The Invention of a Nation: Zionist Thought and the Making of Modern Israel

by Alain Dieckhoff

The vulnerability which is the lot of any nation without a state was experienced in a particularly extreme way by the Jews. With the destitution and persecution of many Jewish communities in the 19th century, especially in Eastern Europe, Jews demanded a solution to their uprootedness. This required a state. Alain Dieckhoff recounts the tortuous ordeal through which the Jews reacted to the challenge of modernity. While some contributed to the development of capitalism and put their talents at the service of the Western European states, others threw themselves into revolutionary movements. Yet others imagined ways of "re-nationalising" Jews by transforming them into a nation. Thus the Jews were formidable experimenters who participated in causes with contradictory agendas: assimilation (bourgeois or socialist) or nationalism. The text focuses on Zionism, whose ultimate objective was the creation of a sovereign state for the Jews in Palestine. This required the invention of the Jewish nation. Such an objective meant several things: building a national language, defining a secularized and territorialized Jewish identity, and using military power. This was a difficult enterprise, as the national project was faced with the persistence of communitarianism. But the enterprise was at least partly successful: this process of politicization makes Israel a paradigmatic example of the invention of a nation-state, the main focus of this work.

308 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Alain Dieckhoff is Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies and Research, and teaches at Sciences Po, Paris. As an academic he has worked extensively on various aspects of contemporary Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has also undertaken a major comparative project on nationalism in the Western world.

Reviews

[Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked up a copy on the sale table at Limmud Johannesburg 2009. Enjoying it immensely so far. (But then again, I’m a nerd.) It’s interesting to see Zionism being examined as (almost) just another 19th Century budding nationalism (apart from the whole lack of language and territory thing).

I really need to read this again, and follow up on some of the bibliographical references. Although I see myself as well-read/informed when it comes to the origins and ideology of Zionism, there was a lot that was new to me here.

It's fascinating to see Zionism in the context of the other national and national liberation movements that arose at the same time, and watch the process of a scattered people (or part thereof) choosing to define itself as a nation, then acquire (or re-acquire) a language, national symbols, a society, and finally a territory.

Let's hope that the ideology of Orthodoxy doesn't succeed in completely polluting the vision, until Israel Israel finally descends into chaos and eventual destruction.