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Between ethnic and civic: the realistic Utopia of Zionism

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13537121.2011.603521

1743-9086

Yitzḥak Conforti,

Soviet and Russian History

Abstract This article addresses two basic issues of the Zionist vision: 1. Was the Jewish state planned as an ethnic or civic state? 2. What was the character of the Zionist vision? Was it a holistic utopian vision, or a minimalist vision for creating a Jewish national state? This research concludes that the state of Israel, which developed from a nationalist ethnic-cultural movement, integrated within it ethnic values as well as Western civic values. The founders of the central wing of the movement all aspired to create a Jewish national state that upheld these values. Furthermore, the planning of the Zionist Utopia by the central group of the Zionist leadership was usually realistic and minimalist, not holistic. This position enabled the leadership to strike a balance between vision and reality, and to address the historical circumstances on the path toward establishment of the state. Keywords: ZionismUtopiaethnic, civic, nationalismIsraelTheodor HerzlAhad Ha'amChaim WeizmannZe'ev JabotinskyDavid Ben-Gurion Notes 1. For the use of the term ‘realistic utopia’, see Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Realistic Utopias: The Ideal Imaginary Societies of the Renaissance 1516–1630 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982); John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2002), 3–128, esp. 11–23. Rawls writes: ‘Political philosophy is realistically utopian when it extends what are ordinarily thought of as the limits of practical political possibility. Our hope for the future of our society rests on the belief that the nature of the social world allows reasonably just constitutional democratic societies existing as members of the Society of Peoples’ (p. 6). Yosef Gorny uses this term with regard to Zionist political thought during the British Mandate period in Palestine. See his “Thoughts on Zionism as a Utopian Ideology,” Modern Judaism 18, no. 3 (1998): 241–51. 2. Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 207. 3. See: Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia, ed. Avrham Shapira (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1983), 15–95 [in Hebrew]. 4. Theodor Herzl, Altneuland – Old New Land, trans. P. Arnold (Haifa: Haifa Publishing House, 1960), 115; Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000–1887 (Cleveland; World Publishing Company, 1946 [1888]); Theodor Hertzka, Freiland – Ein soziales Zukunftsblind (Dresden-Lieipzig: E. Pierson, 1892). For more on Theodor Hertzka, see Robert S. Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 426; William M. Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, 1848–1938 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 356–61. According to Alex Bein, it was Moritz Gidman, chief rabbi of Vienna, who brought this utopia to the attention of Theodor Herzl. When Herzl met with him in August 1895 to show him his plan for the establishment of a Jewish state, Herzl thought that in contrast to Hertzka's utopia of establishing a free country in Africa, Zionism could be implemented: ‘My plan is to use the motivating power found in nature. What is this power? The Jewish problem'. Like steam power, so will the Jewish problem serve as the motivating power to move the wheels of Herzl's plan. See Alex Bein, Herzl – Biography (Tel Aviv: M. Neumann, 1960), 117–18 [in Hebrew]. 5. Rachel Elboim-Dror, Yesterday's Tomorrow, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben Zvi, 1993) [in Hebrew]; Yosef Gorny, Policy and Imagination: Federal Ideas in the Zionist Political Thought 1917–1948 (Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben Zvi, 1993) [in Hebrew]. 6. Hans Kohn drew a distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism. See Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in its Origins and Background (New York: Colliner Books, 1967), 329–34. See also George Schopflin, “Ethnic and Civic Nationalism (Hans Kohn's Typology),” in Encyclopedia of Nationalism, ed. Athena S. Leoussi (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 60–61. 