Editing Zionism (section)

=== Negation of the life in the Diaspora ===
{{main|Negation of the Diaspora}}
Zionism rejected traditional Judaic definitions of what it means to be Jewish, but struggled to offer a new interpretation of Jewish identity independent of rabbinical tradition. Jewish religion is viewed as an essentially negative factor, even in religious Zionist ideology, and as responsible for the diminishing status of Jews living as a minority.{{sfn|Yadgar|2017|loc=Zionism, Jewish "Religion," and Secularism}} Responding to the challenges of modernity, Zionism sought to replace religious and community institutions with secular-nationalistic ones.<ref>Avineri, cited in {{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|p=72}}</ref> Indeed, Zionism maintained primarily the outward symbols of Jewish tradition, redefining them in a nationalistic context.{{sfn|Rabkin|2006|loc=A New Identity}}{{sfn|Penslar|2023|pp=18–23}} Zionism saw itself as bringing Jews into the modern world by redefining what it means to be Jewish in terms of identification with a sovereign state, rather than Judaic faith and tradition.{{sfn|Avineri|2017|loc=Introduction}}

==== Zionism and secular Jewish identity ====
Zionism sought to reconfigure Jewish identity and culture in nationalist and secular terms.{{sfn|Shimoni|1995|loc=Zionism as Secular Jewish Identity}}<ref>{{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|p=2}}: "Indeed, Zionism has celebrated itself as the modernization of the Jews, manifested in the dual revolution of allegedly secularizing Jewish identity and nationalizing, or politicizing it."</ref> This new identity would be based on a rejection of the life of exile. Zionism portrayed the Diaspora Jew as mentally unstable, physically frail, and prone to engaging in transient businesses. They were seen as detached from nature, purely materialistic, and focused solely on their personal gains. In contrast, the vision for the new Jew was radically different: an individual of strong moral and aesthetic values, not shackled by religion, driven by ideals and willing to challenge degrading circumstances; a liberated, dignified person eager to defend both personal and national pride.<ref>{{harvnb|Shapira|2014}}: "This poem, published in Warsaw, epitomizes the youth rebellion that was part of the Zionist experience. Old Judaism seemed aged and ailing, lacking relevance to the new world dawning in the wake of World War One. The old Jew, the Jew of the Diaspora, was depicted as psychologically flawed, physically weak, inclined toward luftgesheftn (lit., "air business", meaning peddling, acting as middlemen, and engaging in other ephemeral trades), a stranger to nature and anything natural and spontaneous, materialistic and incapable of acting on anything but his or her own immediate interests. The new Jew was to be the complete opposite: an ethical, aesthetic person guided by ideals who rebels against a debasing reality; a free, proud individual ready to fight for his or her own and the nation's honor. Yearning for freedom and equality among peoples, admiring nature, beauty, and open spaces, the new Jew relinquished the pleasures of a hypocritical, bourgeois world shackled by outdated conventions and sought the challenge of a life in which dedication to the collective was congruent with maintaining inner truth and a life of simplicity, honesty, and self-realization. The new Jew aspired to equality, justice, and truth in human relations, and was prepared to die for them."</ref>

The Zionist goal of reframing of Jewish identity in secular-nationalist terms meant primarily the decline of the status of religion in the Jewish community.<ref>{{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|p=68}}: "This secularization means primarily the "decline of the status of religion in the Jewish community"7 and a gradual "liberation" from the shackles of "religious tradition"."</ref> Prominent Zionist thinkers frame this development as nationalism serving the same role as religion, functionally replacing it.<ref>{{harvnb|Avineri|2017|loc=Introduction, Notes}}: "Zionism was the most fundamental revolution in Jewish life. It substituted a secular self-identity of the Jews as a nation for the traditional and Orthodox self-identity in religious terms. It changed a passive, quietistic, and pious hope of the Return to Zion into an effective social force, moving millions of people to Israel. It transformed a language relegated to mere religious usage into a modern, secular mode of intercourse of a nation-state... This does not mean that Israel is a substitute for Jewish religion, only that functionally it plays a role similar to that of religion in pre-Emancipation days. For Jews today who are still religious in the traditional sense, religion has a deep collective existential meaning. But since not all Jews can identify today with the religious symbols, religion is merely a partial focus of identity, and Israel, more than any other factor, now plays this unifying role."</ref> Zionism sought to make Jewish [[Ethnic nationalism|ethnic-nationalism]] the distinctive trait of Jews rather than their commitment to Judaism.{{sfn|Shimoni|1995}}{{page needed|date=November 2024}} Zionism instead adopted a racial understanding of Jewish identity.<ref>{{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|p=4}}: "Failing (or neglecting) to offer a fully-fledged national identity that would be independent from rabbinical readings of Jewish iden-tity, yet zealously rebelling against rabbinical authority and "religion" in general, Zionism was left with a racial notion of Jewish identity: Tautologically, echoing anti-Semitic notions of Jewishness, it would argue that a Jew, simply, is a Jew; that Jewishness is something some-one is born with. One does not choose it, nor can one rid oneself of his Jewishness; it is in one's "blood"."</ref> Framed this way, Jewish identity is only secondarily a matter of tradition or culture.<ref>{{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|pp=192–193, 202}}: "The author, essayist, and public intellectual A. B. Yehoshua is one of the more committed and outspoken spokespersons of the State of Israel's political theology. As such, Yehoshua also functions as an influential formulator of the ideological bed upon which statist Jewishness is founded... Yehoshua's reply to this criticism repeats the claim that Jewish political sovereignty renders assimilation impossible and guarantees, no matter what, that meaningful Jewish content is to be produced. For him, "the cultural matter" is secondary, and as such not deserving of judgment. Political sovereignty, on the other hand, is primary and absolute: Jewishness is not only culture and not only religion."</ref> Zionist nationalism embraced pan-Germanic ideologies, which stressed the concept of das [[Volkish|völk]]: people of shared ancestry should pursue separation and establish a unified state. Zionist thinkers view the movement as a "revolt against a tradition of many centuries" of living parasitically at the margins of Western society. Indeed, Zionism was uncomfortable with the term "Jewish," associating it with passivity, spirituality and the stain of "galut". Instead, Zionist thinkers preferred the term "Hebrew" to describe their identity. In Zionist thought, the new Jew would be productive and work the land, in contrast to the diaspora Jew. Zionism linked the term "Jewish" with negative characteristics prevalent in European anti-Semitic stereotypes, which Zionists believed could be remedied only through sovereignty.{{sfn|Masalha|2012|loc=Chapter 1}}