Trudy Gold
What is Zionism?

Trudy Gold - What is Zionism?

- Well, good evening everyone, and welcome from London. And today is a particularly tough subject, particularly in the light of what is going on when in many parts of the world, Zionism has become a dirty word. How on earth has it come to this? And what I’m going to do in this particular presentation, I’m going to talk about what Zionism is, what Zionism was, how the movement arose. And later on in another session, I’m going to talk about the individuals and the different strands within Zionism. So because it’s so contentious, I actually went back to the dictionary, a movement for the reestablishment, and now the development of a Jewish nation in Israel, established as a political nation, a political organisation in 1897, of course this was the first sign is Congress. Post 48, belief that the state of Israel has a right to exist and that Jews have a right to self-determination. Webster’s dictionary and international movement, originally for the establishment of a Jewish national home and a religious community in Palestine, and later support for modernist Israel. Shorter Oxford Dictionary, a movement originally for the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine. And since 1948, the development of the state of Israel. Now, what does anti-Zionism mean in today’s world? Does it mean you are against the policies of the government of Israel? If I said I didn’t like the current government of England, would that make me anti British or just against the policies of the current government of Britain? You see the problem, when you say anti-Zionist, if the whole purpose of Zionism was the establishment of a Jewish state, does that mean what you are in favour of is the Dee Establishment of a Jewish state and everything and the monstrosity that would go with it?

Now, many people who describe themselves as anti-Zionists say, it’s because we disapprove of the policies of the state of Israel. To me, intellectually, that is absolutely ridiculous. And the other issue that we’ll be looking at from different angles in the next few weeks is the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. We all know what anti-semitism is. It is a movement that arose in the middle of the 19th century that says Jews are a separate race and they are united by blood and they are our enemy. And antisemite regards the Jews as an enemy. Now I’m going back to the origins because I think it’s important to understand what we’re talking about in a world where now there’s so much disinformation and ambiguity. What on earth is it about? Can we see the first slide please? Now this is Mr. Elias Canetti, an interesting man. He was a Sephardi Jew. He was born in Bulgaria. The family moved to Manchester when he was very young and when his father died in 1912, the family moved to Vienna. The mother took the three boys to Vienna, where of course in 1938, they had to get out. They came to Britain, and in 1952, he became a British citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in 1981. His most important book is “Crowds and Power.” But he said something that I want you to hang on to, he said, “There are no people more difficult to understand than the Jews.” When I looked at the definitions, even we talked about a homeland, it talked about a state.

What we need to begin to unpack was what were the features in history that actually led to the establishment of a movement in the 19th century that focused on returning the Jews to Zion? And, of course, there is an extraordinary paradox because the 19th century was the best century the Jews had ever experienced in the West for 2000 years. The three areas we have to look at when we are looking at Zionism, the link with the land itself. Those of you who are Jewish and have any notion of religiosity whatsoever, I’m sure you have a pay service because that seems to be what all families be. They very religious, be they secular, they meet around the Seder table, and what do we say? We say next year in Jerusalem. Those of you who are religious, of course, it’s so imbued in our whole religious culture. Now, the Jews were considered by others right up to the modern period as a nation in exile. And yet, it’s important to remember there’s no real attempt to return to the land for 1800 years. Yes, there were occasional individuals and they were occasional messianic movements. And yes, there was always a small community in the land of Israel, but there’s no real attempt as a mass movement to reclaim the land. So let me reiterate this. Why did Zionism arise in the best period the Jews had ever experienced in the West? Now, there are three factors. Number one is the link, the link with the land, either through religiosity or even in historic memory.

You know, what is Isaiah Berlin said about the Jews? They have a longer memory than any people. And the bonds that link us actually are historic. Because if you think about it, there is something unique about Jewish history. When a people is exiled from the land, they usually just assimilate into the surrounding culture that didn’t happen to the Jews. Ironically, anti-Semitism, which appeared in the middle of the 19th century, was also a spur to Zionism. And also it’s an authentic national liberation movement that asks for the right of self-determination of the Jewish people. And it all really begins with the European enlightenment. Without the European Enlightenment, none of this could happen. And it’s important to remember what was the position of Jewish minorities in Europe. They lived as a powerless people. Their whole lives were determined by the attitude of Gentiles. And of course, Christianity played a very important role. And what were the teachings about the Jews? This negative stereotype, if you want to understand the absolute horror that is facing the Jewish world at the moment in terms of propaganda, I’m speaking personally now, I really do believe you have to go back to the appalling callousness that have been thrown at us for 1800 years. So very, very deep. So, what is the teaching about the Jews? That the Jews are responsible in the Christian world for the death of God. Jesus is God, remember? The stubborn rejection of the true faith and the church regarded that the Jews had to be kept at a lowly status as a just punishment, never physical annihilation, because the Jews should live, and this is actually written down, the Jews should live as eternal witnesses to the true faith of Christianity.

