clubs. The names of these clubs – Bar Kochba, Samson, and of course
Maccabee – harkened back to the physically powerful Jewish warriors of a
heroic Jewish past.
Subsequently, other Zionist leaders added alternative notions of Zionism
as a way of transforming Jews. Each of the varieties of Zionism that had
appeared by the First World War – Cultural, Spiritual, Labor, and Religious
Zionism – offered a distinct means of transformation. Cultural Zionism was
the brainchild of Asher Ginsberg, commonly known by his pen name, Ahad
Ha’am (literally, One of the People). Born in Skvira near Kiev in Ukraine,
Ginsberg was the son of a wealthy Hasidic lumber merchant. He was given a
traditional Jewish upbringing and education, and taught himself Russian,
German, English, Latin, French, and German. He was deeply influenced by
Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexedand read Haskalah literature. As a young
man, he abandoned his Hasidic upbringing in favor of a rationalist outlook.
In 1884, he moved to Odessa, and joined the local Hovevei Zion chapter. Lev
Pinkser was his mentor.
In 1889, he published a critique of Hovevei Zion’s settlement policy,
claiming that without proper education, the settlers would lack the dedica-
tion to succeed. In 1897, he founded a secret society called Bnai Moshe (Sons
of Moses) to realize his aim of improving the settlers’ education and dissem-
inating Hebrew literature. In 1896, he became the editor of Ha-Shiloach, the
leading Zionist newspaper. Following the First Zionist Congress, he criti-
cized Herzl’s plan as premature and ineffective without a strategy for
cultural transformation.
Ginsberg’s emphasis on transforming the Jews stemmed from the fact that
he regarded assimilation rather than anti-Semitism as the greatest threat to
Jews. He believed that Jews in western and central Europe had paid far too
great a price for emancipation, as he noted in one of his most important and
oft-quoted essays, “Avdut be-Toch Herut” (Slavery within Freedom): “Do I envy
the rights enjoyed by my brothers in the West? Absolutely not – not them
and not their reward. Even if I have no rights, I did not sacrifice my soul in
order to get them.” Ginsberg proposed the creation of secular Jewish culture
as a buttress against cultural assimilation, comprising Hebrew as a spoken
and literary language, Jewish history and literature, and a general revaluation
of Judaism in all its complexity from religious into cultural-historical terms.
Thus, he was nicknamed Zionism’s “agnostic rabbi.” Ginsberg also believed
that the creation of a Jewish state did not mean the immediate end of diaspora
Jewish life. Rather, he saw the proposed Jewish state as the center of world
Jewry, radiating cultural influence via secular Jewish culture to Jews
throughout the world.
Spiritual Zionism was the creation of Aaron David Gordon (1856-1922).
Like Ginsberg, Gordon was raised in a traditional Jewish home, which he
rejected in favor of Haskalah. After 1881, he became a Zionist. An avowed
secularist, he went to Palestine in 1904 imbued with the pioneering spirit
Anti-Semitism and Jewish responses, 1870–1914 193