On the idea of a homeland for a people whose history has been defined by both exile and annihilation
Zion ?
BY AVI FINEGOLD
I n the weeks and months since October 7, debates about Zionism and its role within Judaism have become both more prominent and more pointed. Religious Zionists are firmly convinced that God gave the Jewish people the Land of Israel and that to be a Zionist is the most Jewish thing possible. Secular Zionists (which, nota- bly, describes the majority of the Jewish-Israeli population) believe just as vehemently in Jewish rights to the land, though they argue these exist for historical rather than theological reasons. These two groups are often at odds with each other—and both are at odds with anti-Zionists, who argue either that Judaism does not entail any par- ticular relationship to a particular patch of land, or that other Jewish values (such as our relationships with and obligations to others, in- cluding Palestinians), are more important in determining our rela- tionship to that land than any ancestral or religious claim. This essay is an attempt to explore what Judaism actually has to say about Zion as a historic homeland and how contemporary Jews might relate to it. It is not an attempt to be prescriptive: there are multiple points of view within the Jewish community, many of which are deeply rooted in Jewish ideas. My hope is simply to lay out that full spectrum of ideas in a way that can help us all navigate these debates with some solid ground underfoot. T hough it may sound strange to many secular and even believ- ing non-Orthodox Jews, Zionism is inextricably entwined with the Jewish understanding of a redeemed era—and therefore also of messianism. The former can be seen as either a fulfilment or a repudiation of the latter but, in any case, it must be grappled with. The prophets of the late-First Temple era foretold the exile and subsequent ingathering of the Jewish people back to Zion. Isaiah— the prophet of “beating swords into plowshares” and of nations laying down arms—proclaimed that when that time came, “Torah shall come forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusa- lem,” describing this as a time of universal recognition of God and universal peace. Other prophets, including Micah and Zechariah, echoed these ideas. The concept of a messiah figure as the vehicle by which this re- deemed era and return to Zion would be brought about came later, in the wake of the destruction of the temple and subsequent exile in 70 CE. For the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud, the redeemed era, in which Jews returned to the Zion from which they had been exiled, would be led by a heroic figure: an anointed descendant of the Davidic royal family.
Since the earliest Enlightenment debates about politics, Jews have wondered whether and how they could take charge of their relationship to other nations. (Crowds celebrating in Tel Aviv after the United Nations votes to partition Palestine and create a new Jewish state, Nov. 30, 1947.)
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