Ahad Ha'Am as the Sage of Zionism

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Ahad Ha-'Am as the Sage of ZionismAuthor(s): David VitalReviewed work(s):Source: Jewish History, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall, 1990), pp. 25-32Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20101079 .

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Jewish History Vol. IV, No. 2 Fall 1990

Forum: Perspectives on Ahad Ha-'Am

Ahad Ha-'Am

as the Sage of Zionism*

David Vital

It is not without interest that in contemporary public debate in Jewry, notably

in Israel itself?

where the public debate is not only fiercest, but, in a certain

sense, most real?

there is very little tendency to refer back to the true founding

fathers of Zionism, more especially to the ideological founding fathers. Some later

figures? Ben Gurion, Kook, Jabotinsky, for example

? are frequently cited and

quoted, and,as

oftenas

not, misquoted. So, too,are

lesser figures, whonevertheless played a political role at one time or another and who had both the

ability to formulate their public philosophies in a politically marketable way and

the good fortune to have latter-day followers prepared to refer to them: Arlozorov,

Sharett, Dayan, Sneh come tomind, as does, yibadel le-hayim arukim, Ya'akov

Hazan, and, perhaps, in a class of his own, Yeshayahu Leibowitz. Such a list can

be put together very easily. No two lists will be identical. But in any case, the point

I really wish tomake is the negative one; namely, that in the main, older figures,

those who in somany ways were the more original, certainly themore daring?

Lilienblum, Pinsker, Nordau, Reines, Borokhov, not tomention Herzl himself?

tend not to be cited at all, not seriously, in any event. Nor isWeizmann, themanwhose influence on the movement in its middle years was so profound. Now

relegated (by all except the academics) to the shadows, to the very margin of public

consciousness, he rarely rates more than a distant and unfeeling salute by anyone.

But to return to the founding figures, why is there so little interest inwhat they

had to say? In a state of affairs when somuch in Jewish public life?

notably with

respect to Israel and the Zionist idea and Zionist practice? is not only subject

to fierce debate, but is actually at stake, why is so little attention paid to them,

hardly more than an odd line or two from a speech or article or pamphlet, as often

as not wrenched out of its true context? Itmay

bepartly

that for all theirpublic

and private virtues these were never men of the first rank intellectually, and their

*This isan amended version of a paper read at the 20th Annual Conference of theAssociation for Jewish

Studies, Boston, 18-19 December 1988.



26 David Vital

arguments, for all their importance historically, do not travel well across time.

None were given to rigorous thinking. Borokhov excepted, they were not builders

of systems (and his system has long since collapsed), nor did they seek to derive

their theses on Jews from general sociopolitical and socioeconomic propositions.

Plainly, they were commentators, often very acute commentators, on the

immediate, contemporary, very particular state of affairs inwhich they found the

Jews and for which each in his way went on to prescribe a specific cure. They had

much to say. Much of what they said was very telling. But in no sense were theytrue philosophers or really original and competent sociologists and would-be

social engineers, if such may be said to exist. Fundamentally, they were

ideologues.

Itmay be said, in a general way, that there are cases where the force of an ideologylies in the brilliance of the social analysis itpropounds. And that there are others

where the force of the argument? as a precipitant of social action, that is lies

in the attraction and plausibility of the particular course of action it prescribes.

If so, it is to the latter category, it seems tome, that the ideological currency in

which most Zionists deal belongs. But whereas the goals towhich that action was

to have been directed have now been in very large measure achieved, and the

Zionistmovement as a

political force has indeed triumphed well beyond theexpectations of anyone who was alive before 1948, the analysis of the Jewish

condition on which, ostensibly, all Zionist action was founded?

that which was

originally formulated by the founders of the movement ?is one that cannot fail

to strike us today as less than impressive. Hard-hitting in many cases, always

passionate in tone, often acute in observation, and, all things considered,

exceedingly brave?

