How early can Zionism rise?

Can Napoleon create a sense of Jewish Nationalism if he's more successful in the Levant? Can it go even further back? Let's make this completely far fetched and ask: during the Crusades, can some Jews think it might be a good idea to conquer Jerusalem for themselves (okay, probably not, but just wondering)?
 
Zionism itself is a very specific ideology which for scenarios like these I think should be divorced from the concept of a Jewish State.

Now, over the centuries their have been various Jewish groups seeking to reconquer the general territory of Israel for a Jewish state, with notable attempts (failing to differing degrees) in the 12th and 17th centuries.

Another thing to consider to is that Jews have been immigrating to the region for a very long time, particularly from the Middle-Ages onwards.

A to the Crusades, well their were quite a few cases of Jews immigrating to the Holy Land as a result of fleeing the Crusades, which I really must point out targeted Jews the same as Muslims, the Crusades were about spreading Christianity and the influence of Christendom.
 
the Crusades were about spreading Christianity and the influence of Christendom.

That's the excuse they used to rile up the peasants, yes.
And yeah, some of the crusaders were probably guided by religious motives. But there were most certainly also forces in play here:

1: For 400 years, pirates and raiders had tormented the Mediterranean shores, and still more and more ancient Christian lands had been conquered. Pilgrims had been harassed, or worse, holy sites desecrated, etc.
One can legitimately make the claim that the Crusades were a RE-ACTION, not an ACTION.
Equally important to say here: This does not excuse the horrendous atrocities that were committed against civilians, in the course of those crusades!

2: The Holy Land is right smack in the middle of good trading routes from Asia to Europe and Egypt. I think more crusaders were inspired by aspirations of getting a piece of THAT pie, than out of piety.
 
Zionism isn't precisely the idea of founding a Jewish state; it's more Jewish nationalism (classically, Zionism is completely secular). And it arose as a reaction to increasingly secular and assimilated Jews who found that the newly self-identifying nations were less willing to consider Jew to be German, Polish, Russian, or whatever than the Jews themselves were willing to. This means, practically, that Zionism can't really rise until after nationalism starts to form, because before nationalism and widespread Jewish assimilation (without conversion) and a resulting backlash, there's no reason for it to form.

The question then becomes one of:
-How early can we get nationalism as an idea divorced from religion (or at least only partly connected to it)?
-How quickly after the advent of nationalism can we get Jews trying to assimilate and being rejected?

If what you want is a Jewish state, we might see an early colonizer trying to stick all their Jews in the New World, I guess.

Note well: it's very unlikely for there to be a religious movement to found a Jewish state, especially not in Israel. That would require a Messiah figure, and the Jewish mainstream tended to be very suspicious of such figures. Plus, it would require a strong enough movement to conquer a region that was for around 2000 years either a pat of or next to a large, powerful empire. Granted, often a backwater, but still part of an empire.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Iori's

Now, over the centuries their have been various Jewish groups seeking to reconquer the general territory of Israel for a Jewish state, with notable attempts (failing to differing degrees) in the 12th and 17th centuries.

? ? describe please
 
That's the excuse they used to rile up the peasants, yes.
And yeah, some of the crusaders were probably guided by religious motives. But there were most certainly also forces in play here:

1: For 400 years, pirates and raiders had tormented the Mediterranean shores, and still more and more ancient Christian lands had been conquered. Pilgrims had been harassed, or worse, holy sites desecrated, etc.
One can legitimately make the claim that the Crusades were a RE-ACTION, not an ACTION.

No, one can't. The Crusaders were a "reaction" in the same sense that
Tannenburg in WWI was revenge for the defeat of the Teutonic Knights roughly five centuries earlier.

Summing up the ebb and flow of conquest as "four hundred years of more and more ancient Christian lands had been conquered" is just plain ignorant, and considering pirates and raiders an excuse for an expedition against someone else entirely . . .

on the other side, it was about spreading Western Christianity to the extent Christianity had anything to do with it. Witness replacing the Greek/Orthodox patriarch/s with Latin rite ones.
 
Top