Israel: A History by Anita Shapira

Anita Shapira is an Israeli historian. She is the professor emerita of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, and former head of the Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism at Tel Aviv University. She received the Israel Prize in 2008.

This book won the National Jewish Book Award in 2012.

This book is "a comprehensive history of Israel, from the beginnings of the Zionist movement until the present day”. The book covers “internal Jewish politics, immigration and nation building, the economy and social landscape, as well as their cultural and ideological underpinnings."

Jewish homeland

Jewish Polish Dr. Yehuda Leib Pinsker wrote: "The possession of a territory where Jews were masters of their own destiny would radically change the twisted relations that had existed for generations between Jews and the peoples they had lived among."

But there was opposition to this.

"Was the idea workable? If so, how much time would be needed to establish this independent or autonomous Jewish entity?

We can assume that it will take several centuries, asserted Adolph Landau, editor of the Jewish Russian-language newspaper Voskhod.

But in the meantime the world is marching forward, and it would make far more sense to devote our efforts to establishing a liberal and enlightened society in Europe that will accept the Jews as members with equal rights, instead of wasting those efforts on some remote corner of the Middle East or elsewhere, where no one can guarantee their long-term safety and grant them the peace and tranquility they seek."

Prayer without action

"Although the Jews customarily mentioned Jerusalem and their hopes of returning there in their prayers three times a day, they did not tend toward taking any initiative that might change their existential situation, which had lasted for centuries."

"Old Judaism seemed aged and ailing, lacking relevance to the new world dawning in the wake of World War One. The old Jew, the Jew of the Diaspora, was depicted as psychologically flawed, physically weak, inclined toward luftgesheftn (lit., 'air business,' meaning peddling, acting as middlemen, and engaging in other ephemeral trades), a stranger to nature and anything natural and spontaneous, materialistic and incapable of acting on anything but his or her own immediate interests.

The new Jew was to be the complete opposite: an ethical, aesthetic person guided by ideals who rebels against a debasing reality; a free, proud individual ready to fight for his or her own and the nation’s honor."

Betrayal of Trust

"The vast majority of the Jewish people lived in Europe and accepted the reality of occasional outbreaks of violence, humiliation, and discrimination. What, then, changed in the nineteenth century that led to the emergence of the Zionist idea?"

Development, modernization, assimilation of Jews occurred.

In 1881, "The tsar’s assassination sent shock waves throughout the Russian Empire, as well as a spate of pogroms in Ukraine." Jews collaborated with non-Jews in this assassination.

"The assumption had been that the strengthening of the absolutist state ensured public order and security.

Now it suddenly appeared that, whereas in most of Europe and in America the Jews were citizens with equal rights, the Russian masses could still go on the rampage while the government either stood passively by or was itself involved in the rioting."

"The pogroms not only undermined the Jews’ sense of security but also shook their faith in progress, for the Russian revolutionaries did not rush to the Jews’ defense."

"This betrayal recurred several times during the period leading up to World War One, during the Kishinev pogrom of 1903 and the October 1905 pogroms that erupted after the failure of the first Russian Revolution. Each wave of pogroms was worse than the previous in its brutality, the number of victims, and the scope of the damage. And in each case the same local government weakness or indifference and failure to arouse enlightened public opinion in Russia against the pogroms was repeated."

Radicalization

"The second effect was the radicalization of the Jewish masses, which stemmed from three factors: a sense of being deprived and discriminated against by the authorities; a new self-awareness that came with increased exposure to the larger world; and the increasing trend of secularization in the Jewish street, in accordance with the contemporary zeitgeist."

"Ernest Gellner links the formation of nationalist movements with the growth in the number of educated people, the greater mobility of people, goods, beliefs, and propaganda that accompanies industrialization, and the frustration born of unfulfilled expectations of integration into society."

Rise of Zionism

"Instead of passively awaiting the coming of the Messiah, the Jewish people would take their fate into their own hands and transform their situation through their own action.

This concept met with bitter opposition from conservative religious circles, who saw it as opposing divine will."

Theodor Herzl: father of Zionist movement

"Herzl’s appearance in the Jewish world and his vigorous activity over less than a decade constituted one such phenomenon: a passing lightning storm that illuminated reality and shook it up, laying the groundwork for future changes.

Herzl was a Hungarian Jew whose family had been emancipated and acculturated in German culture; his knowledge of Judaism was meager and, of the Jewish people, superficial.

Nothing in his personal history hinted at the mental fortitude, boundless energy, political acuity, and endless dedication he displayed in the last, amazing decade of his life. Almost overnight this mediocre bourgeois intellectual turned into a man driven by his vocation.

"Herzl’s unequivocal diagnosis of the nature of the malady and its cure was liberating: it ended the half truths, the pretense that everything was fine, that emancipation had solved the problem."


