AHC Prevent Zionism

Is there any combination of events which would make the idea of "Next Year in Jerusalem" a Spiritual rather than Geographic Nationalist concept
 
Prevent OTL 19th century european antisemtism from developing to the extent it did? Zionism was as much if not more a national liberation movement in a sense than a spiritual one.
 
In a TL that I'm currently preparing, OTL Zionism is largely butterflied away into a much softer version of 'pseudo-Zionism'. ITTL, Germany at some point manages to take away control over Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, leading to a more open immigration policy in regards to Palestine, with a Zionism subsequently not being aimed at the establishment of a jewish state in Palestine, but only at the establishment of a safe haven for Jews from all over the world instead.
 
Have it be a limited spiritual movement of religious Jews moving to Palestine without the aim of a nation state (as envisioned by the largely atheist/left-wing Zionists).
 
the only way really possible is to keep the Jews from ever losing their ancient homeland

Riiiiiiiiight. Because every people in history that ever lost control of its "ancient homeland" and didn't get a new homeland somewhere else invariably returned there, never ever assimilating into other populations or settling down later on and establishing a homeland somewhere else...

Oh. Wait. :rolleyes:


But to actually answer the OP: zionism can very conceivably be changed into something very much like you suggest. Any POD that makes Europe less antisemetic in the 19th century would do wonders. Napoleonic victory, for instance, would get you that result (Nappy was big on religious and ethic tolerance, opening up the ghettos wherever he went).

Succesful 1848 revolutions in Germany and several other states would also work (again, the liberals at that time were all for tolerance).

In such a less oppressive Europe, Jews would be less inclined to leave. A certain 'awakening' of the Jewish identity is still likely, because that sense of ethnic unity was actually inspired by the French Revolution and the patriotic revolutions of '48. But with Jews generally enjoying comfortable, succesful lives in Europe... well, they wouldn't be mightily inclined to go settle the dry, underdeveloped land of Palestine, now would they? A ceremonial once-in-a-lifetime journey to Jerusalem would suffice, and 'zionism' would indeed be more of a cultural-spiritual affair.
 
the only way really possible is to keep the Jews from ever losing their ancient homeland

That's silly. Zionism is very recent historically speaking and could have easily been avoided had European Jews simply been properly integrated into a post napoleonic Europe. Say the Ashkenazi are acknowledged by German nationalists as Germans of a different faith. It wouldn't be a massive shift to the rise of German nationalism but that alone would have a pretty massive impact on Judaism in the 19th and 20th century. You could also play pin the Zion on the Eurasia and have Salonika become the symbolic new homeland of the Jewish people given it's Jewish majority OTL that was unfortunately done away with.
 
You can't just change the 19th Century. Antisemitism in Europe didn't begin then, and it sure didn't end then. Even if Jews were given expanded legal rights in the 19th Century, it still wouldn't change the fact that the culture of the area had centuries and centuries of antisemitism behind it. The central argument of Zionism was that no matter how "German" or "Polish" or "Spanish" Jews tried to be, they were never fully culturally accepted in the countries they were born in and often reviled for their Judaism.

In order to really kill Zionism you need to make it so persecution of Jews is an incredibly distant memory in 19th Century Europe, if it ever happened at all TTL. In a place as religiously homogeneous as Europe(for most of its history anyway) people will always view those not in the religious majority as "others" and the odds are that the "others" won't be treated well. So we'd need to have a Europe far more religiously diverse than OTL, probably involving smothering Christianity in the manger or otherwise making it far less dominant than in OTL's High Middle Ages Europe.
 
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Beginning with napoleon and the "opening" of ghettoes in the lands he conquered, as well as the revolutionary anti-clericalism/secularism in France, the Jews of Europe began to be more integrated in to society as a whole, and at least in Western Europe very much embraced that (and "local" nationalism). The Dreyfus Affair in France is what finally brought Herzl around to write "Die Judenstadt".

If Jews are more integrated, formal quotas in universities etc reduced or eliminated, and the Dreyfus Affair does not happen you could see secular Zionism not happen or be a much smaller movement. Any improvement in the situation of Jews in Eastern Europe would move this along.

If in the 1920's the USA does not impose special immigration quotas for "Hebrews" (and maybe the Ivy League and other major college presidents don't establish Jewish quotas), the Zionist push is reduced. Of course if the Nazis are not butterflied away after WW2 something will come about, but if all of the previous happens I expect you'd see a resurgence of German nationalism, even fascism in the 1930s, but absent antisemitism (fascism does not have to be anti-semitic).

Movement of some Jews to Palestine will still occur, and the concept of a return to Israel (post-Messianic) as in "Next year in Jerusalem" will still be there. Attachment to Jerusalem is too deep to eliminate completely.
 

nooblet

Banned
Is there any combination of events which would make the idea of "Next Year in Jerusalem" a Spiritual rather than Geographic Nationalist concept

The ugly answer - too few Jews, too few people to found the new Zion. Those who remain would be too scattered and lack the money to consider Zionism anything other than a pipe dream.
 

dead_wolf

Banned
Zionism didn't really start until very late in the 19th century, and didn't really take off until the rise of the Nazis, for obvious reasons. The First Aliyah started in 1882 and by it's end in 1903 only about ~30,000 Russian Jews had emigrated. The Second & Third were of similar size and scope, the Fourth was roughly 80,000 mostly from the USSR, Poland & Hungary escaping pogroms in those areas, and the Firth saw some 250,000 Jews flee Nazi Germany. So I'm not entirely sure this isn't more properly a post-1900 question. Unless you're trying to avoid the rise of some form of nationalist Zionism at all Derek Jackson?
 
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