ZIONISM - Spiritual

ZIONISM - SPIRITUAL

Jews often trace their nationhood back to the biblical kingdoms of David and Solomon, 950 BCE. The word Zion is used in a theological or spiritual sense in Scripture. In the Old Testament Zion refers figuratively to Israel as the people of God (Isaiah 60:14).

–ism is a suffix added to the end of a word to indicate that the word represents a specific practice, system, or philosophy - accepted as an authority by a group or school of thought.  Often these practices, systems, or philosophies are political ideologies or artistic movements. 

After the destruction of the Temple and their defeat by the Romans, the Jews passed beyond the realm of politics, becoming a nation of the spirit. They managed to construct a political strategy so creative that they could linger on as a nation after losing the three building blocks of nationhood: land, central authority, and the means of self-defense. In every place they settled, they sought out the niches where they could fill the needs of their host societies.

With this strategy, the Jews sustained themselves materially and maintained the communal institutions that kept alive the nation’s spirit. In terms of political power, however, they were impotent, completely dependent on the protection of the local ruler. 

Inevitably, this political strategy had transformed them into a “no-fail" target for their gentile rulers, their lives and property a safety valve upon which was released all the political pressure building up in the host society. The Jews thought they were fulfilling all kinds of functions of use to society, but their real function for the politicians was as a target. Violence against the Jews was always profitable, and always without opposition or consequences.

For close to 2,000 years of statelessness in which Jews yearned, prayed and never lost hope for an ultimate return to their land, two vital facts almost miraculously remained unchanged:

The first was that of the many conquerors and invaders who overran Israel in the course of these two millennia, none of them densely settled the land, sank roots or developed a distinct culture, and none of them declared themselves therefore in a separate, indigenous political entity.

The second fact is that while each invading people in its turn took possession of the land on the basis of “might makes right” and “to the conqueror belong the spoils,” the Jewish people never relinquished its claim to the land as the actual descendants and heirs of the people last to inhabit the land as a distinct historic nation.

What gave legitimacy to this claim was that the Jews, wherever exiled, continued to live by the Book whose language, setting and history was that of the land of Israel – publically proclaimed three times a day, that Eretz Yisrael rightfully belongs to the remnants of the Jewish people.

The only obstacle that stood in the way of possession was the practicalities of it. Once this was overcome, the way was open for what became the modern Zionist movement.