214 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
Land, 1945), read in concert with Buber’s occasional writings on Zionism, comes
very close.^4 Despite his insistent refrain “I have no teaching,” Buber’s Zionism
takes a consistent direction. The primary understanding of this Zionism has read
it through I and Thou and the philosophy of dialogue. This strategy is not fruit-
less, since Buber’s thoughts on the nature of human relationship can be readily
applied to any situation of conflict. However, the strategy also has drawbacks.
Buber’s “ontology of the between,” according to Mendes-Flohr, stresses the one-
on-one encounter but never quite offers “a systematic explication of the transi-
tion from the Zwie to the Vielgemeinschaft (a Gemeinschaft of many); we are thus
obliged to rely on inference.”^5 Moreover, Buber never explicitly clarifies how the
achievement of true community in one place can play an exemplary role for oth-
ers to imitate.
If we start, though, from a presumption that Buber’s Zionism is rooted in
his theopolitics, we can link his intense interest in biblical history with his con-
temporary politics. We can approach his Zionism with his general politics in
mind, such as the belief that “the creation of a genuine and just community on a
voluntary basis... will show the world the possibility of basing social justice on
voluntary action.”^6 Like Landauer before him, Buber articulated this doctrine in
both materialist and religious vocabularies, sometimes simultaneously but of-
ten in alternation, depending on his audience. Buber believed himself consonant
with the deepest forces of reality when he imagined the fulfillment of Isaiah’s
prophecy that one day the word of the Lord would go forth from Zion and the
Torah from Jerusalem. A sense of this prophecy as the fulfillment of the covenant
between God and Israel underlies his oft-repeated conviction: “If Israel desires
less than it is intended to fulfill then it will even fail to achieve the lesser goal.”^7
The materialist version of the realization of this prophecy would be the world’s
respect for and eventual imitation of the achievement of the people of Israel, the
rise of Jerusalem as the anarcho-theocratic center of the world between Wash-
ington and Moscow.
Zionism and Zionisms: Placing Buber on the Spectrum
of Zionist Thought
Buber’s Zionism is variously referred to as “cultural,” “spiritual,” “religious,” and
“binationalist.” It is never called “political,” since Buber’s polemics are primar-
ily directed against “political” Zionism. All these descriptors fail. Buber himself
used the term Wirklichkeitzionismus, “Zionism of reality,” which scholars have
not adopted, perhaps because it would require immediate explanation, whereas
other terms are familiar. I argue that “theopolitical Zionism” is perhaps the only
way to capture the nuances of Buber’s position.
Buber is frequently referred to as a “cultural” Zionist. Still, while he partici-
pated in the Democratic Fraction and sided with Ahad Ha’am, the founder of cul-