7. Elboim-Dror, Yesterday's Tomorrow I; Peretz Sandler, Visions of a State: Zionist Utopias Collection (Tel Aviv: M. Neumann, 1954) [in Hebrew]. 8. Chaim Gans, A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 9. In this article, I will not discuss the visions of the peripheral Zionist movements, both left and right, such as Brit Ha-Biryonim (Alliance of Bullies), the Lehi, and the ‘Sulam Group’, which aspired to establish the Israelite kingdom. On the other side stood the Brit Shalom (Peace Association) and Hashomer Hatzair, which wanted to create a bi-national state, or the ‘Canaanites’ who aimed at a secular civil state, completely disconnected from Diaspora Jews. These fascinating movements must be discussed in a separate article. 10. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: an Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. Louis Wirth (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1936), 173. See also Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, ed. George H. Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 173, 272. 11. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, 173–236. See the analysis of Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, 273–84. 12. Eliav-Feldon, Realistic Utopias, 130; Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, 190–97. Mannheim writes: ‘The fact that modern socialism often dates its origins from the time of Anabaptist is in part evidence that the movement led by Thomas Münzer is to be regarded as a step in the direction of modern revolutionary movements’ (p. 190). See also Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 1979), 181–202. 13. 13 Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, 165–68. 14. Gorny, “Thoughts on Zionism as a Utopian Ideology,” 248. 15. Gorny, “Thoughts on Zionism as a Utopian Ideology,”, 243–4. 16. Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966). 17. Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge and Paul, 1969), 64–7. 18. Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (London: Routledge, 1944); Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies; Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in History of Ideas, ed. Henry Hardy (London: Murray, 1990); Jacob L. Talmon, Utopianism and Politics (London: Conservative Political Centre, 1957); Eugene Zamiatin, We (New York: Dutton, 1952); George Orwell, 1984 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich-New American Library, 1949); and Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (New York: Bantam, 1953 [1934]). 19. Gorny argued that utopianism in Zionism was reduced from the national level to the workers' level and the kibbutz movement. See Yosef Gorny, “Thoughts on the Utopian Foundations of Zionist Philosophy,” Hatziyonut Measef 9 (1984): 45–54, esp. 49 [in Hebrew]. But in his article “Utopian Realism in Zionism,” he expands the characterization to include additional Zionist groups. See Sparks: Historical, Philosophical, and Social Aspects of Education, ed. Rena Shapira and Aryeh Kasher (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1991) [in Hebrew]. 20. Meir Chazan, Moderation: The Moderate View in Hapo'el Hatzair, 1905–1945 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2009) [in Hebrew]. 21. In The Poverty of Historicism, Popper harshly criticized Mannheim's approach. 22. Martin Buber, the utopian Zionist socialist, noted with deep satisfaction the relative success of the kibbutz utopia. See Buber, Paths in Utopia, 145–56; and Yosef Gorny, The Unity of Labor, 1919–1930: Ideological Principles and Political System (Ramat Gan: Ha-kibbutz Hameuchad and Tel Aviv University, 1973), 66–113 [in Hebrew]. 23. Gorny, Policy and Imagination, 80–104, 126–9, 166–74, 170–90, 216–30. 24. Yitzhak Conforti, “East and West in Jewish Nationalism: Conflicting Types in the Zionist Vision?,” Nation and Nationalism 16, no. 2 (April 2010): 201–19. 25. Shulamit Laskov, “The Controversy over Altneuland,” Hatsiyonut, Me'asef 15 (1990): 35–53 [in Hebrew]. 26. Elchanan Leib Lewinsky, A Journey to the Land of Israel in the Year 2040 (Berlin: Klal, 1922), 58 [in Hebrew]. 