Always In The Name of Zion: A Rhetorical History of Ahad Ha-am and Cultural Zionism

Abstract

Cultural Zionism was an ideological position that both predated and contended with traditional political Zionism. Operating from the assumption that a national sense of identity had to be established before a physical state could flourish, cultural Zionism was less reliant than political Zionism on anti-semitism as a justification for creating a Jewish state. Moreover, cultural Zionism envisioned a continued Diaspora of Jews around the world, with a Jewish state serving as a safe haven for those who were oppressed in other countries and a center from which Jewish culture could emanate into the world. The originator and strongest advocate for cultural Zionism was Ahad Ha-am, an auto-didact Russian Jew who spent his public career arguing for cultural Zionism against the other Zionist ideologies of the day. In this dissertation, I examine Ha-am's public advocacy in three distinct historical periods to construct a rhetorical understanding of his vision of a Jewish state. I conclude that although cultural Zionism complicates the typically simplistic understanding of Zionism and Ha-am's arguments were both compelling a prescient, his reliance on difficult truth-telling and a confrontational style limited the direct influence he could have on the Zionist movement.