Any religion, if re-packaged in an ideology, becomes rigid, stagnant, and exclusionary. In the last 150 years, religion has largely been re-imagined in the light of modernity. This has legitimised its literalist version, transforming it into a xenophobic set of ideas and actions. A religion acquires lethality and develops fascistic edges when it becomes an abetting force for territorial nationalism.

The starkest examples of the re-packaging of religion into an ideology are Zionism and Hindutva. It would be in complete accord with historical objectivity if one asserted that Zionism had become an ideology even before fascism was conceived. A close investigation of the two phenomena shows fascism to be a reply to the Zionist ideology.

To what extent fascism was a mere replica of Zionism needs intensive research. Thus, the difference between Zionism and Hindutva is that the later was an inspiration from fascism whereas the former seemed to be a forerunner of fascism.

A commonality between these two ideologies is a distant connection with the religions that these two claim to represent. In this column, I will unpack the term Zionism as I have felt that our youth need to have some clarity as to the difference between Zionism and Judaism. I will trace a brief genealogy of Zion and will then go on to look at it from the historical prism.

The etymology of the word Zion ( iyôn) is uncertain. However, it appears in the Old Testament in the Books of Samuel as the name of a Jebusite fortress conquered by David (Hazrat Dawood, peace be upon him). Its origin seems to predate the Israelites. “If Semitic, it may be derived from the Hebrew root iyyôn (castle). A non-Semitic relationship to the Hurrian word šeya (river or brook) has also been suggested as also one of Hittite origin.”

Zion is mentioned 152 times in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), most often in the prophetic books, the Book of Psalms, and the Book of Lamentations, besides six mentions in the historical books (Kings, Samuel, Chronicles). There is a single mention of the “daughters of Zion” in the Song of Songs (3:11).

Out of the 152 mentions, 26 instances are within the phrase “Daughter of Zion” (Hebrew: bat Tzion). This is a personification of the city of Jerusalem, or of its population. According to the Islamic tradition, ahy n is the word in currency for Zion in Arabic and Syriac.

Drawing on the biblical tradition, it is one of the names accorded to Jerusalem in Arabic and Islamic tradition. A valley called W d Sahy n seemingly preserves the name and is located approximately one and three-quarter miles from the Old City’s Jaffa Gate.

The term, Zionism, was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum. Birnbaum, a Viennese Jew, and two fellow students at the University of Vienna founded Kadimah, the first organisation of Jewish nationalist students in the West in 1882. In 1884, he published his first pamphlet, Die Assimilationsucht (The Assimilation Disease/Mania).

He founded, published, and edited Selbst-Emancipation! (Self-Emancipation!) between 1884 and 1894. In 1893, he published a brochure in German, titled in English translation, The National Rebirth of the Jewish People in its Homeland as a Means of Solving the Jewish Question,) in which he expounded ideas similar to those that Theodore Herzl was to promote subsequently. It was a periodical that aimed to promote “the idea of a Jewish renaissance and the resettlement of Palestine,” which incorporated and developed the ideas of Leon Pinsker, a Polish Jew who was a physician and renowned activist for the cause of his community.

Pinsker was born in the town of Tomaszów Lubelski in the southeastern border region of the Kingdom of Poland, and educated in Odessa where he studied law but was unable to practice because of restrictions on occupations available to Jews. He also coined a term, Judeophobia, which later was changed into anti-Semitism.

Zionism began as a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organisation in 1897 under Theodor Herzl and was later led by Chaim Weizmann. A Zionist is a person who accepts the principle that the state of Israel doesn’t belong solely to its citizens, but to the entire Jewish people. The practical expression of this commitment is the Law of Return.

The official formation of the Zionism movement came about with the First Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland. The outcome of this congress was the Basel Programme, which included the goals of promoting Jewish settlement in Palestine, which was under the Ottoman suzerainty.

By the Second Congress, plans were already being laid out to pressure the Ottomans and other “colonisation societies” into supporting the goals of the movement, as prescribed by the Congress. When Zionism is analysed in juxtaposition to Judaism, the later is all about spirituality and piety while Zionism is about racism and expansionism.

Summary: 1. Judaism describes the Jewish faith. Zionism defines the philosophy behind an exclusive Jewish state. 2. All Zionist are Jews, but not all Jews are Zionists. 3. Judaism is more about spirituality, but Zionism is more about racism.

Judaism is the belief in revelation received by Moses, at Sinai. In that revelation, exile was described as a punishment for Jewish sins. Contrariwise, Zionism has for over a century denied Sinaitic revelation. It believes that Jewish exile can be ended by military aggression. Scholar and Rabbi, David Weiss, has attested that Zionism was met with disapproval internationally by Rabbinical authorities for its contradictions with the Mosaic Commandments, including, but not limited to, murder and theft.

Michael Walzer, a leading American public intellectual, considered the movement to be a paradox to Judaism and its definitive culture of exile that sustains the survival of Jewish Law and traditions by means of “deference and deferment” when amongst non-Jewish oppressors, as opposed to the Zionist method of adopting and assimilating with foreign values that contradict those of the Torah, and hence Judaism in and of itself.

But before bringing that debate further in the next column I would throw light on the role of the first generation of the Zionists, like Theodore Herzl, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion. Besides, the part played by Dreyfus Affair in the formation of political Zionism will be reflected at. 

(To be Continued)

The writer of this column is a professional historian and an author. He can be reached at tahirkamran_gcu@yahoo.com