27. Lewinsky, A Journey to the Land of Israel, 48–50. 28. Lea Hadomi, “The Utopian Novel and the Zionist Utopia,” Bikoret U-Parshanut 13–14 (1979): 167 [in Hebrew]; Elboim-Dror, Yesterday's Tomorrow. 29. Ahad Ha'am, Collected Works, 3rd ed. (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: Dvir, 1953), 319. 30. Herzl, Altneuland, 62. 31. Smuel Almog, The Jewish Point: Jews as Seen by Themselves and by Others (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim Publishing House, 2002), 28. 32. Herzl, Altneuland, 38. 33. Herzl, Altneuland, 184. 34. Elboim-Dror, Yesterday's Tomorrow, I, 166–71. 35. Alex A. Bein, ed., Motzkin Book (Jerusalem: Ha-ahala Ha-tziyonit, 1929), 74–5 [in Hebrew]. 36. Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1949), 121–35; Arthur Ruppin, My Life and Work, trans. A.D. Shaphir, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1968), 44–8 [in Hebrew]; Mordechai Eliav, David Wolfson: The Man and his Time – The Zionist Movement 1905–1914 (Jerusalem: Hasifria hatziyonit, 1977), 108–16. 37. Israel Bartal, Cossack and Bedouin: Land and People in Jewish Nationalism (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2007), 152–69 [in Hebrew]. 38. David Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, vol. I (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1970), 70 [in Hebrew]. 39. Zeev Jabotinski, “The Jewish Nation” (unpublished manuscript, Jabotinsky Institute a1 3/6, 1918), 98–9. See also Gorny, Policy and Imagination, 14. 40. Joseph Heller, The Struggle for the State: Zionist Politics, 1936–1948 (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1984), 44 [in Hebrew]; Gorny, Policy and Imagination, 76; and Joseph Heller, “Ben Gurion, Weizmann and Jabotinsky on the Arab Question: A Comparison,” in The Age of Zionism, ed. Anita Shapira, Jehuda Reinhartz, and Jay Harris (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2000), 203–40 [in Hebrew]. 41. Chaim Weizmann, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, ed. Barnet Litvinoff, vol. I, series B (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1983), 201. 42. Chaim Weizmann, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, ed. Barnet Litvinoff, vol. I, series B (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1983), 220. 43. Gorny, Policy and Imagination, 22 44. Weizmann, The Letters and Papers (vol. I, series B), 334. 45. Weizmann, The Letters and Papers (vol. I, series B), 366–9. 46. Chaim Weizmann, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, ed. Barnet Litvinoff, vol. 14, series A (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1978), 206. 47. Chaim Weizmann, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, ed. Barnet Litvinoff, vol. 14, series A (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1978), 206. 48. Chaim Weizmann, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, ed. Barnet Litvinoff, vol. 14, series A (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1978), 208. 49. Samuel Tolkowsky, Zionist Political Diary (London 1915–1919); On the Making of the Balfour Declaration, ed. Dvorah Barzilay-Yegar (Jerusalem: Hasifria hatziyonit, 1981), 219–20, 228–36 [in Hebrew]. 50. Samuel Tolkowsky, Zionist Political Diary (London 1915–1919); On the Making of the Balfour Declaration, ed. Dvorah Barzilay-Yegar (Jerusalem: Hasifria hatziyonit, 1981), 211. 51. Yosef Gorny, The Arab Question and the Jewish Problem (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1986), 320–22 [in Hebrew]. 52. Ronald W. Zweig, Britain and Palestine During the Second World War (London: Boydell Press, 1986), 89–115. 53. Chaim Weizmann, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, ed. Barnet Litvinoff, vol. 19, series A (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1979), 24–7, 34–5. 54. Chaim Weizmann, “Palestine's Role in the Solution of the Jewish Problem,” Foreign Affairs 20, no. 2 (1942): 324–38. 55. Jabotinski, The Jewish Nation, 122. 56. Jabotinski, The Jewish Nation, 73–4. 57. Shilo Hetis-Rolf, “Jabotinky's Parity Proposals of 1922,” Zion 36, no. 3–4 (1971): 222–6 [in Hebrew]. 