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This article reexamines Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook’s (1865–1935) approach to Zionism, by proposing a reading of Kook’s Zionism through the lens of the Lebensphilosophie (The Philosophy of Life) of the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941). I show that we can clarify Kook’s view of freedom, the self and creativity and its essential connection to Zionism, therefore, proposing a new understanding of the meaning that Jewish nationalism assumes in Kook’s thought, thanks to the application of the model of freedom and creativity developed by Bergson to Kook’s writings. Especially for Kook, I show that Jewish nationalism is seen as a means for the Jewish People to return to their true self and through this connection attain true freedom. Only when a nation realizes its freedom by a return to its own original self, it can be creative. This is how I explain the connection that Kook draws between a return to the Land of Israel and the ability of Israel as a people to finally be able to be creative. Finally, I argue that this understanding of nationalism adds a new layer to the essential place that the territory assumes in Kook’s thought. A State of Israel outside its original land can attain the goal of autonomous self-governance but lacks the ability to inspire the reconnection of the nation to its own original self. The Jewish People as a collective cannot connect to their authentic self away from the Land of Israel, consequently, the Land of Israel is the only place in which they can be truly free.

Everyday Zionism in East-Central Europe examines Zionist activism during the years of war, occupation, revolution, the collapse of empires and the formation of nation states in the years 1914 to 1920. Before the background of the Great War, its brutal aftermath and consequent violence, the day-to-day encounters between Zionist activists and the Jewish communities in the region gave the movement credibility, allowed it to win support, and to establish itself as a leading force in Jewish political and social life for decades to come. Through activists’ efforts, Zionism came to mean something new. Rather than being concerned with debates over Jewish nationhood and pioneering efforts in Palestine, it came to be about aiding starving populations, organizing soup-kitchens, establishing orphanages, schools, kindergartens, and hospitals, negotiating with the authorities, and organizing self-defence against violence. It was in this context that the Zionist movement evolved from often marginalized, predominantly bourgeois groups into a mass movement that attracted and inspired tens of thousands of Jews throughout the region. The book approaches the major European events of the period from the dual perspectives of Jewish communities and the Zionist activists on the ground, demonstrating how war, revolution, empire and nation held very different meanings to people, depending on their local circumstances. During the war and its aftermath, the territories of the Habsburg Empire and formerly Russian-ruled regions conquered by the German army saw a large-scale nation-building project by Zionist activists who fought to lead their communities and shape for them a national future. Introduction 1 The National Mission 2 Welfare, Relief, Political Power 3 ‘The Most Valuable National Fund’ 4 Violence, Antisemitism, and Self-Defence 5 Representing the Nation 6 The Ancient Ideal and the New World Conclusion Published version of EUI PhD thesis, 2019

This dissertation argues for a reevaluation of the significance of Ahad Ha’am (Asher Ginsberg) in the development of modern Hebrew literature on the basis of his work as an editor of periodicals. Critics commonly portray Ahad Ha’am as rigid and didactic, enforcing his own literary norms while excluding aesthetic and humanistic literature in favor of literature with explicit Jewish themes. Reading the periodicals edited by Ahad Ha’am shows that this reputation is exaggerated; his work is in fact characterized by significant heterogeneity and flexibility.This dissertation introduces the critical perspective and methodology of periodical studies to Hebrew literature. The first chapter shows how Ahad Ha’am as an editor brings diverse ideologies and Hebrew styles together in an organic whole, the “Odessa nusach,” in the literary collection Kaveret (1890). The second chapter argues that Yehoshua Ḥana Ravnitsky, editor of Pardes (1892-1896), lacks the editorial skill and vision of Ahad Ha’am, and as a result Pardes is divisive and lacks the unity of Ahad Ha’am’s periodicals. The final two chapters are devoted to Ha-Shiloah, the most prestigious outlet for Hebrew literature of its era, founded and edited by Ahad Ha’am from 1896 to 1903. Chapter Three traces the history of the critical reception of Ahad Ha’am’s controversy with Micha Yosef Berdichevsky over the boundaries of Hebrew literature, showing the development of a polarized standard account of the dispute that discredits Ahad Ha’am. Reading the original essays of the dispute in context shows that Ahad Ha’am’s resistance to belles lettres and humanistic literature is far from absolute, and in a sense Ahad Ha’am authors the entire controversy by collaborating with and publishing Berdichevsky and his supporters. Finally, the dissertation uses the belletristic literature published by Ahad Ha’am in Ha-Shiloah to show that his selections as an editor were not as narrow as critics claim or even as Ahad Ha’am himself prescribes in his essays. As a periodical editor, Ahad Ha’am fostered diversity and dialogue, and this should be accounted for in evaluating his influence on the development of Hebrew literature.

Questions about Jewishness, Judaism, and the Jewish people have been topics of millennia-long debates. In this paper, I focus on the formation of social hierarchies in Israel based on skin-color to argue that there is unresolved yet consequential tension between definitions of Jewishness as a religious tradition, a national identity, and a state apparatus. I embrace the perspective of Ethiopian Jews, whose identities were reframed in Israel as Blacks, to illustrate how this tension placed dark-skinned immigrants beyond the scope of both Jewish religious tradition as well as national identity, to become the marginalized inhabitants of the Jewish State. Thereby I describe and examine two state-imposed processes in which Israel’s Rabbinate plays a central role: 1) Israel’s demand that Ethiopian Jews convert to Judaism in order to be accorded citizenship. 2) Israel’s demand that Ethiopian Jewish children attend a segregated Jewish Orthodox public-school system, to acquire and cultivate a particular national identity. State-sponsored schools have become the basis for both religious and national identity education and re-education., Pitanja židovstva, judaizma i Židova teme su povijesnih, milenijski dugih debata. U ovom radu fokusiram se na formiranje socijalnih, na boji kože zasnovanih hijerarhija u Izraelu, kako bih dokazala da postoji neriješena, a ipak posljedična napetost između definicija židovstva kao religijske tradicije, nacionalnoga identiteta i državnoga aparata. Objeručke prihvaćam perspektivu etiopskih Židova čiji su identiteti kao crnaca ponovo oblikovani u Izraelu, da ilustriram kako je spomenuta napetost smjestila tamnopute imigrante izvan dosega oboje židovske religijske tradicije i nacionalnoga identiteta, stavljajući ih u poziciju marginaliziranih stanovnika židovske države. Stoga opisujem i ispitujem dva državno nametnuta procesa u kojima izraelski rabinat igra središnju ulogu: 1) izraelski zahtjev za preobraćanjem etiopskih Židova na judaizam kako bi im se dodijelilo državljanstvo; 2) izraelski zahtjev da djeca etiopskih Židova pohađaju segregacijsku školu za ortodoksne Židove kako bi stekli i kultivirali poseban nacionalni identitet. Državne škole postale su osnova za obrazovanje obojega: nacionalnoga i religijskoga identiteta te preodgoj.

The rise of new forms of religious nationalism at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries is to a large extent a by-product of globalization. As nation-states are permeated by transnational economics and trends and secular nationalism is challenged by the global diaspora of peoples and cultures, new ethno-religious movements have arisen to shore up a sense of national community and purpose. One can project at least three different futures for religious and ethnic nationalism in a global world: one where religious and ethnic politics ignore globalization, where they rail against it, and where they envision their own transnational futures.

This article explores the past and present of the concepts of “sovereignty” and “autonomy” in Jewish nationalism. It revisits the play of-and interplay between-the two terms in the current moment of globalizations, when old truths about state sovereignty are being questioned. In particular, it highlights a number of new trends in the historiography of Jewish nationalism that lend prominence to autonomist or diasporist currents; at the same time, it suggests the potential utility of such currents in helping to understand long-standing political conflicts today.

This paper examines the evolution of Jewish identity in the works of writer and critic Bernard Lazare. It suggests that Lazare&rsquo, s oeuvre elucidates one of the central tensions in modern Jewish thought: the division between those thinkers who use the reputedly universalist Greek philosophical tradition as a lens to analyze and critique Judaism, and those who use the Jewish textual tradition to challenge and reconceive non-Jewish philosophy. Lazare situated himself on both sides of this divide during his life. In his early work, he used the universalist, laical ideology of French republicanism to attack what he perceived as the inflexible, regressive, anti-modernist character of Talmudic Judaism. Lazare&rsquo, s thought later shifted in the wake of his involvement in the Dreyfus Affair, and he sought to reclaim an ethnic, nationalist conception of Jewish identity as the source for a communal Jewish political response to rising anti-Semitism. Yet through a close reading of Lazare&rsquo, s writings, the paper suggests that Lazare&rsquo, s intellectual evolution was never as complete or totalizing as he perhaps wished. His earlier work occasionally used Jewish sources to critique philosophical universalism, while hints of philosophical critiques of the particularism of Jewish texts such as the Talmud remained in his later revalorization of Jewish identity. Lazare thereby reveals how universalism and particularism remain mutually implicated within modern Jewish thought. The paper thus suggests avenues for Lazare to be productively read within the broader canon of modern Jewish thinkers.