Zionism

Abstract

In addition to the various branches of modern Judaism, Zionism as a religious and political ideology has had a profound effect on Jewish consciousness. Initially a number of pious Jews in the nineteenth century believed in the coming of the Messiah and linked this yearning to an advocacy of a return to the Holy Land. Preeminent among such individuals, Yehuda hai Alkalai argued that Jewish settlers should establish colonies in Palestine in anticipation of the Messianic age; a similar view was adopted by Zwi Hirsch Kalischer who maintained that the Messianic Age will take place following the creation of a Jewish homeland. Paralleling these religious aspirations, modern secular Zionists such as Moses Hess, Leon Pinsker, and Theodor Herzl stressed that the problem of anti-Semitism could only be solved through the creation of a Jewish state. Through the efforts of early pioneers the state of Israel was eventually established, and in the ensuing years it has been defended from repeated Arab attack. Yet despite the centrality of Israel in Jewish life, it is difficult to see how Zionism as a solution to Jewish survival can serve as the underpinning of Jewish life in the twenty-first century.