"In contrast, by defining the problem of the Jews as an international issue, Herzl removed it from the back burner of social and ethnic politics in the various countries and placed it on the international agenda. He saw both overt and covert European antisemitism dialectically, as a force that would drive the countries of Europe to help establish a Jewish state."

"Seeking to rid themselves of the rebellious Jewish intelligentsia, the successful Jewish middle class, the surfeit of Jewish intellectuals in the West, and the poverty-stricken Jews of the East, the European powers would offer their assistance in carrying out a modern Exodus."

"Despite such nightmares, he placed his trust in European humanism and progress, believing that the Europeans would want to rid themselves of the Jews, but humanely, by helping them establish their own state. He could not have imagined that the Exodus would some day be replaced by the crematoria of Auschwitz."

Chartered Societies

"Chartered societies had previously been established in the British Empire, either for the purpose of white colonization or to obtain trading and other franchises."

"A deputation of Jews should be assembled to negotiate with the Great Powers in order to obtain a charter.

Before this point he had attempted to engage the active international Jewish philanthropic associations. These organizations sought to advance productivization of the Jews, to teach needy Jewish children a trade, and to settle Jews in Argentina. They had been established and were closely controlled by wealthy, respected Jews with laudable aims but no nationalist pretensions.

In the first stages of developing his concept, Herzl had hoped to gain assistance from major Jewish philanthropists such as Baron Moritz Hirsch, who financed Jewish colonization in Argentina, or Baron Edmond de Rothschild. But his meetings with these men were unsuccessful. When they consented to receive him, they saw him not as the prophet of nationalism, but merely as a well-known journalist, and his program as the fruit of a fevered imagination lacking roots in reality.

Delegates from all over the world attended the 1897 congress, and over its three days the mold of the Zionist movement was fashioned. Permanent institutions were set up.

The congress would convene every year or two as a sort of parliament. The president and executive committee constituted an executive body that would be active between congresses. Local associations were formed whose members paid dues— using the Zionist shekel—and sent delegates to the congress in accordance with the number of paid-up members.

In those few days Herzl laid the organizational and political foundations of what would later be called “the nascent Jewish state.” So it was with a very specific meaning that Herzl declared, "At Basel I founded the Jewish state."

This magical act of creating ex nihilo a representative body of the Jewish people, which would negotiate as its legal representative with the heads of the states that would help obtain the charter, was a revolutionary move that proclaimed to the world the formation of a new national movement. As the one responsible for dealing with the press, Herzl swiftly invited international press representatives to report on the event.

'A prisoner does not release himself from prison' or of Moses example, which demonstrated that only a free man can bring freedom to his enslaved brethren. Herzl addressed the Jewish people but did not know them, while the Jewish people saw him as an almost biblical figure, the King of the Jews."

What is Zionism?

"...two basic Zionist tenets: territory and self-government."

"What tipped the scales in the end was the power of the Land of Israel myth so deeply ingrained in the very being of the Jews who adhered to the Zionist idea. The idea of the Jews’ return to their land endowed the Zionist movement with a magnetism that went beyond economic and political interests and fleeting benefits."

British Strategic interests

"British interest in Palestine was aroused once it became clear that the days of the Ottoman Empire were numbered. Following the failed Turkish attempt to attack British posts along the Suez Canal in 1915, the British realized that the Sinai Peninsula, which they had thought was a natural barrier preventing armies from reaching the canal, was passable. Palestine now became a strategic asset, not only as a stepping-stone to Suez but also as part of the overland route to India through Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf. India was indeed the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, on which the sun had not yet set."

"British forces under General Edmund Allenby successfully pushed back Ottoman forces, leading to the capture of Jerusalem in 1917.

Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917 expressed support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

“The [Ottoman] government now had the opportunity to vigorously suppress the Zionist movement.

Jamal Pasha, the Ottoman commander-in-chief in Syria and Palestine, proscribed any expression of Jewish autonomy. The use of Anglo-Palestine Company banknotes, replacing those that had disappeared from the market, was forbidden. All the Hebrew street signs in Tel Aviv were taken down. The moshavot and Tel Aviv were constantly under threat of searches for weapons, and Jewish guards were forbidden.

David Lloyd George became prime minister [of Britain]. Lloyd George, a Protestant brought up on the Bible, harbored deep sentiments regarding the connection between the Jews and the Holy Land. He was greatly influenced by the romantic idea of the Jews returning to their ancient homeland that was prevalent in nineteenth-century Britain and fired up by the Zionist idea. He also believed that the Zionists and Britain had common interests, which he saw as a lever for freeing Britain from its commitment to the French that Palestine would be international; he wanted to keep it under British control.

...the British interest in controlling the overland route to India and not allowing France a toehold in Palestine was decisive.

...these few statesmen not only dared to act in accordance with political common sense but were also driven by a spiritual vision."



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