I’m a Zionist AMA

amother

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:07 pm

Please be respectful and I will do the same

behappy2

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:14 pm

What does that mean to you?

paperflowers

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:19 pm

Do you live in Israel?

amother

Fern

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:19 pm

I never cared about Zionism, never was for it or against it, until I read a book about its founder. And you can now call me anti Zionist.
I still love israel!

amother

Silver

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:21 pm

What does zionism mean to you?

I am pro Israel, I think it's our land. But I am not pro the goverment which seems to be what zionism is?

amother

Topaz

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:24 pm

I was also zionist, until I got to know them better....
and yeah how do you define your zionism? do you live over the green line?
what are your beliefs and definition

amother

Ruby

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:25 pm

What do you REALLY think of chassidim who are against Zionism?

amother

Ecru

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:26 pm

How do you feel about Yidden who believe it was Halachicly prohibited to create a so-called Jewish State? And its very existence is heretical and anti-Jewish.

BatZion

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:28 pm

amother Fern wrote:

I never cared about Zionism, never was for it or against it, until I read a book about its founder. And you can now call me anti Zionist.
I still love israel!

Funny you should say that because religious Zionists believe that Zionism is based on that book called the Torah Wink

amother

Topaz

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:36 pm

They believe Judaism is based on that "Book" the Torah.
the Zionist founder had nothing with the Torah.

amother

Topaz

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:37 pm

Born in Budapest in 1860 to a family of assimilated German-speaking Jews, Herzl moved to Vienna as a boy and earned a degree in law from the University of Vienna. He later turned to journalism and playwriting, authoring more than a dozen works (mostly comedies) through the 1880s and ‘90s.

As a young man, Herzl believed Jews should seek to assimilate into European culture. According to several of his biographers, Herzl had an ambivalent relationship to his Jewish identity, both proud and ashamed, and sought to shed his distinctly Jewish traits and meld into the wider culture. But over time he came to lose faith in that approach. The conventional view has it that Herzl was deeply influenced by the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, a French-Jewish army captain falsely accused of treason in 1894. The case, which has come to be seen as a textbook example of enduring European hostility toward Jews, unfolded when Herzl was the Paris correspondent for the Viennese Neue Freie Presse. However, later scholars have suggested that Herzl’s transformation occurred earlier and that he played up the impact of the Dreyfus affair on his thinking only to win support for his political goals.

Either way, Herzl eventually came to believe in the futility of Jewish assimilation and efforts to combat anti-Semitism, promoting instead the idea that Jews should remove themselves from Europe and establish their own independent polity so as to secure their national rights. In Der Judenstaat, he proposed an independent state as the solution to the so-called “Jewish question” and laid out a detailed plan for its establishment. Herzl did not believe the Jewish state had to be established in the land of Israel. In Der Judenstaat, he considered both Palestine (then under Ottoman rule) and Argentina, writing that Jewish public opinion should determine which option was preferred. Later, he lent his support to the idea of a Jewish state in east Africa.

Though Herzl was inspired by the plight of Jews in Europe, his writings presented the Jewish question as a universal one. “The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers,” he wrote in Der Judenstaat, adding:

Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally move to those places where we are not persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution. This is the case in every country, and will remain so, even in those highly civilized — for instance, France — until the Jewish question finds a solution on a political basis. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America. (Translated by Sylvie d’Avigdor and Jacob De Haas)

Herzl’s vision of a Jewish state was greeted with derision from liberal Jews, who rejected his separatist vision, and from the Orthodox, who believed the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the holy land needed to await the coming of the Messiah. Nevertheless, in 1897, Herzl presided over the inaugural conference of the Zionist Organization (later the World Zionist Organization) in Basel, Switzerland, which drew about 200 delegates and established the Zionist goal as establishing a legally assured home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Herzl was elected the group’s president and assumed the mantle of global Zionist leadership.

In the years that followed, Herzl actively promoted his ideas, meeting with German Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II in an attempt to win their support for the Zionist cause. In 1903, he secured support from the British for the establishment of a Jewish state in east Africa and brought the proposal before the Sixth Zionist Congress. But the idea proved controversial and was ultimately shelved in 1905.

In addition to not being wedded to the idea of the land of Israel as the locale for a Jewish state, Herzl initially opposed the adoption of Hebrew (then being revived by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda) as the state’s official language. Writing in Der Judenstaat, Herzl argued:

We cannot converse with one another in Hebrew. Who amongst us has a sufficient acquaintance with Hebrew to ask for a railway ticket in that language? Such a thing cannot be done.

He also rejected the use of Yiddish, which many European Jews then spoke, calling for Jews to “give up using those miserable stunted jargons, those Ghetto languages which we still employ, for these were the stealthy tongues of prisoners.”

Instead, Herzl supported the idea of a multilingual “federation of tongues” in which Jews could retain the language with which they felt most comfortable, citing Switzerland (which has four official languages) as an example of the idea’s viability. The language “which proves itself to be of greatest utility for general intercourse,” Herzl wrote, would be adopted as the national tongue “without compulsion.” (He would later become more supportive of efforts to revive Hebrew and even made an effort to learn it himself.)

