build the Jewish national home, the Zionist movement made a set of practical steps to achieve their goal. They promoted large-scale immigration into Palestine, then took control of land and tried to force Jewish companies to only hire Jewish workers and lastly set up a Hebrew educational system. These steps created a national body in Palestine entirely separate from the already established Arab community. These steps influenced and voiced by the World Zionist Organisation has managed to separate the populations inside

A recent letter to the editor titled “speaking out against Israel cannot be conflated with ‘anti-Semitism’“ showed a lack of knowledge surrounding the movement of Zionism, as well as a misunderstanding of modern anti-Semitism. The author argues a few distinct points, being that supporting Zionism is a way of Jews to suppress the voice from people of color, that Jewish teachings and morality do not support Zionism, and that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is in the same lines and philosophy of white supremacists and Nazis.

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.

Again, many Jews responded positively to the direction provided by groups like the Hachshara - Polish Jews like Epstein Kozlowski explained how the Zionist cooperative had saved her from being “put at the mercy of international aid societies” who were widely perceived to be ineffective in establishing “long-term options” for Jewish displaced persons.

The story of the Jewish people is that of struggle and oppression. From the biblical accounts of slavery in Egypt, to the mass genocide perorated at the hands of the Nazi’s, the over arching facet of Jewish history is clear, that of crisis. Many time the Jewish community has sought to find answers to their problems of national identity.

The first reading was about the origins of Zionism, and it was a portion of Theodor Herzl’s pamphlet discussing the importance of and the benefits of establishing a Jewish state. Written in the late 19th century, it was clear from the pamphlet that anti-Semitism had been a problem in Europe for centuries, and this was Herzl’s solution to that problem. This is significant because it displayed the reasons behind Zionism and the Jewish population’s feelings about constantly facing discrimination in Europe.

This fact proves that all Jews should and will stand together to solve and work out the problems such as poor treatment and portrayal. Herzl emphasizes, “It is true that the Jewish State is conceived as a peculiarly modern structure on unspecified territory. But a State is formed, not by pieces of land, but rather by a number of men united under sovereign rule.” For example, the portrayal of Jews from a non-Zionist is much different from Zionists. “It is an egregious and fatal error of the Zionists that they accept the misery of Israel as permanent, his wretchedness as hopeless” (Berkowitz 372).

Zionism is a Jewish national and political movement that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel (the “Holy Land”). The movement was emerged in the end of the 19th century in Europe. Over time, different Zionism ideological movements was raised, but all of them considered Theodor Herzl as the founder of the Zionist movement. The ancient main goal of all the Zionist movements, as Herzl partly imposed in his book, “The Jewish State”, was to create the desired Jewish sovereignty in the state of Israel, ingathering of the exiles, and saw it as a solution of the anti-semitic discrimination and persecution that cured in the

Israel is both a Jewish and Democratic state. The skeleton of the state is that of a binary philosophy: a dual identity which on the one hand is a democracy and also a Jewish state. A democracy is a state which respects the inalienable rights, such as freedom of expression and suffrage, and intrinsic dignity of every human being. A Jewish state is a state with a core Jewish cultural and national identity, which respects equality of religion for all and is not theocratic. The foundational documents, the Declaration of Independence and Israel’s Basic Laws, are unambiguous and unrelenting on the centrality of these two traits, and without them, Israel would be stripped of its core identity.

After the proclamation of the Jewish state of Israel in the Palestinian territory on May 14, 1948 and the extensive territory gained by the Jews following Israel’s formation, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes, and their home country as the Jews continued to immigrate to their newly founded state. The introduction of the massive Jewish population into the Palestinian territory, in which Jewish peoples practiced their religion but assimilated to many Palestinian customs, created a secondary Palestinian culture, known to the outside world as the Israeli Culture. For the amount of cultural and religious practices these two territories have in common, the fighting that exists there today not only lacks empathy for the enemy side due to factors of education, government, and media outlets, but the conflict seems to be a never-ending cycle of violence breeding generations of hate and intolerance, rather than generations of peace and harmony. The different aspects of culture that these two countries embody have molded not only two distinct peoples, but also two distinct sides that have similarities but fail to see eye to eye.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Jews began to migrate to Palestine, aided by Jews who already lived there. The aid came in the form of help to acquire lands and businesses. Most of these businesses came from absent Palestinian land holders or businessmen. The Jews migrated in large droves as

Huntington’s thought parallels the observations of Mordecai Kaplan, a famous American Jew. In 1934, Kaplan wrote Judaism as a Civilization in which he described Jewish identity withering away among second generation Jewish immigrants in the United States as they were assimilated into American culture. Kaplan wrote this book fourteen years before the creation of Israel. I would argue that, contrary to Huntington’s opinion, the relatively recent addition Israel has revitalized the Jewish sense of common identity. Kaplan’s observations have become dated. With Israel as its core state, Judaism has a legitimate claim to civilization status.

On of the first Zionist movements (Zionist; meaning advocates of returning to Palestine) was Hoveve Zion (Lovers of Zion). The movement originated in Russia in the 1880s. It established several Zionist towns in Palestine. Eventually, in 1893 the World Zionist Organization was founded by a correspondent of a Viennese newspaper, Theodor Herzl. He published a pamphlet; known as “The Jewish State” in which he argued that “since Jews were a nationality without land, they must attain land in order to construct a nation state.”(Mitchell, 2001) At the congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897, the World Zionist Movement was established whose goal was to create a homeland for the Jewish people. Jews throughout the world donated 357 million in US dollars in its first year of existence. After unsuccessful attempts of negotiations with the Uganda and Argentine governments, they decided that the Jewish homeland would exist in Palestine.

In 1896 Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian-born Jew, penned a pamphlet entitled “The Jewish State,” in which he fathered a new ideology: Zionism. The Zionist ideology states that the Jews will continue to be persecuted unless a Jewish nation is established in the land of Palestine. Herzl’s analysis of the continuity of Jewish persecution eerily foreshadowed the Holocaust—the historic Nazi genocide of Jews, Gypsies, and other minorities that occurred four decades after “The Jewish State” was published. But even in the Holocaust’s immediate aftermath, the anti-Semitic atmosphere remained insufferable to many Jewish survivors. Intellectuals have argued that Zionists in the postwar period, paradoxically, did not have Holocaust survivors’ best interests in mind, instead treating them as pieces to their own imperialist puzzle. However, the state of anti-Semitism in postwar Europe was dire, and warranted Zionist intervention. Jews were maltreated in Displaced Persons (DP) camps reminiscent of, although not the same as, Nazi death camps. Herzl’s insight seemed to be right: Jews were liberated by the Allies just to again be dehumanized. Thus, the Zionist project in the wake of the Holocaust was of a particular mission, both urgent and emotionally charged: to bring Diaspora Jews to safety in the Jewish homeland. Objectors to this mission, however, overlook the severity and longevity of Diaspora anti-Semitism, which clouds their perception of postwar Zionism. The postwar Zionist movement,