So his status was of degradation. And this theological hatred was actually absorbed, unfortunately by Christian European society. So even when the hold of religion is lessened, what I’m saying is these attitudes never change. And if you think about it, up until the modern period, whenever the word Jew was mentioned, be it in a sermon or a chronicle, whenever a crowd of wicked Jews appeared in a passion play, whenever the Jew is portrayed as the embodiment of evil in a mystery play or a ballad or a stained glass winter window, or in a painting or in a sculpture, the association is always the same horror, disgust, witchcraft, evil, and love of wickedness for its own sake. I’m sorry to sort of throw this at you like bullets, but this is something that I’ve thought about and I’ve studied for many, many, many years. And it’s with great reluctance. I come up with this kind of analysis. Now, Christian legislation actually encouraged the isolation of the Jew. They were forced to wear identification mark, and think of it, the Jew badge. And in fact, England was the first country to implement the Jew badge in Oxford in 1222. And eventually, they have to live in ghettos. Remember the word ghetto comes from the Jewish experience. It’s the ghetto in Venice. And this almost universal negative stereotype, certainly in the Christian world, is reflected in continuous persecutions and their enforced isolation. Think of the wild accusations. Child murder, well-poisoning at the time of the black death. And not only that, everyone’s way of life was determined by the guild system, and the guilds isolated the Jews from any manual occupations.

So they live this very artificial life. Now this changes and it changes with the growth of the enlightenment in the 18th and 19th centuries. And probably before Yontif, we’re going to start a whole series on the enlightenment because we need to go back to that time in history when there really was a belief in creating a better world. So the enlightenment was about the spread of toleration. It posed the idea that in fact, we are all born human. It’s not yet about equal right. It’s about the human condition. And it’s gradual. And it happens in France, in the German lands, in England, where various philosophers horrified, mainly by the appalling wars of religion of the 16th century, began to rethink the nature of man. It’s also the culmination of the renaissance, the rebirth of the learning of Greece and Rome, the inventing of the printing press. It must have been a quite an exciting place to be. And it was reflected from a Jewish point of view that the opening of new settlements for the Jews, for example, in Holland and England. And it led to an improvement of the status of a widening number of Jews in Europe. By 1791, two years after the French Revolution, the 40,000 Jews of France were given legal equality. Now, what contributed to the growth of toleration? Well, on one side, you’ll find rather negative Millenarianism, the second coming of the Messiah, you see the notion of the Christian Messiah. He came to this world to save people from their sins, but obviously, the first coming didn’t work. So he will come back again. And a prerequisite is the conversion of the Jews. So ironically, this was one of the reasons the Jews were readmitted to England because of Puritanism.

The idea that if Jews and Christians mix, this will in fact lead to Jews seeing the light and converting to Christianity, and also mercantilism, which is probably a more important motif, certainly as far as the Oliver Cromwell was concerned. It placed emphasis on the economic worth of the individual and therefore his value to the nation, regardless of his social background or his religious background. Now this is important because judging by a non-religious criteria, you begin to see books like John Toland, “Reasons for Naturalising the Jews”, the charter of Frederick II of Prussia, where he gave rights to Jews on their, based on the basis of the utility, their usefulness to the state. It’s an economic motive, it was limited, but the charge from Frederick II is limited to only those Jews who are useful to the state. And also gentile society becomes more and more aware of Jewish usefulness. So therefore, why don’t we try and improve them? Wilhelm Dohn, Verbesserung der jüdischen argued for the reeducation and reformation of the Jews. Their corruption as they saw it, was actually attributed to persecution. In fact, in the debate on Jewish emancipation in the British parliaments, this was a very strong argument. They don’t love England as their mother country because we don’t treat her well. If we treat them well, then maybe they will begin to love us. Now the other point about the enlightenment, which is so important, it promoted a society that it was comprised of individuals. It begins to talk about the power of the individual. It challenged the traditional structures.

Each group should have its own rights, its own privileges and disadvantages. Now, the enlightenment wants to stop this. If you think about France, for example, the aristocrats and the peasants, and it was the rise of the middle classes, the articulate middle classes that begins to really change all of this. Also, let’s stop all forms of separation. In Poland, Jews were more or less self-governing, kehilot, the dream was certainly in Western Europe that these kind of things will go. But think how important the enlightenment was because politically, it led to the emancipate. It led to a political revolution in France and a political revolution in America. And I’m sure all my American friends, what is so important about America? America has no state religion. This is pure enlightenment. Now, so the French Revolution and then emancipation, the giving of rights from manumission. You lay your hands on when in Roman times to free the slave, the laying of hands by the master, manumission. It allowed Jews into European society in theory, on equal footing, equality before the law. The universities are opened, the schools are opened, professions open to them. And also, let’s take that 100 years between 1815 after the defeat of Napoleon to the First World War. It is a century of profound change. I’ve said this to you many times ‘cause it stuck so much in my head. My former history teacher, my one of the greatest tutors I ever knew. She said, imagine you were born in 1800 and you died in 1900. Just imagine, every one of you, think back to that century.