itwas certainly all these things. Yet, reading the texts, and

contriving moreover to read them with a cool and critical and, ifone may so put

it, comparative eye, one cannot but be struck by the intellectual limitations, not

to say shallowness, ofmany of the arguments, by the all too common superficiality

of analysis, by the wishful thinking and the errors of fact that permeate so muchof what was said and written, and, above all, by the degree to which

Auto-Emancipation!, Der Judenstaat, Nordau's and Reines's speeches before the

Congress, Ussishkin's programme, Borokhov's formula for Zionist-Marxist

syncretism, and all the other early statements of problem and intent are? not

to put too fine a point on it dated. While many of the founders and early leaders

left behind them considerable material and institutional monuments, the

continuing power of their ideas to move us must depend on the degree to which

those ideas, and the corresponding and supporting ideological schemata, can be

applied to our own dilemmas. But can they be applied to present dilemmas

without anachronism? More importantly, do they at the very least, by virtue of

intrinsic analytical and revelatory merit, open up new avenues of thought, new

insights, for us on our own problems, the problems of our own times?

For the most part, the answer is, no. Moses Hess, itmust be said, does emerge



The Sage of Zionism 27

as something of an exception to the rule. Not surprisingly, there is, today, some

renewed interest inHess, at any rate a new respect for him. But Hess was really

a Zionist avant la lettre, and it is perhaps chiefly as such that he emerges as a figure

whom so many of us find peculiarly attractive. The really great exception to the

rule ? if rule it is?

of erosion over time to which the founding fathers of the

movement have proved to be subject and tend so strongly to display is Ahad

Ha-4 Am. It isnot merely that he continues to serve as a reference point for debate,

as a source of ideas, and as an exceedingly potent, because provocative, proponent

either of the virtuous society that might and should have been established, or, per

contra, of a pitiful Utopia, destined, in the very nature of things political, to besmothered in infancy, if not at birth, by forces with which it could not possibly

compete. It is that Ahad Ha-4Am, unlike any of his contemporaries, unlike any

other major figure in the movement then or indeed since, continues to inspire

interest and perfectly genuine respect not only for the role he played historically,

but for the persistent value of his writings down to our own times? as well as,

in a somewhat subliminal way, by the power of the example he sets us.

Us? one may ask. Itmust be admitted that it is to the intellectuals that Ahad

Ha-4Am was, and remains, most peculiarly attractive. And yet, that was far from

being the whole of the story in his own lifetime, nor is it quite the whole of thestory today.

The main sources of his continuing attraction as a figure to be investigated, read,

learned from, and, not least, relied upon, seem evident. In the first place, unlike

most of his great contemporaries, he was not himself, in any important sense, a

man of action. Of Ahad Ha-4Am itmay be said with confidence that before all

else he was a man of ideas. Analysis, historical reference, general conclusions,

particular prescriptions for others to follow ? in these lay his strength. And to

purvey them proved very soon to be his true and central function in the Zionist

movement, no less than his claim to ultimate fame. He was an observer

?

anextraordinarily acute observer

?of the Jewish scene and of the Zionist arena in

particular. He was an advisor. He was a critic?

an exceptionally severe critic,

as everyone knew and, it is fair to say, as everyone remembers. For many of his

contemporaries he served as a mentor?

indeed, the mentor?

of the movement,

its guru, its sage. And, clearly, if he was indeed all these things, itwas first and

foremost because he was rightly taken to be entirely disinterested, a man of

rigorous principle and total lack of concern with political and social advancement,

let alone personal advantage.

But at the same time, Ahad Ha-4 Am was also?

and here was another great and

characteristic source of his strength? aman of a severely practical bent. He was

aman of ideas, but by no means one whose head orwhose ideas were in the clouds.

Nor did any of his contemporaries so conceive him. By no means was he of the

class of common or garden intellectuals who are so often drawn fatally to



28 David Vital

absolutes and who, where and when they are followed by others, tend strongly to

lead their fellows and followers to disaster. It was almost invariably on very

immediate and pressing matters of policy that his advice was chiefly sought?

typically and tellingly by that most practical and prudent of his contemporaries,

Weizmann.

