Return to the Promised Land.. Jacek Surzyn
with its own history, own tradition, and own identification. Other theorist, Max Nordau, initiated the search for Jewish identity even in the philosophical sense of biological (racial) roots. Moses Hess and Leo Pinsker also spoke in a philosophical spirit, which described the role of Jews in the history of all mankind, and Hess even referred to the messianic vision of history. All these ideas shaped Zionism and built its foundations not only as a political movement, but also as a philosophy and ideology based on them. The ultimate and practical goal of Zionism was formulated by Theodor Herzl in his pamphlet “The Jewish State” – it was to create an independent Jewish state. Herzl writes: “The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil and die peacefully in our own homes.” And just fifty years after writing these words, this goal was realized: Jews called into existence their own independent state in Palestine. For many reasons, this fact should evoke admiration and astonishment at the same time. To bring about such a happy end, Zionism had to defeat both internal and external obstacles. It is hard to decide which one of these two was more dangerous for the realization of the Zionist political plan. However, there is no doubt the assessment of this issue and, in general, the evaluation of Zionism itself, is strongly influenced by the unprecedented genocide of the Jewish community committed by the Nazis during the Second World War. The extent of this crime eclipsed everything that had happened in the history of Jews before and influenced the Zionist movement and its effectiveness. It can be said that Zionism, which is now the official ideology of Israel, has “taken over” the Holocaust and has claimed to be the only representative of the victims of the Nazi crime.
Perhaps for a less experienced observer of the contemporary Jewish history, and also for someone less familiar with their history in general, the Nazi ←7 | 8→genocide turned out to be the biggest challenge for Zionism and in this sense its most serious external obstacle. Nazi ideology based on anti-Semitism led to the real annihilation of the largest Jewish diaspora in Europe. From this perspective, it can be said that only the defeat suffered by the Nazi Germany saved all (or at least European) Jews from being murdered. Thus, the external enemy showed its terrible face of death, because the Jews for the first time in history faced the real immediacy of physical annihilation. Therefore, the Holocaust has been seen as a turning point in the modern history of Jews – its climax, after which everything must be understood and explained differently.
Without ignoring the significance of the crime of the Holocaust as a great challenge to Zionism (and it is a challenge in many respects: moral, social or also philosophical – the Holocaust is a big problem for philosophy. See for example opinions: Hannah Arendt, Berel Lang, or Lucy Dawidowicz), it should be emphasized that from the very beginning, the movement has also struggled with the internal obstacle. The ideas of Zionism practically overcame the old diaspora tradition and its philosophy, redefining both the position of the Jews in the non-Jewish world around them and the Jewish identity itself. In other words, Zionism defined a new dimension of being the Jew and the principles of belonging to the Jewish community. Zionism based these ideas on new philosophical foundations that implemented modern philosophical ideas of great transformation of the late nineteenth century. Since the beginning, Zionism has had to deal with the strong criticism of the old part of the world’s diaspora, which also provides various perspectives of the Zionism and allows us to evaluate its effectiveness in different ways.
The establishment of the state of Israel (it was a two-stage process: first, the declaration of the General Assembly of the UN of November 1947 on dividing Palestine into two states: Jewish and Arab, and then, unilateral announcement of the independence of Israel on May 14, 1948, although it was undoubtedly the realization of the most important and the ultimate aim of the Zionist movement declared by its founder Theodor Herzl and evident in Zionist pursuits, from the real perspective, it did not prove to be a final resolution to the “Jewish Question” – Herzl’s great dream. Then, the so called “Jewish Question” has remained unresolved, and undoubtedly the fact that Zionism failed to stop the Nazis from trying to solve the Jewish question ultimately (whether Zionism was able to do it is another thing – it was rather beyond its capabilities) should be considered as a defeat of the movement. It is worth mentioning that contemporary the “Jewish Question” is understood differently to its classical understanding from the turn of nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Today the “Jewish Question” is primarily seen through the prism of the crisis in the Middle East, ←8 | 9→i.e. the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is a consequence of the broader Jewish-Arab conflict. For the contemporary Western world, especially in the context of the war with terrorism and the growing radicalism of the Muslim world (the Sunni controversy with Shias on the Saudi Arabia – Iran axis), in the face of the strategic need to ensure security in important areas of raw materials supply, the “Jewish Question” remains one of the greatest challenges determining global politics. In this way, the Jewish question is constantly present and awaits its final resolution. Zionism, which is represented today by the State of Israel in conflict with the Muslim world (the Palestinian question), nowadays faces similar challenges as at the beginning of its existence. The Zionist movement was pursuing the demand of establishing an independent Jewish state. At the same time, Theodor Herzl was convinced that the creation of a Jewish state and total immigration of Jews to independent Israel would also lead to the end of the “Jewish Question.” He writes in The Jewish State: “I think that the Jewish Question is no more a social than a religious one, notwithstanding that it sometimes takes these and other forms. It is a national question, which can only be solved by making it a political-world question to be discussed and settled by the civilized nations of the world in council.”1 Zionism accepted this task, but it should be said that it fulfilled it only partially, for although the state of Israel was established, the “Jewish Question” has not disappeared at all.
It is also important that the Zionist movement failed to implement the idea of a Jewish mass movement that would cover the vast majority of the diaspora, and hence could act as the leader of the world Jewry. In this sense, Zionism has not become a common Jewish philosophy. The current effect of this situation is that a relatively large group of Jews from the world diaspora, but also of Israeli citizens, do not identify themselves with an independent Zionist state. Thus, they do not play any role in its formation and development and – last but not least – they do not accept the Zionist philosophy and its national consciousness either in the social or in the political dimensions. In the contemporary situation of Jews, someone can identify himself as a Jew without being an Israeli, that is, a citizen of the State of Israel. So, there is a “non-Israeli” way of determining the Jewish identity. This results in the existence of two mutually interacting but also disputable attitudes characterizing today’s Jewish identity within the framework of the world Jewry: one identity defines through the world’s diaspora, which is still bigger than the number of Israeli citizens, and the other identity refers to patriotism ←9 | 10→based on statehood and the development of the Israeli nation together with its culture and attitude toward the world – patriotism in which loyalty to the state of Israel is strongly emphasized. While the Jewish diaspora builds an identity based mainly on the religious, philosophical tradition and history of the chosen nation, in the Zionist philosophy the identity is largely determined through the myth that emerged as part of the nineteenth-century socio-philosophical transformations occurring in Europe, which also strongly influenced the reality of the traditional diaspora. This definitely affects the overall evaluation of the Zionist movement. There is no doubt that Zionism proved to be a great breakthrough in the Jewish history, directing it to new paths. The Zionist idea of an independent state is the implementation of the traditional (religious) idea of returning to Zion, and the fact of existence of the Israel can hardly be assessed as a defeat or failure of this movement.
For Zionists, the emergence and existence of the modern Israel is an unquestionable proof of the effectiveness of their own movement. It must not be forgotten that today’s Israel is a wealthy land with a high level of economic development, and a stable and strong democracy, which should be even more appreciated against the background of the misery of the closest Muslim environment in all these respects. Israel seems to be the mainstay of the Western civilization and principles currently promoted as a standard in global relations, so its existence would be in the interest of the whole free world. This is undoubtedly a huge success of Zionism, because in this sense, Jews