And the unbelievable change brought about urbanisation, technology, communication, and now, what it does to the Jews? It shifts the Jews right into the centre of European society. They’re now going to be concentrated in the great metropolis of Europe, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Warsaw, to a lesser degree, London, Paris, Odessa, all had a highly-disproportionate number of Jews. Warsaw, for example, by 1900 was 33% Jewish. And the Jews are going to achieve prominence far beyond their numbers. Not to the extent that the anti-Semites accuse them of, but nevertheless, you are looking at an extraordinary success stop for an extraordinary success story. And from a marginal community, they’re now, you can make the case that they are beneficiaries of the enlightenment, emancipation, and industrialization. And this is achieved in 100 years. So let me ask the question again. So why was it when for the first time, Jews have unrivalled opportunities, a movement arises that tells them, that says to them, you will never be part of the societies in which you live? It’s a modern problem and it required modern and innovative answers. Many Jews could no longer find their answers in traditional Jewish society. After the enlightenment and secularisation because it inevitably went with it. Those of you who are religious, think how many decisions you have to make every day. Do you send your children to Jewish schools? Do you send your children to secular schools?

Do you keep kosher? Do you completely observe the Shabbat? What if your child has managed to enter a school which is open on a Saturday? I’m giving you family decisions now, but this changes because the world seems to be opening up. They’re a tiny percentage of the population, but they’re beginning to have a very high profile and their perception of themselves begin to change. Prior to the French Revolution, the distinction between Jew and Christian and Jew and Muslim was seen in terms of religious belief. It was religion that determined the status of the Jew. And because of his religious commitment, he couldn’t be part of the body politic, which views him in religious terms. Now, the Jew was a citizen, the state no longer sorry to self as Christian, but encompassing every citizen regardless of religious beliefs or lack of them. Now, how did Jews react to equality? Historians call this the crisis of modernity. And I told you this before as well because it’s such a lovely device. In Chinese, there are two figures that represent crisis. One is danger, the other is opportunity. We all know about the opportunity. You can be part of the modern world and have everything the all the benefits. Can you just imagine Moses Mendelssohn arriving in Berlin and seeing the art, the architecture, listening to the music, having been a great talmudist? Can you imagine Jews coming from Eastern Europe to Paris and wandering around the galleries of Paris? It must have been dazzling.

It’s not just philosophical problems, they’re going to worry the Jews. Now, it is day-to-day living. And this of course, was the dilemma that no ghetto Jew ever had of place, this is the crisis of modernity and the modern secular Jew, because so many of them, particularly, I’m not so much talking about Eastern Europe here, but in Western Europe, Jews are becoming far more modern. And for many of them, they’re becoming more secularised. How do they react to non-Jewish society, which for all its lip service to universal principles, was viewing its own identity. And this is terribly important because what else happens in the 19th century? It begins to see itself. Think about the collapse of the old empires. Think of the Habsburg empire made up of 30, 15 different national groups. Think about the growth of the German empire, think about France that couldn’t make up its mind, whether it was going to be a monarchy or a republic. Kept on changing, changing, changing plus industrialization, and a huge sense of change. Now, how do we react when the world is changing so much? I think it’s a perfect example. You just have to think about what’s going on at the moment. Why are people becoming more and more tribal the minute there is huge problems, economic, social, and political. And you’ve got to imagine that for the majority of people, whereas modernity might be good for the Jews, and I’m going to talk about that in a minute. It wasn’t quite so good for the majority. Think about the people coming to the cities to get work. The destruction of the old village communities, slum landlording, the appalling conditions that many people faced, they didn’t necessarily care about the great going forward in the arts.

And what happens when you are economically, socially, and politically challenged? You become tribal. You know that terrible quote “In every Museum of Tolerance, those of us who don’t learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.” Come on, look what’s happening in the world we live in now, people are becoming more tribal. People began in the 19th century. They began to look at their own identity in terms of nationality, ethnicity, and parts history. And when we come onto Theodore Herzl, who had been dazzled by Paris, he is the man who creates political Zionism. The tragedy of the Dreyfus case for Theodore Herzl was that Dreyfus was an emancipated, successfully integrated, militaristic, chauvinistic Frenchmen. But when the tradition, when when suspicion of treason arose and one of the suspects turned out to be Dreyfus, the public consensus tended to believe it had to be Dreyfus. Because after all, he is a Jew and not a Frenchman. So what you see out of modernity is the modern era, which for so many Jews gave them what they believed to be the world. It saw the rise of a new kind of hatred, which actually combined the worst features of ancient church hatred with a new nationalistic racial definition. Jews are now no longer going to be hated for their religious beliefs, but for their race. But this is very important.

