Karl Marx’s father, Heinrich, converted from Judaism to Protestantism in 1817 – later converting his eight children – because had he not done so, he would not have been allowed to practice law in Prussia. He wasn’t alone in having to change or disguise his Judaism so that he could earn a living. There was practically no other way for Jews living in Europe in the 19th century to be part of the business class without renouncing their religion.
This practice actually harkened back for eons, at least two millennia to be precise, as Jews in Europe found other ways to live, always squeezed out of mainstream society, and especially so with emerging nation states (in contrast to when the Habsburg empire controlled much of Europe, where many Jews resided, and was more hospitable to Jews). Even farther back, during the Spanish Inquisition that began in the 1400s, at least 600,000 Jews either fled or hid their identities in response to new royal edicts. Russian-controlled Jewry was forced to settle in what became known as the “pale of settlement”, today’s Ukraine, but still this didn’t save them from state-sponsored pogroms and ostracism. These are just some historic examples about why Zionism evolved.
The modern Zionist movement was founded around an idea created by Theodor Herzl in his book Altneuland, published in 1902, and, put most simply, is about “Herzl’s ambition to realize the universal ideas of liberalism and progress within the framework of a Jewish state”, as described by Israeli law and philosophy professor Chaim Gans. Its urgent aim was to create a safe haven for Jews who were not ensured safety in Europe back then. And, of course, in just a few decades Hitler’s rise to power would show the precarious nature of life for Europe’s Jews. At the time, there was fervent debate about where this Jewish nation-state would be situated, but the idea of the need for the state grew with each instant of global instability.
Israel was settled on land where it exists today due to an indigenous tie to the region, contrary to arguments claiming there is no connection. Indeed, the Passover holiday, ending this week, is not simply about recalling the Jewish people’s experience as slaves in Egypt, but also about our journey from slavery to freedom that was encapsulated in our own national story. When we read the Haggadah’s words that teach us to always promote the redemption and freedom of others, we do it as free people with our own national self-determination, today’s Israel, with the phrase “next year in Jerusalem” featured prominently in the service.
While yearnings for Zion were always prevalent among Jews, it was not until the overwhelming double occurrences of the emergence of nation-states in Europe, along with the growing fascist and Nazi movements, that the statehood idea took hold. Back then, there were two leftwing liberationist ideologies among European Jewish intellectuals and activists, one being Zionism and the second, the Bund, a socialist-internationalist cultural Jewish movement.
For Bundists, Jewish salvation would come with the global success of international socialism, eradicating particularism and differences among peoples. It’s hard to argue, though many do, that this philosophy was life-saving, considering not only the rise of Hitler, but a crude communism that morphed into Stalinism, murdering, torturing, and expelling millions of Jews from the Russian empire to the occupied eastern and central bloc all the way through the collapse of that empire. Though under different circumstances, Jews in the non-European world also suffered prejudice, harm, and expulsion, necessitating a national safety net.
Many of the people today who denounce Zionism and embrace a cultural Judaism are inspired by the Bundist ideology that flourished in a pre-Nazi and pre-Stalin Europe.
Meanwhile, Zionism, the notion that Jews are a people – not only a religion – and as such deserve a state that offers them security and wellbeing as any other people led to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 by UN decree. There is no doubt that the death of 6 million Jews in Europe influenced the world to endorse this decision.
Today, that state is a state whose policies can – and presently must be – protested against. Yet, just as generations protested against France’s ill-fated Algerian war or the American war in Vietnam, we must rage against the war, not eradicate the nation that is waging it.
Israel is a fact. It won’t disappear. Nor will the Palestinian people. There are two peoples on one plot of land. In this critical – and existential manner – Zionism remains unfinished.
This is urgent unfinished business: ending the oppressive occupation of the Palestinian people, acknowledging two states, and beginning a process that today seems light years away, a reconciliation of occurrences and narratives from 1948 to today to acknowledge the pain and the agony of the Palestinian people as part of the story of the creation of the state of Israel. There must be accommodations, too, for non-Jewish citizens who already live as Israelis and those who may come to live.
But, instead, there are two competing views of Zionism. One, which today is the weaker, was the primary founding ethos, steeped in secular and global engagements. It is reflected in this founding paragraph from Israel’s own Declaration of Independence, which would, without doubt, be renounced today by the rightwing ruling government, but it is absolutely critical to the future of the state, and worth organizing around:
The State of Israel will be open to the immigration of Jews from all countries of their dispersion; will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on the precepts of liberty, justice, and peace taught by the Hebrew Prophets; will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed, or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education, and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the shrines and Holy Places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
The second is woefully apparent in today’s Israeli government, a messianic all-mighty Zionism, a Jewish supremacist ideology forged against the Palestinians who also live there. It is an horrific belief system, worth opposing for sure, because it privileges one group of people – one nation – at the expense of another. It is an extreme religious vision of Jewish power steeped in an anti-modern ideology, versus a shared society and accommodation between Jewish and Arab citizens inside of Israel and between a Jewish and a Palestinian state.
A full 16 years of rule by the rightwing populist Benjamin Netanyahu have severely damaged the essence of the state, and now, daily bring horrors to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. They have gravely endangered Israelis themselves – most obviously those attacked on 7 October, but day-in and day-out, through policies that are discriminatory and racist, the Netanyahu regime shows an ugly face of Israel to the world. But it is a face of a government – just as the Trump government was recently here in the US, and frighteningly could be again. The Netanyahu regime uses Zionism – as do many forces inside Israel – to stifle speech and free thought, and to subjugate citizens, both Jewish and Arab or Palestinian citizens, unfairly. That must be fought, of course.
I began with Marx, so I will end with Hegel. We are about to mark Israeli Independence Day, on 14 May. Each year, I find it harder to celebrate, not because I don’t care deeply about Israel, but because I simply don’t believe that Israel is free. Not yet. It is impossible for me to see Israel and a future Palestinian state outside of an Hegelian master-slave paradigm. Israel, enslaved by its own insistence on enslaving others.
To those on the left who claim that Israel has no right to exist, with no answer for the 7 million Jews who live as citizens there, along with those on the right who claim the same about the Palestinians, I say, we must, indeed, struggle with this very paradigm. Freedom only when both peoples are free. Liberation for two peoples. But, similarly, to deny the basic right of the Jewish people to their own nationhood, is equally wrong. Why should Jews be the only people in the world without the right to national liberation?
There is a fierce ideological battle indeed – a battle to determine which Zionism will win out. This struggle will determine not only the future of Israel but the future of the Jewish people, and the future of the Palestinian people. We are entwined and we must be liberated together. We must work together to end the war, to bring safety and security to both peoples. We must seek our joint liberation.