The third great source of his strength and a great part of the foundation on which

his reputation rested in his own time and continues to rest in ours, was his quite

remarkable capacity for formulating his observations and ideas in especially clear

and astringent prose. Thus in his famous articles, thus in his letters. He was, youmight say, the supreme publicist of Zionism, certainly of the Zionism of his time,

but arguably of all time. It isno mean measure of his talent that his articles, essays,

and letters can be read with both pleasure and profit to this day.

Consider, too, that Ahad Ha-4Am's active life covered the entire span of the

movement in the years inwhich it took its definitive institutional and political

form: from Hibbat Zion to, and through, the assumption of the Mandate for

Palestine by Great Britain and the establishment of the World Zionist

Organization as Britain's partner?a very junior and increasingly distant partner,

as weknow,

in the affairs of thatcountry

? which was no less than the

achievement of the charter Herzl had hoped for and at which Ahad Ha-4Am

himself had scoffed at the time and of which he continued to be skeptical. On all

these and many other matters he had much to say?

always something of value,

often of penetrating (and incidentally devastating) insight.

But Ahad Ha-4Am not only had readers, he had followers and disciples,

Weizmann surely, as suggested, being the most famous. Indeed, Weizmann, or

more precisely, Weizmann's development as he advanced in the ranks of the

movement, cannot really be understood, it seems tome, without careful reference

to Ahad Ha-4Am, to the influence of the older man over theyounger,

to the

eventual shaking off of some ofthat influence, but at all events to the legacy that

complex relationship implanted in Zionism?

easily detectable, for example, in

the exceptionally prim and proper mode inwhich the diplomacy of Zionism was

long conducted. That in itself should suffice to arouse the historian's interest, if

no one else's. In fact, the teaching of Ahad Ha-4 Am the master went further and

survives (in somewhat ghostly fashion) where the posthumous influence of

Weizmann the pupil (in contradistinction, say, to that of Ben Gurion) isvirtually

nil. Why should that be?

Ahad Ha-4Am's survival as afigure of enduring interest certainly

owesmuch

to

the brilliance and force of his exposition and to the rapt attention it commanded

in his audience. In the final analysis, nonetheless, it is the content of his message? as transmitted by word of mouth, by informal, private letters, and, of course,

by exceedingly deliberate and careful published statements as well ?that has




proved decisive for his reputation. But what precisely did it amount to?Wherein

lay (and lies) its attraction?

One general observation on the course of Zionist history is in order here. For the

greater part of the period between the 1880s and the 1930s the goals of the

movement, even in their minimal form, seemed to most Jews, even to very large

numbers of the Zionists themselves, virtually impossible to attain. The long and

not altogether edifying story of the stages by which the goals or ends or final aims

of the movement were successively formulated, reformulated, whittled down,

removed from the agenda as legitimate topics for debate ? and only proclaimed

anew (even then in mealy-mouthed terminology) upon the Jewish people, the

Zionists among them, finding themselves manifestly in extremis ?-need not be

rehearsed. I cite it only because it serves to remind us that along with the

enthusiasm and the conviction and the profound and sometimes quite blind faith

by which great numbers of Zionists were sustained, there was always a strong

current of what might be termed loyal doubt, ifnot actual disbelief. The political

obstacles were so daunting, the means at the movement's disposal so small, the

very idea of Jewish autonomy so unpopular? some thought bizarre

?and the

greater part of the Jewish people itself so unwilling, so unprepared, so set on other

goals, so divided, so weak, and, at the same time, so numerous and its problemsso intractable and so urgent, that neither the immediate nor even the ultimate

goals of Zionism, still less theWZO as an organization, seemed truly promising.

This is not intended as a reference to the outright opposition to the movement.