The majority of emancipated Jews saw themselves very much as Jewish by religion and loyal to their country of birth. Anti-Semitism was the slap in the face. In terms of identity. They’d lost the security of the ghetto, for what? Now I want to have a look at how some very interesting characters looked at Jewish identity, because you cannot take on Zionism without really delving into Jewish identity. Can we see the next slide please? Now go back one. Heinrich Heine, isn’t he there? Can you? No, I’m sorry. I meant to have a picture of Heinrich Heine. I couldn’t resist it. I’ll just tell you what he said. “A book is their father land, their possession, their ruler, their future, their fortune and misfortune, from here, they cannot be driven out.” Now this is, can we, the next slide is Isaac Noah Mannheimer. His date, 1793 to 1865. So his life encompasses emancipation. He’s born in Copenhagen, becomes a rabbi. He studies both Jewish and secular subjects. He goes to Vienna, he becomes politically very active. Now how does he regard and remember, Vienna is going to be Herzl city. This is where the Zionist movement has its centre. And he says this, “Judaism is a historic institution sanctified by divine revelation and firmly established and unified by ancestral truths.” Though, so these are rabbis who’ve studied the secular world. They have given up their notion of nationhood. They are still the whole history of the Jew and the link with the land is important, but he is a citizen of Vienna. Can we have a look at the next one? This is Moritz Goodman. Also, he becomes Chief rabbi of Vienna. I’d chosen Vienna because it was such an acute city. It was 10% Jewish.

It was the centre of the Habsburg empire, and of course, it was the home. Although Herzl been born in Budapest and spent a long time in Paris, that is where his home base was. And this is what Goudemann said. “Having set studied like Mannheimer, both secular religious subjects, I have always believed we are not a nation or rather more than just a nation. I believe we have the historic mission to propagate universalism amongst the nations, and therefore, we are more than a territorial nation. Can we go on please? This is Adolf Jellinek. He also was a rabbi and a scholar. This is what he had to say. "Since the days of Moses Mendelssohn, and particularly since the great revolution in France, the Jews have sent out their best men to fight for equality and the European in the European states. And they have marvelled their intellectual resources and numerous writings for the goal of emancipation. And ironically, it was to him that Leon Pinsker, who had, was born in eastern Europe. There was a brief period in Eastern Europe in the reign of Alexander II, where it seemed that Russia would thaw, liberalise, and the Jews could, in the end have the same conditions that were in the west. When Alexander II was assassinated and the mob turned on the Jews running through the pale of settlement, the Jews killed our czar. Now, they killed our Lord. He had been part of society for the promotion of culture amongst the Jews of Russia. Like a revelation.

This man realised that there was no hope for that world. And he wrote in German, he was a very interesting educated man, Leo Pinkser And he sent it to Jellinek. And what he sent, of course, was his pamphlet, auto-emancipation. And he said judophobia. He was a doctor. Judophobia is a psychic aberration. It is a 2000-year-old disease. It is incurable. And he warned about fleeing to the west to America. He said, "It will follow you there. You have to stop being ghosts on the face of the world and reclaim your nationhood.” He was what we call one of the forerunners of Zionism, in which I’ll be talking about later. Can we see the next slide, please? Arthur Schnitzler, the great writer who was at the University of Vienna with Herzl, and they did become friends. He was very much part of Vienna Cafe Society. He horrified bourgeois Vienna because his views on sexuality. And listen to what he wrote, he wrote this in 1908, four years after, after the death of Herzl, “Who created the liberal movement in Austria? The Jews, by whom were the Jews betrayed and abandoned? By the liberals. Who created the German nationalist movement in Austria? Bearing in mind, Bismarck unified Germany and Austrian Germans looked to high-culture in Germany. The Jews. Who left the Jews in the lurch? Worse, who spat on them like dogs, the German nationalists.” So Schnitzler world weary. He looked at Jews being so influential in these movements, which then reject them. Can we see the next slide please? This is Nathan Birnbaum. Nathan Birnbaun is actually the man who created the term Zionism. He was an eastern European, he lived in Vienna. He actually was behind the creation of the first ever student Zionist organisation at the University of Vienna, predating Herzl.

