Jews and Zionism: Ancient, unbreakable bond
Editor’s note: The Jewish Star sometimes publishes features that present what might seem to be a retelling of the obvious. But it’s not obvious to everyone. You likely have friends, relatives or colleagues in need of factual grounding in Jewish and Israeli history; do your own hasbara — clip and send this and other such features to them. Everything you see in our print edition will also appear on our website, TheJewishStar.com, and can easily be forwarded or reposted from there as well!
• • •
How old is the concept of Zionism?
•It did not emerge in 1947 from the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 Partition Plan, as those who try to weaponize Zionism would have you believe.
•It did not emerge in 1917 from the Balfour Declaration, as those who try to colonize Zionism would have you believe.
•It did not emerge in 1897 from the First Zionist Congress, as those who try to politicize Zionism would have you believe.
Rather, Zionism is as old as the Jewish people. It is a religious principle of Jewish life.
Every Shabbat when Jews read the ancient Hebrew scriptures, they take the Torah scroll from an ark singing the words of Isaiah 2:3: Ki M’Tzion teitzei Torah u’dvar Hashem m’Yerushalayim (For out of Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of G-d from Jerusalem).”
The Jewish people were born as a people and a land, and the connection to Zion is the very first directive given to the very first Jew. Abraham was told in the Torah, in Parashat Lech Lecha, to go unto the land. Since that time, the land has been filled with the history of the Jewish people.
Abraham was directed to the city of Shechem, which is in Samaria, a central area within the biblical heartland, the birthplace of Jewish civilization. In the third generation, the Patriarch Jacob purchased land where his son Joseph would ultimately be buried. During the time of Joshua, the Nation of Israel renewed its covenant with G-d in the city of Shechem. Generations later, it was the place where King Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, chose to be enthroned. With the subsequent division of the kingdom, Jeroboam established Shechem as his capital in the northern kingdom. This is just one example, as Jewish history is replete with such accounts in the land of Israel, from city to city, generation to generation.
• • •
Zion, a name essentially synonymous with the Land of Israel and Jerusalem, is found throughout Jewish tradition.
Thoughts of Zion are a part of every meal.
•On weekdays, it is chanted while referencing the ancient Babylonians who destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem (586 BCE): “Al naharot Bavel, sham yashavnu gam bacheynu b’zachrenu et Tzion (By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, we also wept when we remembered Zion)” (Psalm 137).
•At Shabbat and holiday meals, the happier image of Psalm 126 is sung: “Shir hama’alot beshuv Hashem et shivat Tzion hayenu k’cholmim (A Song of Ascents. When G-d brings about the return to Zion, we shall be like dreamers).”
Zion is part of lifecycle events, as well.
•At a wedding, Jews remember the destruction of Jerusalem as they smash a glass and recite Psalm 137: “Im eshkachech Yerushalayim, tishkach yemini (If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning).”
•And at a funeral, joining personal grief with that of the ancient mourners who lamented the destruction of Jerusalem by foreign oppressors, it is recited: “Hamakom yinachem etchem b’toch sha’ar avelei Tzion v’Yerushalayim (May G-d comfort you together with all the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem).”
• • •
The Jewish connection is also reflected in holiday observances. Three of the central holidays on the Hebrew calendar are when the ancient Jewish nation would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
•Passover is one such festival, during which the seder is completed with the hope “L’shana haba’ah b’Yerushalayim (Next year in Jerusalem).”
•The holiday of Chanukah recounts the ancient Hellenists who persecuted the Jews and desecrated their Temple in Jerusalem. Against this oppression, in 167 BCE, the Maccabees led the first recorded struggle for religious freedom. Today, candles are lit as a reminder of the miraculous rededication in Zion of the Temple upon the Maccabees’ victory.
• Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av on the Hebrew calendar, marks the tragic day when both the first and second Temples in ancient Jerusalem were destroyed centuries apart. To this day, it is a fast day of national mourning. During the three weeks leading up to this remembrance, traditionally, Jews do not listen to music or cut their hair as signs of mourning. During the final nine days of these three weeks, the sense of mourning over these attacks on Zion is intensified by refraining from eating meat, except on the Sabbath.
Despite this deep and abiding connection, adversaries throughout history — successors to the ancient Babylonians — have attempted to chase the Jewish people from their land.
One such oppressor was ancient Rome. The Romans destroyed the second Jewish Temple in 70 CE, banished Jews and Jewish life, and even changed the names of places in an attempt to erase Jewish history.
We are witnessing a modern version of these ancient aggressors as tactics again are being employed to delegitimize the Jewish presence in Israel and banish Jews from their land.
This current rendition includes a cynical, illiterate, irrational attempt to erase thousands of years of world history, religion, philosophy and archaeology to claim that Jews have never lived in Israel at all.
• • •
Despite these malevolent efforts, both ancient and modern, Jews have lived continuously in the land since antiquity with Jewish thumbprints and footprints everywhere.
Rare coins minted nearly 2,000 years ago bear the inscription “Cherut Tzion (the freedom of Zion),” a reference to the Jewish great revolt against the ancient Roman conquerors.
The Romans also struck Judaea Capta (Judea is captured) coins to chronicle their destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. And standing in Rome today is the Arch of Titus — a nearly 2,000-year-old victory arch depicting the Romans as they triumphantly carry off the seven-branched menorah looted from the Jerusalem Temple.
Another ancient image of a menorah — engraved 2,000 years ago on a stone — was found in the Galilee. Furthermore, 2,500-year-old clay seal impressions with the names of two government ministers mentioned in the bible have been found in the City of David in Jerusalem.
• • •
The Jewish presence is everywhere in Israel and has been throughout the millennia, and the countless historical discoveries defy the deceitful claims to the contrary. These deep Jewish roots in the Land of Israel have been recognized repeatedly by the international community.
With the breakup of the former Ottoman Empire after World War I, not only Israel but Iraq, Lebanon and Syria were established in international law with the San Remo Resolution of 1920, the foundational document of the modern Mideast.
The language surrounding the re-establishment of Israel’s sovereignty was to “reconstitute,” accentuating the fact that Israel was not merely a modern creation, but rather, the ancient, native homeland of the Jewish people. The land historically and religiously associated with the Jewish nation, the land to which they were indigenous, was thereby designated for the reconstituted State of Israel.
The San Remo Resolution was signed into international law and subsequently ratified by a unanimous vote of the League of Nations.
In 1919, Emir Faisal ibn Hussein, later King Faisal of Iraq, wrote that the Arabs “look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.”
The United States expressed support for the establishment of the Jewish state in 1922 when President Warren Harding signed the joint resolution of Congress known as the Lodge-Fish Resolution and in 1924 when the Anglo-American Convention was signed.
In 1925, the Supreme Muslim Council issued a guide to the Temple Mount stating: “Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.”
Yet despite the recognition and acknowledgments, stratagem after duplicitous stratagem has been deployed to rob and replace the Jews — to erase them and their history from this tiny sliver of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Nonetheless, the connection between the People of Israel and the Land of Israel is an enduring bond with roots that date back to antiquity.
Yonina Pritzker was a spiritual leader of Boston-area congregations for more than two decades. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