In 1902, Herzl published Altneuland (“Old New Land”), a novel that describes the transformation of Palestine into a thriving, prosperous and modern country with the return of the Jewish people.

In 1904, Herzl died in Austria at the age of 44. In 1949, in accordance with his wishes, Herzl’s remains were transferred to Jerusalem, where they were reinterred on Mount Herzl, named in his memory. The quote “If you will it, is is no dream” is commonly attributed to Herzl. A modified form of the line appeared in Altneuland.

BatZion

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:40 pm

amother Topaz wrote:

They believe Judaism is based on that "Book" the Torah.
the Zionist founder had nothing with the Torah.

Psst me calling the Torah "a book" was tongue in cheek.

Incorrect.

Religious Zionists (at least the ones in the community that I am part of) believe that the idea of Am Yisrael B'Eretz Yisrael l'fi Torat Yisrael starts in the Book of Books I.e. The Torah I.e. Lech Lecha M'artzecha...El Ha'Aretz Asher Ar'eka.

We don't see Zionism as starting with Herzl.

We hear Hashem telling us to pick up and move to our land.

We also daven this three times a day. And take it literally.

Herzl was part of Hashem's plan. As all Jewish people are.

And at that I shall stop hijacking this post and allow OP to answer...

amother

Silver

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:43 pm

BatZion wrote:

That's not zionism though. Zionism is a very specific movement. I think most Jews believe what you believe minus small select groups.

BatZion

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:50 pm

amother Silver wrote:

That's not zionism though. Zionism is a very specific movement. I think most Jews believe what you believe minus small select groups.

Wrong.
Come to Israel and ask people who define themselves as Religious Zionists and this is the standard answer you will get.
Perhaps you were taught that Zionists are people that believe in Herzl, admire him and think he is their saviour. Hate to break it you but that just ain't so.
I do not define my Zionism by one man in the history of Am Yisrael. I also do not deny that he played a big part in the modern State of Israel today. And it isn't the first time that certain breakthroughs in Jewish history came through unlikely players. But that's Hashem's cheshbonot, not ours.

amother

Silver

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:52 pm

BatZion wrote:

So why use the term zionism? It is their movement. Why not use another term?

amother

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:54 pm

Ok here goes I’ll try to get to everyone
I live in israel, over the green line
I have sent my 3 sons to serve in army with pride and the next one will be joining in 2 years IYH. They are all devored to Torah and Mitvos who learn in yeshiva for many years as well KnH
I base my Zionism on the Torah and the amount of times that eretz Yisroel is mentioned by Hashem and how clearly IMO he wants the Yidden to be in this land. And how many mitzvos can only be fulfilled in EY and I see the founding of the state as the steps of moshiach and a big nes and sign from Hashem that He wants us here

I don’t feel badly towards anyone who thinks differently but I hope they were given all the facts and not just told to disagree with “zionists” just because. If someone has a valid disagreement and thought out opinions then I respect that and I am also happy to hear as long as not bashing

I don’t think everything is perfect AT ALL with the founding of the state or with the government now but at the same time I don’t think that cancels out the entire ideology. The same way as if news comes ouit about the misdoings of a famous rebbe I won’t stop keeping Shabbos.
Not to throw the baby out with the bath water in other words

Reality

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:56 pm

amother Silver wrote:

So why use the term zionism? It is their movement. Why not use another term?

No. Zionism belongs to the Jewish people and the "Zionists" misappropriated it for themselves.

In a shiur by Rabbi Breitowitz he quoted the Gerrer Rebbe lamenting that the Zionists took Zionism away from us.

BatZion

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 1:56 pm

amother Silver wrote:

So why use the term zionism? It is their movement. Why not use another term?

What on earth are you talking about?!

Tzion is mentioned in Tanach 152 times as synonym for Yerushalayim!!

We are all Tziyonim sweetheart LOL

We all want to come back to Tziyon.

Religious Zionists believe that this is already happening in our days.

Others believe differently.

Either way...we'll all come back in the end beH.

I'll keep your seat warm sister Wink

amother

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 2:03 pm

Im really confused by why you think the word Zion is a new invention of a few particular Jews

The Hebrew name Tzion (ציון), or “Zion” appears at least 157 times in the Bible. Below are a couple examples of the verses in the Torah . Let us find out the meaning of the word Zion.

In many sources, the Rabbis interpreted the passages to be referring to the source of Jewish wisdom as the Sanhedrin was housed in the building adjacent the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Hebrew word for Zion, Tzion (ציון), can be translated as “indication” or “marking.” The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, explains that the Jewish people are called Tzion through their study of Jewish texts and fulfillment of G‑d’s commandments. Causing them to be distinguished, or marked, for their uniqueness.

In Jewish law states, if someone finds an object that has identifiable markings, if the original owner presents these identifiers, the person must return the object. In a similar manner, the Jewish people are like the lost object, and as a result of their fulfilling Gods commandments, they are set aside as Tzion (ציון) unique. It is for this reason that when the Mashiach comes, God, as the owner of this lost object will be able to reclaim the Jewish people from the nations of the world.

amother

Silver

Thu, Oct 05 2023, 2:03 pm

Tzion doesn't translate to Zionism. I think it would be better to differentiate the movements.