He later changed his mind about Zionism. But he’s the man who created the word, and I’m going to give you his definition. “The individual Jew may have a father land, but the people have none. And that is its misfortune.” Let me just read you, this is what he wrote in 1892 in Vienna. “To Kadima, what is Zionism? Recognition of the Jewish people as an entity, which by virtue of its cultural gifts has a natural right and obligation to continue to exist as an entity and to act as such. The realisation that the situation of the Jewish people is thoroughly degrading and unfortunate. The conviction that it is necessary completely to transform the international legal and economic situation of the Jewish people by finding a territory that will shout, shelter them at a rallying place for Jews fleeing from the wrath of persecutor as well as a support centre for the entire Jewish people. I’m going to read this again. This is key. Recognition of the Jewish people as an entity, which by virtue of its virtue of its cultural gifts, has a natural right and obligation to continue to exist as an entity and to act as such.” Because so many, of course, the countries of the world are saying no, they’re saying, “Give up your nationhood, the countries of the West, rather. And he’s saying, No, there are too many forces at work. The realisation that the situation of the Jewish people is thoroughly degrading and unfortunate, the conviction that it is necessarily completely to transform the international legal and economic situation of the Jewish people by finding a territory that will shelter them in a rallying place for Jews. Fleeing from the wrath of persecutor, the view that only one country is suited to be this shelter and rallying place, this support centre, Palestine, the ancient national home of the Jewish people.”

Can we go on please? The next slide. And it takes Theodor Herzl though to erupt onto the scene to create political Zionism. Now the story of Herzl is far too well known for me to have to repeat it again. I’ve lectured on it. So have other people. You’ll get, those of you who want more information. There are so many books, but you could hear what we’ve had to say. It’s on the website. But he was born in Budapest in 1860. He died in 1904. He was a sophisticated, wealthy only son of a merchant family. He went to the University of Vienna. He was a man about town, a writer. He wrote for one of the most important papers in Vienna. He married a girl from a very assimilating background. Unfortunately, she was mentally unstable. It was a very unhappy marriage. He goes to Paris as the correspondent of De Noia Friar Paris. He’d already seen antisemitism at the university. He belonged to a fraternity. And when Wagner died, the great cultural figure of German nationalism, there were marches in his honour and they became antisemitic. Herzl was very upset. He expected the other people in the society to say, “No, it’s wrong.” But they didn’t, he left the society. But it’s in Paris. He comes across the Dreyfus affair. And the brilliant journalist, the man of action who, he had this fever desire to do something to help his people. And basically, of course, what he said was, let’s sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe, large enough to satisfy the requirements of a nation.

The rest we shall manage for ourselves. And his genius was to create the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. And what I’ve got for you here, there are a few anti-Semitic slides. We could choose hundreds and hundreds. The movement was created by the man. You see, Wilhelm Marr, he created the league of antisemites and never mistake what an antisemites is he somebody who hates Jews. And he also tied it up with Jewish power. In France, it was Édouard Drumont with his paper, La Libre Parole, in Austria, it’s somebody else. You had an antisemitic mayor, Karl Luger. There, you see the Dreyfus affair. Herzl was in the press box when he witnessed the humiliation of Dreyfus. But what he believed Dreyfus was guilty. So did everyone else at the time. What shocked him was the mob was at the gate screaming death to the Jews. And that is why political Zionism is born. And it’s interesting because there were many forerunners to political Zionism, but it’s Herzl who creates the movement. Can we just go through a few of the characters and I’ll be coming back to them in a couple of weeks. Can you go on please? There’s the lead by Parole, evil, evil, evil mixture of antisemitism and anti-Judaism. Look at the caricature of the Jew. Next one, please. There you see the beautiful Theodor Herzl, 44 years old when he died. Moses Hess. Now, I’ll be talking more about these characters. He’s well-known as a forerunner of Zionism. He actually came from Germany. He came from a religious family, broke away, studied at the University of Bonn and became a follower of Hegel and a disciple of Karl Marx.

And he, in fact, worked on the first draught of the Communist manifesto. But he believed passionately in the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. And in 1862, he wrote a book called “Roman Jerusalem”, modern Rome, modern Jerusalem. And he realised that the Jewish problem, the term antisemitism isn’t yet created, required a special solution. And just as the Italians were regaining their own states, think of Mancini and Risorgimento and Garibaldi, then the Jews should take back Jerusalem and it fell on deaf ears. People didn’t take him seriously at all. In fact, when he was buried in Cologne, it said on his gravestone, “Here lies Moses Hess, one of the founders of German social democracy, because he stayed active in what became the Communist Party.” In 1962, his body is re-interred in Kibbutz Degania, where he lies with the founding fathers of Zionism. Fascinating man, but we will go back to them. Let’s have a look at a couple of rabbis now. There, you see Judah Alkalai. And the next one, please, Zvi Kalischer. These were two rabbis who lived in borderland territories, one in Semlin, the other in Posen They were well-aware of the national diseases that were fermenting through the empires, this great nationalism. And within the Jewish community, within the Jewish tradition, they said, “There is nothing wrong with us paving the way for the coming of the Messiah. We will go to the land, we will learn the languages.” So this is an interesting way of two rabbis accommodating into what became Zionism. The next slide, please. Max Nordau.

