Return to the Promised Land.. Jacek Surzyn

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      The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

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      This publication has been financially supported by Jesuit University Ignatianum in Kraków (Poland)

      Cover illustration courtesy of Benjamin Ben Chaim.

      Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck

      ISSN 2191-3528

      ISBN 978-3-631-81295-2 (Print)

      E-ISBN 978-3-631-81893-0 (E-PDF)

      E-ISBN 978-3-631-81894-7 (EPUB)

      E-ISBN 978-3-631-81895-4 (MOBI)

      DOI 10.3726/b16828

      © Peter Lang GmbH

      Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

      Berlin 2020

      All rights reserved.

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      About the author

      Jacek Surzyn is a Polish philosopher, author, translator and professor at Jesuit University Ignatianum in Kraków (Poland). He researches the ontology, theology and political philosophy of Judaism and Zionism. He also translates philosophical and political texts. As a publicist, he is engaged in the issues of Palestinian-Israeli conflict and modern anti-Semitism.

      About the book

      The book analyses the ideological and philosophical basis of Zionism, i.e. how Zionism solved the most important problems of Jews in the last decades of the 19th century: the problem of assimilation, the philosophical principles of national identity, the idea of self-liberation and the conception of the Jewish state. Another problem discussed in this book is how the religious idea of “Return to Zion” became both philosophical and political goals. All considerations are based on the analysis of the source texts of the protagonists and founders of Zionism (Hess, Pinsker, Herzl and Nordau). Zionism is also shown in the perspective of its strength and weakness, as well as its importance for Jewishness in general.

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      Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter I. Moses Hess and the Shabbat of History

I. 1 Messianic Mission

I. 2 New Anti-Semitism

I. 3 Jews as Revivers of the Nations

I. 4 Judaism: Religion of the Future

I. 5 The Basis of the Jewish Reform

I. 6 Historic Mission of Jews

I. 7 The Project of the Jewish State

       Chapter II. Leo Pinsker and the Jewish Self-Emancipation

       II. 1 Pinsker’s Path to Emancipation

       II. 2 The Issue of the “Jewish Question”

       II. 3 Jews as a Nation

       II. 4 Anti-Semitism and Its Philosophical Basis

       II. 5 The Project of Self-Emancipation

       Chapter III. Theodor Herzl: We want to have our state!

       III. 1 New Jewish Politics and Philosophy

       III. 2 The Zionist Idea: A Philosophical Utopia?

       III. 3 The “Jewish Question”

       III. 4 Solution to the “Jewish Question”

       III. 5 New Anti-Semitism

       III. 6 The Jewish State: The Plan

       Chapter IV. Max Nordau: We, the Jewish Nation

       IV. 1 The Jewish People

       IV. 2 The Jewish Patriotism

       IV. 3 Anti-Semitism Against the Jews

       IV. 4 Zionism: New Jewish Philosophy

       IV. 5 The Final Solution to the “Jewish Question”

       Conclusion

       Bibliography

       Index of names

       Index of subjects

      ←6 | 7→

Introduction

      The Promised Land …where at last

      we can live as free men on our own soil

      and die in peace in our own homeland

      – Theodor Herzl

      The Zionist movement brought into existence by Theodor Herzl was not only a political movement for the realization of the idea of Jewish state. Zionism also contains deep philosophical assumptions that contribute to shaping a new vision of the role of Jews in the world and in relation to human history. Herzl already formulated a postulate