WI No Zionism

[Dan1988]

Yes, you read that correctly.

I was bouncing around on CBC.ca and came across this, which I thought was a complete shocker for me at least. If the history of the Levant could be changed at that point in history, then this would not be just "no Balfour Declaration". (Yes, I did search under "Balfour Declaration.) WI Theodor Herzl could be butterflied away?

 

[83gemini]

Is political Zionism contingent on Herzl though? There were enough other strains; Hovevai Zion, etc. etc. that political Zionism was probably going to come; it is part of a broader wave of post-Imperial nationalism after all among various peoples in Europe. I must admit the Mandate is heavily contingent.

 

[Dan1988]

I think it is contingent on Herzl since he was the one that helped to kick-start the whole thing. Yes, there were Zionists before Herzl, but I think Herzl was the one that consolidated it into the movement that it became. If Herzl could be butterflied away or even continued working on his earlier cause of German unity through a member of the "Burschenschaft" instead of working for Zionism, I think that Zionism would have fizzled out.

 

[NomadicSky]

Well that doesn't seem to have been written with a very Canadian viewpoint.

 

[Dan1988]

NS: I'm still an American, remember?

Or do you mean the article itself?

 

[Rocano]

What if Ararat City founded as Jewish City of Refuge

 

[Demosthenes]

Yes, you read that correctly.

I was bouncing around on CBC.ca and came across this, which I thought was a complete shocker for me at least. If the history of the Levant could be changed at that point in history, then this would not be just "no Balfour Declaration". (Yes, I did search under "Balfour Declaration.) WI Theodor Herzl could be butterflied away?

If he was, others would take his place. As a Jew, I know the movement for Israel began since the 1800s, and before that! Others would certainly lead Zionism. To say WI there wasnt ZIONISM is to say what if the Romans never destroyed the Second Temple or WI Jews didnt exist.

Please refine your question.

 

[Dan1988]

Okay, so a refinement would be something like this. To an extent, we know that Herzl was the one that helped to organize the Zionist movement into what it became, thanks to his reaction to the Dreyfuss affair. It was because of this that he wrote Der Judenstaat and Der Altneuland. So WI Herzl wasn't around to organize Zionism into what it is? Even if it means not having him witness the Dreyfuss affair.

 

[Gladi]

Bright day
Now, if I remember correctly, Herzl's idea is more than just a "return to Promised Land". He effectively argued for ethnic Jewish state, a nationstate. Thus even if there is a sionism, would there be a push for Jewish nationstate?

 

[NomadicSky]

NS: I'm still an American, remember?

Or do you mean the article itself?

The article. It seemed like something that Iran might print not Canada.

 

[Ibn Warraq]

The article. It seemed like something that Iran might print not Canada.

What do you mean by that. It doesn't strike me as anti-semitic. It's a relatively brief explanation of how Israel came to be.

For what it's worth I think the creation of Israel is easier to morally justify than the creation or settlement of the US, Australia, or New Zealand, but that doesn't mean that Israel like 99% of all other countries worldwide wasn't settled by force.

 

[83gemini]

I tend to think that Zionism is a natural outcome of the tensions of Jewish Emancipation. So a short answer is that a demand for a Jewish nation state in the post-Westphalian sense would come about at some point.

I should note all Jewish calls for return before Herzl were messianic and as such no less "nationalistic." At the core of the Jewish messianic idea is the acceptance of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel, and such sovereignty having some kind of spiritual significance. Herzl and other Zionists transformed the messianic impulse into creating facts on the ground and reoriented the identity focus from a spiritual focus to a national focus. This is a big transformation, but it simply draws on the nationalist ideas embedded in Jewish thought and practice.

But the actual creation of such a state needed a lot of luck.
After all there has been a Jewish diaspora for longer then there has been Rabbinic Judaism; the 21s tcentury may well be the first time since the 1st temple period where there are more Jews inside rather than outside Israel. Certainly there must have been more Jews in the Diaspora in the late 2nd temple period.