That would be quite another matter. It has to do with the mood among entirely

loyal members of the movement itself, many of whom felt trapped between their

contradictory perceptions of what needed to be done and what was actually

feasible.

Ahad Ha-4Am's great role was to articulate these doubts with rare precision. On

each and every topic that he took up for inspection and

analysis

?the

agriculturalpolicy of the early settlers in Eretz Israel, relations (notably, the likely future

relations) between the Yishuv and the Arab population, political Zionism as an

overall approach, and political negotiation as amethod ("diplomacy," as it came

to be called), the alignment with the British (crowned successfully, as it seemed,

by the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate)? on all these and on many other

subjects that were central to the activities and ethos of the Zionist movement at

various times he had something harsh, but telling, to say.He was a great puncturer

of balloons and illusions. He was a man with an unusual talent for cutting rightto the heart of whatever was the issue of the day. He had a gift for revealing the

weaknesses of whateverpolicy

wasproposed

andbrought up for discussion: its

faulty premises, the wishful thinking that informed it, the inadequacy of the

resources to carry it through, the underestimated opposition to it. He did so

without pity and, often enough, with implicit contempt for the frivolity or

naivete, as he saw it, of its promoters. That was his strength. It does seem equally



30 David Vital

? truth be known ? to have been his pleasure. And so it followed that inmany

ways his was a negative, indeed, inescapably destructive, contribution to the

internal debate. So itwas seen by many of his peers and contemporaries at the

time. So, in retrospect, do some continue to see it to this day. But that, needless

to say, cannot in itself explain why he was listened to and held in unique respect

not merely by his declared followers but even by his harshest critics.

Looking back, Ahad Ha-'Am's prestige and peculiar status in the movement as,

in effect, its sage seem to have rested partly on his integrity, on that

disinterestedness towhich I havealready alluded. For indeed,

nohuman quality

is so rare in public life as personal and intellectual integrity? which may be why

it rarely fails to evoke at least grudging respect. Secondly, so Iwould suggest, his

skeptical, dismissive, down-to-earth approach touched an old and always

responsive chord in the hearts and minds of the Jews of his time, perhaps of later

times too. Thirdly, unlike the wholly negative and dismissive opponents of

Zionism and all itsworks, Ahad Ha-4Am did at least offer an alternative policy.

Nor was it a mere tactical straw to clutch at that he adumbrated. Rather, itwas

a carefully reasoned, ostensibly more promising course of action, one that was

certainly more modest, but nonetheless, so its author could be understood as

saying, genuinely Zionist in its approach, and its purposes the larger, more

dramatic, but, as he saw them, fatally flawed?

because impracticable?

schemes

put forward by those whom he opposed.

But the larger consequences for the terms in which, under his influence, most

Zionists began to see themselves and their movement ?its purposes, the most

appropriate mode of action to adopt in the effort to further them, and, above all,

the place Zionism might reasonably claim for itself and might usefully occupy in

Jewry as a whole?

were profound. Gone were the larger ends. Gone was the

notion of massive and radical and rapid change. Gone was the notion that the

Zionists should claim?

at any rate, fight for?

the preponderant leadership ofthe Jewish people. These purposes and this mode of thought were to be largely

replaced by more modest targets, by a less aggressive and combative posture, byan ostensibly more reasonable, but, above all, less radical plan of action. Less

ambition, more prudence, an altogether lower profile, that was to be the spirit in

which the affairs of the movement were to be conducted. That was the spirit in

which they were in fact conducted: from the age of Wolffsohn and Warburg to

that of Weizmann and Ben Gurion, from attempts at institutional? in effect,

political?

cooperation with the I.C.A. and the Hilfsverein in the early days to

the inclusion of self-defined rto/i-Zionists in the Jewish Agency itself and the

various tacit and overt agreements not to recruit olim in the United States that

were entered into with them and others.

