"Understanding The Zionist Idea - An Essential Toolkit for Combating Distortion"
On campuses and in the streets, protesters often make claims about Zionism and question Jewish indigeneity to the land, but do they understand the meaning behind the slogans they chant?
As Azrieli Institute director Csaba Nikolenyi observed, “We are searching for new answers to old questions in this new and rapidly changing reality.”
Former director of the UCLA Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies Arieh Saposnik underscored the need for such discussions. Indeed, he reinforced they are vital in order to “combat some of the misinformation about Zionism that has become more or less mainstream” in the recent months.
He noted that while the Zionist idea had as its main goal an independent state, that this was not its sole objective. In quoting Theodore Herzl (considered to be the father of Zionism), he observed, “I once called Zionism an infinite ideal…it will not cease to be an ideal even after attaining land. Zionism is a legally secured homeland…and [the seeking of] mental and spiritual perfection.”
Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion likewise subscribed to the belief that “Israel was the vehicle, rather than the ultimate goal itself,” referring to the continual humanistic development of its people.
Many believed the official attainment and revival of the state to be a form of Messianic premonition coming true, commented Saposnik, with the British viewed as the ‘redeemer.’ From a wandering nation in exile, the ancient people of Israel had returned to their homeland.
Head of the Woodman-Scheller Israel Studies International Program Havazelet Yahel unpacked the often debated concept of Zionism as an indigenous movement. She compared the criteria for indigeneity with the Jewish community’s historical connection to Israel. As stated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, “after being forcibly exited from their land, the people kept faith with it…and never ceased to pray and hope for a return to it…Jews strove in every successive generation to establish themselves in their ancient homeland.”
Indigeneity refers to a spiritual and physical attachment to ancestral land, self-identification as a people, and historical continuity. Archaeological evidence and documentation confirm early connections, in addition to traditions (often calling for a return to the land and holidays based on Israel’s agricultural seasons) remaining largely intact over the centuries.
This identification, moreover, was not only something the Jewish people subscribed to, noted Yahel. Rather, it was officially recognized in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine which reaffirmed the “historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”
The panel concluded with Ofer Shiff from Ben Gurion University of the Negev who addressed the concept of ‘mamlachtiyut’ or ‘unity’; a term associated with Israel’s first prime minister.
Unity was seen as integral to Israel’s success, and mamlachtiyut was further explored by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies as “captur[ing] the perennial tension between the establishment of the state of Israel as an orderly and delimited institutional project, and the view of the state as a means in an exalted process of redemption…that extends into eternity.”
As such, Israel attaining independence was not an end in itself, but rather, a ‘state in the making,’ giving it continual relevance in contemporary times.
