Different Zionisms.

There were three solutions to the Jewish problem (antisemitism)

1. Assimilation - All the Jews should leave Judaism.

2. Dependence on "God" - All Jews should pray and keep the commandments.

3. Zionism - To create a Jewish State where Jews could come.

I differentiate between negative Zionism and positive Zionism. This is not a separation from good and bad, but the reason for the Zionism:

Negative Zionism is the escape from the persecution that has been the lot of Jews everywhere. This basis for Judaism is the main one and is shared with the proponents of positive Zionism as well.

1. Building a state that could be an example for all other nations, that the Torah (the law) shall again come forth from Zion. There are different descriptions of this law. It could be that there were and are Zionists of this type without a connection to a political party or to a separatist organization.

2. To renew the state in order to rebuild the Temple, or at least to support religious Judaism.

3. The nationalist Zionists wanted to include all of Palestine in the new Jewish state.

4. Socialist Zionists, whose best accomplishment are the agricultural settlements that are governed by participatory democracy. Their "law", that I mentioned earlier, was a society that took care of it's citizens.

Even in the first Zionist Congress in Basle those attending were representatives of different Jewish organizations with different ideas. There was a dramatic event when the idea came up to settle in other places instead of Israel like Australia, or South America, or even the U.S.A. A vote was taken to settle in Uganda. The majority voted for this idea, but those opposed left the Congress.

Ideas die hard. There might even still be an organization that wants the Jews to settle in Uganda.

When I worked with Habonim (a Zionist youth group) in Detroit I organized a committee of the Zionist youth groups. All the representatives other than HaShomer HaTzair were also members of Habonim.

I presented to them the following definition of Zionism:

1. Zionists claim that all Jews are part of a people regardless of the religious separation or where they were living.

2. That Israel is the homeland of all the Jews.

3. That Zionists are those who do acts of Zionism - migrating to Israel, collecting funds, or publicizing in favor of Israel. As long as they accept the label. There are even Christian Zionists.

*There is a joke about an international class that has to write a paper about elephants. The Rumanian wrote about buying and selling elephants. The German wrote about how to train elephants for war. The Frenchman wrote about the love life of elephants. The American wrote about growing bigger and stronger elephants. And the Jew wrote about the elephant and the Jewish problem.