Fascinating, one of the great intellectuals of European society. His book “Degeneration”, completely. I mean, it made him world famous. He was a doctor. He also born in Budapest, but lived much of his life in Paris and Vienna. He became atheistic. He spoke 15 languages. He met Herzl. Herzl had gone to see him because of his problems. And when Herzl told him the story, he said, “If you are crazy, I’m crazy too.” And he with Herzl actually opened, the first sign is Congress. And this is how he opened it, a slumber of 30 to 60 years. Then the antisemitism broke up once more from the innermost depth of the native. And his real situation was revealed to the mortified Jew. If he has lost the home of his ghetto. But the land of his birth is denied to him as his home. He has lost the home of the ghetto. But the land of his birth is denied to him as a Jew, as his home. The emancipated Jew is insecure in his relations with fellow beings, timid with strangers, even suspicious of the secret feelings of his friends. His best powers are exhausted in the suppression of his own character. That he feels that his character might be recognised as Jewish and he never has the satisfaction of showing himself as he is. In all his thoughts and sentiments, he becomes an inner-triple. The dilemma couldn’t be solved by religious conversion. You know, in the old days, you could escape if you so wanted, you could become a Christian. But modern nationalism relates to the origins you cannot convert out of your race. So ironically, liberalism and nationalism had created in the Jews a new beginning of self-awareness. And don’t forget that apart from Alkali, Kalischer, the founders of Zionism don’t come from religiosity. In the main, they’re the products of European education. And they are responding to the challenge of identity.

So Zionism is not just the reiteration of the links of the Jews to Palestine. It’s not just a reaction to persecution. It’s a quest for self-determination and liberation under modern secular conditions. It’s also the belief in a common past and a common future for the Jewish people. It regards assimilation as its enemy. Now of course, the situation exacerbates. May I recommend to you Yuri Slezkine’s book “The Jewish Century”, because the point was, the Jewish success story was beyond imagination. And that is something that fueled antisemitism and today fuels these ridiculous canards of Jewish power. I mean the statistics are extraordinary. The greatest German stock, the greatest German joint stock banks, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, founded really by Jewish financiers, you have the Rothchilds in Austria, you had the Piraeus, you had Crédit Mobilier France. Of the private banks in Germany, half are owned by Jews. In Vienna, 40% of the directors of public banks were Jews or of Jewish descent. Why am I giving you all this? Because you’ve got to understand antisemitism. 70% of the traders in the Vienna, boss were Jewish. It in Paris, it was the same. It was 50% post-war one Budapest, 87% of the Hungarian stock exchange.

91% of currency brokers, 90% of industry in Hungary controlled by Jewish families. In 1910, 20% of all millionaires in Britain and Germany were Jewish. 31% of the richest people in Germany were Jews. They were 1% of the population. 71% of the richest Hungarians were Jews. And in the early 20th century, the Rothchilds were the richest family in the world. Education. In Vienna, again, I’m taking Vienna as my example. 40% of gymnasium students were Jewish, amongst those whose fathers were in commerce, 90%. You see, this is the story of the Jew, the emancipation into business to make enough money for your children to have a liberal arts education. By 1910, a third of the students at the university in Vienna, in Hungary, Jews made up 5% of the population. A quarter of university students in Hungary, Jewish and 43% at the University of Budapest. And I can go on and go on the civil services, of course, mainly close to Jews. So, what’s left to them? The liberal professions. In Vienna, 1910, 62% of the lawyers, 50% of the doctors, 63% of the journalists. In Hungary, 1920, 50% of the doctors, 40% of the engineers, 38% of the editors and journalists, 28% of the musicians. And I can go on and on and on as opinion makers in literature and also modernism in all its forms. Think of the explosion in sciences, a study of, and how big is the leap from the study of Talmud to the study of the law. Five out of the nine German Nobel prizes for physics went to Jews. Einstein is the icon of modernity, psychoanalysis, Freud, I think we should think about Freud a lot today because you know what he wrote?

Those of us who are feeling so uneasy about our place in the world, Freud actually wrote, it’s because I didn’t belong to the compact majority. I could do what I did. psychoanalysis, the reason he was so happy that Jung joined is because otherwise, it’s going to be seen completely as a Jewish science. And don’t forget also the amount of Jews in radical movements. It becomes a very, very important debate amongst intellectuals. This is a French intellectual and it’s a and we often marvel at the variety of Jewish aptitudes and their singular ability to assimilate. And at the speed by which they appropriate our knowledge. They have been prepared by heredity for 2000 years of intellectual gymnastics. By taking up our sciences. They do not enter unknown territory. They return to a country already explored by their ancestors. The centuries have not only equipped Israel for stock market wars and assaults on fortune, they are armed for scientific battle and intellectual contexts. The identification, this is important to the Jews with forces that mould modernity. Most European intellectuals saw that. And it’s out of this kind of tassel. And then the horror of the first world war, then everything that came after that when in the end, look, Zionism was not a majority movement in the Jewish world up until the Shoah. In 1933, the Jewish population of Palestine was under 300,000. It was the show up, which on one obscene level you can see the repudiation of the Jew by Western civilization because it’s not just what the Germans did, what the Nazis did, it’s what everybody else either participated in or stood by. And that it happen.

