The 1882 revolutionary pamphlet `Auto-Emanzipation` of the Russian Jew Leon Pinsker, presents a political solution (in contrast to a theological interpretation of the uniqueness and chosenness of the Jewish people as presented by religious Zionism or the Orthodox Jews) towards the emancipation of the Jewish people.[1] According to Pinsker, the Jews are not alive as a unitary nation but more as a cultural mosaic of different fragments of `Jewishness` scattered throughout the world. It is the curse of the Jewish Diaspora that according to the revolutionary pamphlet is blocking the emancipation of the Jewish people. Therefore, as long as the Jews are scattered among other peoples, they will never regain the self-esteem and viability of a nation as embodied by the biblical Hebrews before stepping into the centuries-long abyss of scattering into the Diaspora. For Leon Pinsker, only by stepping out of the dehumanizing borders of the Diaspora can bring true emancipation to the Jews. This political view contrasts with the modern Jewish political theory of `Diaspora Nationalism`. According to this theory, the Jewish people will have to fight for their emancipation within the political boundaries they already find themselves.[2] Only by civil and political reinvigoration in the places they live will the Jews be able to gain the respect of other peoples.[3] In this context, the political solution for self-emancipation is the struggle for political and cultural autonomy within an already given national context. It is the nationhood without statehood the best recipe for emancipation.[4] But Leon Pinsker revolutionary pamphlet presents an opposite direction. It is the nationhood (particularly here the failure of nationhood) that must be followed by statehood as the healing solution for `auto-emanzipation`. According to the Russian Jew, the more optimistic approach of self-emancipation through nationhood is not enough for the Jews to gain the appreciation of other peoples, but only the creation of a people living on their own land can bring respect to the Jews. Only through the political solution of self-emancipation within the context of statehood can the Jewish nation enter the ranks of other peoples.
The land-based solution for the Jewish problem as presented by Pinsker reflects the secular, political, and liberal Zionism project of Theodor Herzl as exposed during the 1897 First Zionist Congress in Basel.[5] Herzl, as the founding father of political and liberal Zionism and the spiritual figure of the State of Israel encouraged the ``like-other-nations motif`` for the establishment of the Jewish state.[6] [7] For Herzl, and Pinsker before him, there is a strong belief in the Jewish aspiration to be ``just like other nations`` on the principle of sovereignty through the territorial concentration and political independence of a progressive society.[8] Herzl, like Pinker, got influenced by the principles of European Enlightenment in describing the necessity of the sovereignty of people towards political independence and progressive society.[9] But it is Pinker`s conviction that ``humanity and enlightenment alone cannot heal the malady of the Jewish people`` that places him in contrast with Herzl`s optimistic vision of a liberal world in which the Jewish state is a part of. Herzl and Pinker can be described as elements of a nationalist movement for the creation of a Jewish state as the ending moment of what Pinker described as "wandering from one exile to another."[10] Although Herzl and Pinker are elements of the Zionist movement toward the establishment of the Jewish state, there are also other nationalist anti-Zionist ideas that emphasize a more theological rather than political vision of the Jewish question. For those voices, there is no Jewish nation and should never be an independent Jewish statehood.[11] [12] [13] This idea revolves around the concept that Judaism is a religion and not a nation and pushes forward the goal of humankind equality in a multi-cultural international framework from which the Jews are no exception, rather than Jewish particularism towards the formation of statehood.[14] [15] Moreover, there are those voices strengthening the wandering of the Jews as exposed by Pinker as a fate, destiny, a divine punishment, a spell that cannot be broken through human intervention under the formation of a Jewish state but by returning to the Torah.[16] [17] [18] In this matter, rather than seeing the Jews as just another stateless nation that cannot be reinvigorated without a land of their own, the Jews are seen as a ``divine instrument for the redemption of the world``.[19]
[1] Hedva Ben-Israel, `Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects`, Israel Studies, Vol 8, No 1, 2003, p. 93.
[2] Adam Rovner, `Introduction` in In the Shadow of Zion – Promised Lands Before Israel, New York University Press, New York, 2014, p. 9.
[3] Ibidem.
[4] Ibidem.
[5] Hedva Ben-Israel, `Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects`, Israel Studies, Vol 8, No 1, 2003, pp. 94-95.
[6] Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, Accessed on March 29th, 2022.
[7] Hedva Ben-Israel, `Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects`, Israel Studies, Vol 8, No 1, 2003, p. 94.
[8] Ibidem, pp. 93-94.
[9] Ibidem.
[10] Adam Rovner, `Introduction` in In the Shadow of Zion – Promised Lands Before Israel, New York University Press, New York, 2014, pp. 7-10.
[11] Hedva Ben-Israel, `Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects`, Israel Studies, Vol 8, No 1, 2003, pp. 94-95.
[12] Shalom Goldman, `Zeal for Zion, Christian, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land`, The University of North Carolina Press, p. 277.
[13] Adam Rovner, `Introduction` in In the Shadow of Zion – Promised Lands Before Israel, New York University Press, New York, 2014, p. 10.
[14] Hedva Ben-Israel, `Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects`, Israel Studies, Vol 8, No 1, 2003, p. 95.
[15] Adam Rovner, `Introduction` in In the Shadow of Zion – Promised Lands Before Israel, New York University Press, New York, 2014, p. 10.
[16] Hedva Ben-Israel, `Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects`, Israel Studies, Vol 8, No 1, 2003, p. 95.
[17] Shalom Goldman, `Zeal for Zion, Christian, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land`, The University of North Carolina Press, p. 289.
[18] Adam Rovner, `Introduction` in In the Shadow of Zion – Promised Lands Before Israel, New York University Press, New York, 2014, p. 10.
[19] Hedva Ben-Israel, `Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects`, Israel Studies, Vol 8, No 1, 2003, p. 95.
Bibliography:
Ben-Israel, Hedva,`Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects`, Israel Studies, Vol 8, No 1, 2003.
Goldman, Shalom, `Zeal for Zion, Christian, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land`, The University of North Carolina Press.
Rovner, Adam, `Introduction` in In the Shadow of Zion – Promised Lands Before Israel, New York University Press, New York, 2014.
Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, Declaration of Independence (knesset.gov.il)
