I take this passing remark to be rather misleading: "And while Zionism predated the Holocaust, its beginnings, at least in a secular register, was predicted on the failure of emancipation to create a context whereby Jews in Europe could find both physical safety and religious freedom."
There is no failure of emancipation. The Berlin Jew, the Paris Jew, the Roman Jew, the Venetian Jew? Nah, the more frugal and viable account of Zionism is that it was the product of broad rejection of multinational states many of them based on the same kind of boorish irredentism with the same kind of reactionary paroxysms (take Nordeau) that characterised everything from the Gobineau to Dannunzio on to the Sudetenland paradigm and so on.
So antisemitism is not the effective cause of Zionism. The same nationalist mental disorder that affected all other communities is. I take the Radetzkymarsch to be profoundly instructive about the question of the Jew in the multinational state and the success of emancipation.
Martin, thanks for this. While I do not disagree in principle, I do not think the pogroms in the 1880s (setting aside the Dreyfuss Affair which is a much more complicated story) generated Zionism as a viable option for some Jews. So, while not the "effective cause" as a you write, it owes its popularization to the various ways in which emancipation did not result in what was expected, that is, the normalization of Jews in Europe. It still remained unpopular until the 1930s for other reasons. Thanks.
I do not believe that one can simply make the case against emancipation and integration across Europe tout court. It is not irrelevant that Zionism is an Eastern European phenomenon so sure, I will grant the point but what I am disputing is the accepted wisdom around the idea that Zionism is a reaction to antisemitism mainly becuase when one looks around the clock, the phenomenon of national groups demanding a national state against the preeminence of the plurinational state is happening everywhere at the same time.
The Dreyfus case, from my point of view, is emblematic of the success of emancipation and integration. Both in terms of the context in which it emerges as in terms of its aftermath. The reading of the case that proverbially moved the putative father of Jewish jingoism was an unmistakably Eastern European reading. Herzl was after all a Hungarian jew from a Serbian family.
in any case, thanks for the response and I will continue reading you.
I have nothing but deep respect and a sense of camaraderie for those who write ideas and not words and are willing to dispense with the niceties of editing.
Hi, I'm going to respond by shamelessly plugging my article, which you might even sort of like. https://nonzionism.com/p/what-is-antisemitism
This looks great. Thank you so much! Will read and hopefully integrate into my next post (or maybe the next next one!)
One more point: what you call a maximalist account of antisemitism, I call its trivialisation.
I take this passing remark to be rather misleading: "And while Zionism predated the Holocaust, its beginnings, at least in a secular register, was predicted on the failure of emancipation to create a context whereby Jews in Europe could find both physical safety and religious freedom."
There is no failure of emancipation. The Berlin Jew, the Paris Jew, the Roman Jew, the Venetian Jew? Nah, the more frugal and viable account of Zionism is that it was the product of broad rejection of multinational states many of them based on the same kind of boorish irredentism with the same kind of reactionary paroxysms (take Nordeau) that characterised everything from the Gobineau to Dannunzio on to the Sudetenland paradigm and so on.
So antisemitism is not the effective cause of Zionism. The same nationalist mental disorder that affected all other communities is. I take the Radetzkymarsch to be profoundly instructive about the question of the Jew in the multinational state and the success of emancipation.
Martin, thanks for this. While I do not disagree in principle, I do not think the pogroms in the 1880s (setting aside the Dreyfuss Affair which is a much more complicated story) generated Zionism as a viable option for some Jews. So, while not the "effective cause" as a you write, it owes its popularization to the various ways in which emancipation did not result in what was expected, that is, the normalization of Jews in Europe. It still remained unpopular until the 1930s for other reasons. Thanks.
Hi Shaul, and אַ גוטע וואָך
I do not believe that one can simply make the case against emancipation and integration across Europe tout court. It is not irrelevant that Zionism is an Eastern European phenomenon so sure, I will grant the point but what I am disputing is the accepted wisdom around the idea that Zionism is a reaction to antisemitism mainly becuase when one looks around the clock, the phenomenon of national groups demanding a national state against the preeminence of the plurinational state is happening everywhere at the same time.
The Dreyfus case, from my point of view, is emblematic of the success of emancipation and integration. Both in terms of the context in which it emerges as in terms of its aftermath. The reading of the case that proverbially moved the putative father of Jewish jingoism was an unmistakably Eastern European reading. Herzl was after all a Hungarian jew from a Serbian family.
in any case, thanks for the response and I will continue reading you.
Some interesting questions raised. Thank you for this framing. Please note innumerable typos. I hope you will proofread moving forward.
Fixed. Thanks.
I have nothing but deep respect and a sense of camaraderie for those who write ideas and not words and are willing to dispense with the niceties of editing.