So after the war, there could be for the Zionist in Palestine and for many others, there could be no other answer. And please don’t forget what happened to so many Holocaust survivors. There were murders, those who did survive and went home. They were murdered by fascists. And never forget also the number of Holocaust survivors who went to Israel. One of the huge mistakes that has been made in Holocaust education is not linking the Shoah with Israel. 'Cause Israel saw itself as the heir to the Shoah. And this is not mentioned, it’s almost like, “Did you the eyes the show?” And that’s another reason I think for this appalling upswing in Jew hatred that we see at the moment. Which, and if you remember Jonathan Sacks’ quote, “First, they hated our religion, then our race, and now they hate our nation.” And one of the other issues that I want you to think about as to where all this hatred has come from Zionism, it begins in Russia. Look, Stalin was one of the backers of the state of Israel, the partition of Palestine. And then the UN vote, if it hadn’t been for Russia and America working together, it couldn’t have happened. But not only that, Stalin who make an action made a speech in the UN, saying the Jews are deserving of a state. But what happens? And can we go on and have a look at one or two other slides, please. Israel Zangwill. Of course, I’ll come back to him at another session. The great Anglo Jew. Ahad Ha'Am would be talking about him, Asher Ginsberg, go on. Second, we’d be talking about all these characters. Labour Zionism, socialist Zionism was so many different kinds, go on. Marxist Zionism. Labour Zionism, Simon Dubnow, autonomism. Another answer to the Jewish problem. One of my heroes, Simon Dubner. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, we have to regenerate our people.

There’s also something in Zionism that says the diaspora we’re sick. We have, we’ve got to regenerate ourselves and go back to the language you spoke when you were free men. Yiddish is the jargon of the ghetto. Go on. Now, there were some Jews who were violently opposed to act to Zionism. And I want to come onto those in a later stage because after the Balfour declaration, when the Belfour declaration was being mooted, the conjoint committee of the board of deputies in the Anglo-Jewish Association wrote to the times, violent, the ante, the idea of the Balfour Declaration saying that what we want, you know, we are citizens of Britain. In fact, Montague who was in the government, he said he was about to go to India as Secretary of State. He said, “How can you send me to India, representing Britain when you are telling me my homeland’s at the end of the Eastern Mediterranean. So there’s a lot to be unpacked in Jews who were anti-Zionist. Can you go on, please? Stalin, yes, so Stalin backs Israel. The daily worker had a huge article extolling Israel in the War of Independence. But then when Golda goes to visit Israel, 50,000 young Jews come out to greet her. He’s got a Jewish problem. Next slide, please. The Slansky trials. In Czechoslovakia, 13 people put on trial for, Titoism, Trotskyism, cosmopolitanism, and Zionism, trials break out in Russia. The doctors’ plot where Jewish doctors are accused of trying to poison Stalin. After his death, whose jew, where he now sees this fertile ground in the Arab world for looking for allies. This anti-Zionism that you are seeing on the streets, which to me is done right, antisemitism in most cases comes out of Russia and it in the end, permeates the west. It comes through the radical movements of the ‘60s. And there are many, many good books on it.

And I have lectured on it in the past. So what I’m doing today, and I hope I haven’t gone too fast, and I know many of you are thinking about these things, but I want, don’t lose heart. Please don’t lose heart. We are the eternal people and this is a very rough patch. But the world is going through a rush patch and when people are economically, socially, and politically challenged, they do become tribal. And the problem for the Jew is we are the perfect other. The irony is we always act as individuals. So if you think about it, a Jew can be a capitalist, a communist, a religious, whatever. But if you believe in tribe, what are we altogether for? And then you get into that horrific story of the protocols and world Jewish conspiracy. And Israel is the centre of that. And, of course, nothing could be farther from the truth, but I’m seeing so much of the old Jew hatred out again and I’m just glad that some of the people I’ve known and loved who have studied so much are not here to see what’s happened. But I really do believe we will come through it. And I do believe the tide is beginning to turn. I know from my, I have some, I’ve lost friends over it, but I’ve also gained some very good friends in this country. And one of them the other day said, "Why doesn’t the world realise that Israel is the last stand of democracy? And if it don’t they realise, that Israel is fighting for us.” And that is not a political comment on my part because I don’t want to get involved in the issue of the rights and wrongs of the Netanyahu government, et cetera, et cetera. This is not what this is about. What this is about is to talk about where Zionism came from. So just to recap, three points to Zionism, a modern Jewish nationalism which says the Jews have a right to a self-determination of peoples, a link with the land, which goes back to the centre of our value and belief system and a response to modern antisemitism. So, thank you very much. I’ll stop there. I am actually talking to you from my iPhone because I can’t get the pad to work. So do you think you can go through the questions for me, Georgie?

