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An Interim Summary
- Brandeis University Press
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469 AN INTERIM SUMMARY * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * When Herzl published Der Judenstaat, many criticized him for linking the fate of the Jewish people to the establishment of a political entity of its own. These critics believed that the Jewish people’s ability to exist for thousands of years without such an entity was a virtue worth preserving. Many Jews considered modern nationalism a shameful relic of a bygone era, a reincarnation of tribal particularism that created international tensions, increased separation between nations, and contradicted the steady march of history toward a universalist future in which di√erences originating in religion, race, or nationality would be eradicated, and a spirit of amity would prevail among humankind. In such a world the Jews would find their place without their own separate entity. Herzl, however, thought that in the era of nationalism, with each nation struggling against others to secure a place in the sun by achieving political independence and defining its national identity—and defining this identity such that the Jew remained extraneous to it—the Jews had no choice but to enter the arena of nationalism and try to create a place for themselves in it. From the perspective of one hundred years, the course of history seems to incline more toward justifying Herzl’s assessment rather than that of the universalists . It is true that globalization trends, open borders, the waves of emigration flooding the world all weaken national identities, alter them, and create supranational structures such as the European Union, which sought to erase the enmities that had caused two world wars and create an inclusive European alliance. Yet transnational trends are under constant attack by forces of particularism that refuse to accept globalization and economic and cultural uniformity. With every economic or political crisis, forces emerge that seek to preserve local identity, a unique culture, and the historical memory of a common past. Splinter groups emerge claiming the right to self-determination and destroy the inclusive units they belonged to in the past. Yugoslavia was broken down among its peoples, Czechoslovakia was divided into two states, nations rose from the ruins of the Soviet empire, including some that never had a discrete identity, and the Basques struggle interminably for autonomy. Europeans are concerned by the increasing Islamization of minorities from Islamic countries who have settled in Europe, and this Islamization is itself a reaction to trends toward uniformity and loss of local identity in European society. Given these developments it seems that the predictions that nationalism would disappear that greeted Der Judenstaat were premature. 470 an interim summary The establishment of the Jewish state was one of history’s rare miracles. A diaspora nation that had not had a political tradition for centuries, had learned how to survive in di√erent climates and under a variety of regimes, and lacked its own power base succeeded within a very short time in laying the foundations for existence in a harsh country, far from economic centers and resources of culture and knowledge. Within half a century the Zionists gained international recognition for the entity they had founded, established a state, gathered in its exiles from the four corners of the earth, and created ex nihilo a vibrant democracy, a modern economy, an impressive defense force, and a flourishing, challenging culture. It is di≈cult to find a national movement whose beginnings were less auspicious than those of the Zionist movement, yet today it is considered one of the most successful national movements in history. The Zionist movement had not just to fight the other national claimant to Palestine—the Palestinians. It also had to change the Jewish mentality—Jews’ perception of themselves and the world— and create a di√erent Jewish identity that would draw on religious tradition and the Jewish past but also be anchored in the modern world, use logic and reason, and be grounded in the belief that an individual and a people can change destiny and reality. Modernizing the Jewish people went hand in hand with realizing Zionism. The Zionist movement’s ability to enlist the idealistic element of the Jewish people—its youth—resulted from a onetime historical conjunction between the needs of the Jewish people and the spirit of an era in which nations fought for their freedom, empires declined, new states rose, and readiness for self-sacrifice for the good of the nation was part and parcel of the zeitgeist. This was also an era of faith in the possibility of reforming the...