A Bicentennial To Mark Modern Zionism

There was a time that when anyone who was an educated Zionist knew who Pinsker was, had familiarity with his ideas, and understood the importance of Hovevei Zion to Zionist history. Over the years, the Zionist narrative became simplified and little room was left to recall those who came before Herzl and, as a result, we have nearly lost part of our heritage.

Beyond simply correcting the record and restoring Pinsker’s place in the story of Zionism, there is much to be learned from his work that has serious implications for what Zionism was, is now, and can be.

British Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, in his book If Only My People… Zionism In My Life, stressed Pinsker’s importance: “Political Zionism was born and sustained out of negative factors: the intolerable conditions of Jewish homelessness. Pinsker’s Auto-Emancipation (1882) was sparked by the Russian pogroms in 1881. The seeds of Herzl’s Judenstaat were planted at the Dreyfus trial in Paris, and even Jabotinsky was only converted to Zionism at the age twenty-three by the Kishinev pogrom in 1903.”

The eminent historian, Walter Laqueur, in his A History of Zionism, lauded Pinsker’s book as “a milestone in the development of Zionist thought.”

And what was Pinsker’s movement really like and what did it stand for?

Jewish unity was a key idea of the Hovevei Zion. Their Katowice conference brought together less than three dozen delegates but they travelled from France, Britain, Germany, Russia, and Romania to attend.

What’s also important to note is that the delegates included numerous Orthodox rabbis who had central roles in the movement while Pinsker was not observant and yet, they all found common ground and strived to work together. It is a misrepresentation of the facts of history to state that the Zionist movement was a secular movement and that Orthodox rabbis opposed early Zionism.

But all too often that is what we are told. In reality nothing could be further from the truth.