58. ‘Millet’ (Turkish, literally meaning ‘nation’), a system of rule for ethnic minority groups in the Ottoman Empire through their own religious hierarchies. 59. Zionist Central Archive S25/2073. Cited from Hetis-Rolf, “Jabotinsky's Parity Proposals of 1922,” 224. 60. Gorny, Policy and Imagination, 21–4. 61. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Road to Zionist Revisionism, ed. Joseph Nedava (Tel Aviv: Jabotinsky Institute, 1984), 106–12, 115–19 [in Hebrew]. 62. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Road to Zionist Revisionism, ed. Joseph Nedava (Tel Aviv: Jabotinsky Institute, 1984), 111. 63. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Road to Zionist Revisionism, ed. Joseph Nedava (Tel Aviv: Jabotinsky Institute, 1984), 106. A literary portrait of the ‘Iron Wall’ idea was made by Jabotinsky in his Biblical novel Samson, trans. Cyrus Brooks (New York: Judaea Publishers, 1986). 64. Yoni Aviv, “Abba Ahimeir and the Maximalist Revisionism in the Revisionist Movement,” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 2008), 115–46 [in Hebrew]. 65. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Jewish War Front (London: Allen and Unwin, 1940), 216–20. 66. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Jewish War Front (London: Allen and Unwin, 1940), 215. 67. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Jewish War Front (London: Allen and Unwin, 1940), 220–24. 68. David Ben-Gurion, “Toward the Future,” From Class to Nation (Tel Aviv: Ayanot, 1955 [1915]), 15 [in Hebrew]. 69. David Ben-Gurion, “Toward the Future,” From Class to Nation (Tel Aviv: Ayanot, 1955 [1915]), 22. 70. David Ben-Gurion, “Toward the Future,” From Class to Nation (Tel Aviv: Ayanot, 1955 [1915]), “Giving Land,” 22 (1915). 71. David Ben-Gurion, “Toward the Future,” From Class to Nation (Tel Aviv: Ayanot, 1955 [1915]), “With England Declaration,” 39 (1917). 72. David Ben-Gurion, “Toward the Future,” From Class to Nation (Tel Aviv: Ayanot, 1955 [1915]), “Fulfillment of Zionism,” 39 (1917). 73. David Ben-Gurion, “Toward the Future,” From Class to Nation (Tel Aviv: Ayanot, 1955 [1915]), “The Economic Role of the Histadrut,” 123–7. See also David Ohana, Messianim and Nationalism: Ben Gurion and the Intellectuals Between Political Vision and Political Theology (Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2003), 35–45 [in Hebrew]. 74. Gorny, Policy and Imagination, 141–56. 75. Gorny, Policy and Imagination, 154. 76. David Ben-Gurion, Ha-Poel Ha-Tzair, 24, no. 7 (1931): 5 [in Hebrew]. 77. David Ben-Gurion, Ha-Poel Ha-Tzair, 24, no. 8 (1931): 8 [in Hebrew]. 78. David Ben-Gurion, We and Our Neighbors (Tel Aviv: Davar, 1931), 188–96 [in Hebrew] (emphasis added). 79. Heller, The Struggle for the State, 164–7. 80. Ben-Gurion was aware that the Arabs opposed any kind of Jewish State. Ibid, 228–9. 81. Gorny, Policy and Imagination, 80. 82. Cited from Heller, The Struggle for the State, 377. 83. Joseph Heller, “Ben Gurion, Weizmann and Jabotinsky on the Arab Question: A Comparison,” in Shapira, Reinhartz, and Harris, eds., The Age of Zionism, 203–40. Heller writes: ‘Short-term considerations mercilessly consumed potential long-term projections’ (p. 240). 84. Yosef Gorny, “The ‘Utopian Leap’ in David Ben-Gurion Social Thought, 1920–1958,” in Israel: The First Decade of Independence, ed. Ilan S. Troen and Noah Lucas (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 125–42; and Ohana, Messianism and Nationalism. 85. David Brown, “Are There Good and Bad Nationalisms?,” Nations and Nationalism 5, no. 2 (1999): 281–302; David Brown, Contemporary Nationalism: Civic, Ethnocultural and Multicultural Politics (London: Routledge, 2000); and Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 86. Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 212, see also 125–27, 210–13. 87. Alexander Yakobson and Amnon Rubinstein, Israel and the Family of Nations: Jewish Nation-State and Human Rights (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: Schocken Publishing House, 2003), 406–13 [in Hebrew]. See also Ruth Gavison, Israel as Jewish and Democratic State: Tensions and Prospects (Jerusalem: Van leer Institute, 1999), 21–45 [in Hebrew]. For a somewhat different view, see Gans, A Just Zionism, 9–24.