Now Iwould certainly not suggest that the real obstacles and difficulties that the

Zionist leadership continually encountered were not moving it anyway and




ineluctably in the direction of compromise, toward the scaling down of its

programme and the lowering of its sights. It did not take long for Herzl himself

to cease to press for a Judenstaat and to abandon the campaign for the "conquest

of the communities." But no one played so vital and effective a role in the

rationalization of this lowering of sights and the total abandonment of what for

simplicity's sake might be called radical Zionism as did Ahad Ha-4Am. Itwas he

who provided the best arguments for undercutting the radicals, doing so not only

with brilliance, but with the unequalled authority of the greatest exponent of

modern, secular Jewish nationalism of the day?

of his day, and, we may well

think, of ours as well. There indeed lay the beauty of Ahad Ha-4Amian "cultural"Zionism. None within the Zionist camp (broadly defined) could question its

propriety, if only because none could equal Ahad Ha-4Am's own profound

contempt for emancipated, semi-assimilated Diaspora Jewry and the cruel

derision that informed his analysis of their condition. The argument that the

larger purposes of Zionism ? as conceived, say, by Herzl and Nordau ? were

for the foreseeable future unattainable did seem incontrovertible. The

quantitatively limited, qualitatively superior yishuv that Ahad Ha-4Am and, in

time, virtually all other mainstream Zionists sought to establish was not only a

project that seemed eminently sensible and practicable, but also of immense

philosophical and aesthetic appeal. True, it did leave the infinitely messy and

dangerous, but apparently insoluble, problem of central and eastern European

Jewry in an ideological and political limbo. But then, as Sokolov and Weizmann

seemed to have concluded, and made a special point of informing the British

authorities at a very early stage of the new, post-1917 orientation, the tasks of the

movement had to be kept quite separate from the problems of European Jewry,

and the troubles of the latter not allowed to impinge on the prospects of the

former.'

The case of Ahad Ha-4Am and, by extension, the embourgeoisement of Zionism,

of which he was, as it seems tome, the one truly distinguished protagonist, was

always of more than immediate and parochial interest, however. One of the

problems it points to is that of the general political culture of Jewry, more

specifically the cultural constraints within which political action within Jewry

and, most particularly, on its behalf, is almost invariably conducted. This is a

large subject, evidently too large for discussion in this necessarily brief essay. Still,

it is right to recall it in the present context and to consider the inhibitions and

disinclinations of a deeply rooted sociocultural nature which have tended so

strongly to limit the compass, range, and underlying purpose of action in the

collective Jewish interest, abundantly illustrated by the role of Ahad Ha-4Am and

the extraordinary respect accorded it.

Another large question towhich serious consideration of the career and influence

of Ahad Ha-4Am seems to point to is that of the utility of radicalism?

radicalism

as a mode of thought and action in any movement for social change, radicalism



32 David Vital

in contradistinction to moderation and prudentialism, that is to say. While

Zionism began by aiming high and strove for what longwere seen as unattainable

goals, it has remained virtually unique among the national movements of its time

(and the revolution it precipitated unique among modern national revolutions)

in that it rapidly allowed itself to be informed by a great self-denying ordinance.

The Zionists not only accepted that an attempt to encompass all the Jewish people

within its orbit would encounter great difficulties, they excluded from that orbit

all but a fraction of the nation as a matter of set and explicit policy. And none

contributed more to the rationalization and justification of this scaling-down of

the enterprise than Ahad Ha-4Am. By so doing, itmay be asked, did he serve to

emasculate Zionism? Or was he rendering an invaluable service to it, more

precisely, to its ultimate, by no means negligible, success? The great problem that

faces all revolutionary movements is how sharply to define its aims and how

implacably to push toward them. Did moderation in the Zionist revolution? to

the intellectual and intellectualized foundations of which Ahad Ha-4Am

contributed somuch ?prove a boon or a bane? The answer is far from clear. The

question merits the widest discussion.

NOTES

1. D. Vital, Zionism: The Crucial Phase (Oxford, 1987), 360-61.

Tel Aviv University

Ahad Ha'Am as the Sage of Zionism

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