Digital Library > Zionism > Did Herzl Want a “Jewish” State?

Did Herzl Want a “Jewish” State?

June 17, 2016 | By Yoram Hazony
Image for Did Herzl Want a “Jewish” State?

How a nation understands its founding shapes its aims and ideals decades after its founding. For Israel, that means interpretations of the thought of Theodor Herzl speak to fundamental questions of national life.

By the year 2000, the Israeli left launched a campaign to officially redefine Israel as a secular, democratic state with a Jewish majority rather than a state founded in order to attend to the interests and aspirations of the Jewish people: to make Israel a “state of the Jews” rather than a “Jewish State.” They saw themselves as carrying the mantle of Herzl, translating Der Judenstaat as The State of the Jews. Yoram Hazony rebutted the effort:

This meddlesome retouching of Zionist history may have been conducted out of pure motives. But in the end it serves only one purpose: It renders a not insignificant service to the ongoing war to discredit the idea of the Jewish state. Obviously, those who wish to see the State of Israel change its course have every right to express their political preferences, and to work for a new non-Jewish Israel that will be more to their liking. But an honest appraisal of Herzl’s ideas leaves little room to involve his name in this effort. Not only did the founder of political Zionism create this term, using it as the title of his book by that name. He also spent the last years of his life working to popularize this expression throughout the world. And this was not merely a semantic choice. For Herzl was also unequivocally committed to the establishment of an intrinsically Jewish state: One that would not only have a Jewish majority, but that would be Jewish in its purposes, government and constitution, as well as in its relationship to the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. Indeed, when examined in the context of Herzl’s writings and political activities, it becomes clear that the ideal of the Jewish state, as advocated by David Ben-Gurion and the mainstream of the Zionist movement, and as expressed in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, is perfectly in keeping with Herzl’s vision of a Jewish state.

Read the whole essay in Azure.

More podcasts: