The Wandering Who: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics by Gilad Atzmon Read Free Book Online Page B

politically as a Jew.
    In the early days of Zionism, most Jews refused to buy Weizmann’s agenda – they preferred to see themselves as American, British or French people who happened to be Jewish. This dispute between the Western Diaspora ethnic Jew and the Zionist movement developed into a bitter conflict. During their struggle for recognition, Zionists admitted their contempt for the Diaspora Jew. This was essentially the birth of Zionist separatism.
    Separatism
‘Before the emancipation, the Jew was a stranger among the peoples, but he did not for a moment think of making a stand against his fate. He felt himself as belonging to a race of his own, which had nothing in common with the other people of the country. The emancipated Jew is insecure in his relations with his fellow-beings, timid with strangers, suspicious even toward the secret feeling of his friends.’ Max Nordau 26 , address at the first Zionist Congress, Basle, 1897
    The term ‘separatism’ refers to the process in which a minority group chooses to break away from a larger group. Separation is called for as soon as the marginal political group senses an imminent danger of integration into mainstream society. Separatism refers not only to attempts to create alternative societies, but also to exclusionary practices within marginal communities themselves.
    Zionism developed as a reaction to the emancipation of European Jewry, a process that started with the French Revolution and spread rapidly all over Europe during the nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth century, a few prominent, assimilated Jews (such as Nordau, Herzl and Weizmann) realised that emancipation of the Jewish people might lead to the disappearance of the Jewish identity. The Zionist argument, at the time, was simple; ghetto walls had been demolished and yet Jews were failing to integrate into European life. Additionally, the Europeans were accused of being insincerely sympathetic towards Jews. Nordau said ‘The nations which emancipated the Jews have mistaken their own feelings. In order to produce its full effect, emancipation should first have been completed in sentiment before it was declared by law.’ 27 Theargument is of a very basic character: first you should love me and only then should you marry me. This idea appears reasonable, but we have to remember that, unlike in a love affair, civil life is based on respect rather than affection. I expect my neighbour to respect me; he may love me too but I can never demand it.
    In order to support their views, Zionists created an image of emerging anti-Semitism. Their illustration was far from accurate. In fact, by the late nineteenth century, Jews were already deeply involved in every possible aspect of European civil life. Moreover, the Zionist leaders themselves were highly integrated within their Christian context. But a myth of persistent persecution was needed.
    On 15 October 1894 Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the sole Jewish member of the French army’s General Staff, was detained on charges of spying for Germany. Throughout his trial Dreyfus declared his innocence. For many it was clear that Dreyfus was a victim of a despicable racist allegation. Theodor Herzl, a prominent Viennese journalist who traveled to Paris to cover the trial, was moved by the saga and deduced from it that assimilation was doomed to fail. The only solution, according to Herzl, was ‘[a] promised land, where we can have hooked noses, black or red beards … without being despised for it, where we can live at least as free men on our own soil, and where we can die peacefully in our own fatherland’ (Judenstaat, Theodor Herzl). In factthe Dreyfus trial created a huge surge of gentile support. The French government eventually bowed to public pressure and reduced his sentence. Following the support of French intellectuals and the European left, Zionism lost its grip in France. The French Jews felt truly emancipated. Herzl’s displeasure was evident in the