Q&A and Comments:

• [Georgie] Right. Let me just get them up for you. So first one is, I missed your reason for featuring Elias Canetti and his significance for Zionism.

• Because he said, why did I put him in? Because he said, “There is no people more difficult to understand than the Jews.” And that’s the story. We don’t fit any pattern, we never have. That’s not our story. That’s why I had to include him. And also to give a plug to “Crowds and Power.” It’s a brilliant book, talks about what happens to the mob. The lowest common denominator is the crowd. Okay?

• [Georgie] Did I hear correctly that antisemitism started in the n-

• Hello? Can’t hear you.

• [Georgie] Hi, did you hear that?

• [Trudy] No, can you say it again?

Q - [Georgie] Did I hear correctly that antisemitism started in the 19th century?

A - Yes. Antisemitism is different from the old theological hatreds. Antisemitism was a modern secular movement, which says, it’s all to do with race theory. A Jew cannot be a German because a Jew is a separate race and you cannot convert out of antisemitism. Whereas theologically, it look a lot of the attitudes of Jew hatred from the past are entwined in it, but it’s about race and blood. Never forget that of our tragic victims of the Showa, many of them were not a luckily Jewish or had been converted. But to Hitler, the sin was Jewish blood. Okay?

Q - [Georgie] Next one is, hold on, there’s quite a few comments. So I’ll read the questions first, but the next one is, if under emancipation Jews could go to universities, why did so many convert to Christianity for educational and professional opportunities?

A - Well, because for many of them to get the big job, it was easier to become a Gentile. And also, I think Jews fell in love with gentile society. They downgraded their own experience. I think that happened a lot. And also, you have that appalling phenomenon of Jewish self-hatred, which is epitomised for me in Karl Marx. That’s another, that’s a brilliant question. Unfortunately, it’s a whole lecture. It’s an important one. And I think some we ought to give it. But many of the issues you are bringing up are absolutely fundamental. Can we go on, please?

Q - [Georgie] Sure. Next one is, what is a Bundes?

A - A bundes is, oh, you obviously haven’t seen some of the past lecturers. A bundes is a Jewish socialist came out of Russia, but within the Jewish tradition who believed in fighting with the revolution and that after the war, after the Revolutionary Wars, there would be Jewish autonomy in Russia. And Yiddish was their language. It was a huge, I’ve actually lectured on it and you will find it on the website. Buddhism had more adherence than Zionism in Russia. I’ve only just begun my talks on Zionism. I mean, we’re going to be with the Middle East right up until the end of July. And don’t forget, I’m bringing in a lot of other people to discuss it from different angles. And William, of course, is on tonight at seven. I’ve had to swap with him for a family reason that he couldn’t make. So here, don’t forget to look, listen to him tonight because he’s a brilliant British historian. Okay, go on.

Q - [Georgie] Next one is, isn’t there theological Jew hatred in Islam?

A - There is a negative stereotype of the Jew, but it is not the day aside. We are not accused of killing God. Islam is monotheistic, completely monotheistic, doesn’t believe that Jesus was divine or Mohamed by that. He was the great prophet, but not divine. So, it’s a different kind of prejudice. I’m not saying it’s not a problem. And we will be talking about him.

Q - [Georgie] Lovely. Next one. It seems that the word Zionism today refers to the settlers who want to settle Judea and Samaria. Now what it meant. Not what it meant in the beginning? Question mark.

A - No, I mean this is the problem. It’s such a misused, wrong word. You know, Zionism was a movement to create a Jewish homeland or state even that is complicated. The Balfour Declaration said, “Homeland, what does that mean?” And I’m going to be, I’m going to be deconstructing the Balfour declaration for you because it is such a strange document. And in 1939, the British said, well, we didn’t really mean anything by it. And I remember doing a course on the Balfour Declaration with a bunch of lawyers and what they did to the Balfour declaration was extraordinary, you know. Anyway, let’s have a look at other questions.

Q - [Georgie] The next one is, can you repeat the quote about being more than a territorial nation? And who said it? Thank you.

A - Oh, goodness. Can I leave that one because I’m going to go have to go ruffling through. It’s was one of the rabbis and I will have to go ruffling through my notes, but I’ll put it up for next time. Thank you.

Q - [Georgie] So the rest of them are just response to saying how wonderful your talks were.

A - Oh, thank you. It’s hard to give this one, particularly at the time we are at, I look, I wish everybody well. I think lockdown is, well, it’s certainly comforting for me and we try and be as open-minded as possible and to accommodate all views and be respectful of each other. And can I just wish everybody well at this incredibly difficult time. Georgie, thank you for holding my hand because I couldn’t get my iPad to work, so I went into my usual panic. So, I’ll see you next week. But William is on to at seven o'clock tonight, so God bless everyone and thank you so much. Bye.