Zionism: Past and Present (S U N Y Series in Jewish Philosophy)

Zionism: Past and Present (S U N Y Series in Jewish Philosophy)

State University of New York Press | 2007-07-05 | ISBN: 0791471756 | 170 pages | PDF | 1.5 MB

Traces the dialectical connections between Zionism's past and present.

Foreword-----The present book was written by my father, Nathan Rotenstreich,

in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The manuscript was left in his

literary estate, and the Rotenstreich Foundation, established for

taking care of the vast literary estate he left behind, was engaged

in the effort of bringing it to press. Most of this literary estate

has been published in his lifetime, from the early 1930s and

during the many years of his academic and public career.

This manuscript, titled by him Zionism: Past and Present,

can be regarded as a kind of spiritual and intellectual legacy

regarding a subject about which he wrote extensively. The publication

of the book is an opportunity to thank all those who

made it possible: Eli Eyal, chairman of the Rotenstreich Foundation,

for his continuous dedication, support and friendship; Shlomo

Avineri for writing the afterword, and together with Berel Lang

for paving the way and supporting the publication of the book;

Kenneth Seeskin for his patience and support as an editor; Avi

Bareli and Yossef Gorny for writing the introductory essay; David

Heyd and Dan Laor for their efforts at the Rotenstreich Foundation.

And last but not least—the production team at SUNY

Press—James Peltz, Diane Ganeles, and all those who took part

in this endeavor and brought it to completion.

Publishing a book without the author to consult with and

see to all the finest details is almost impossible. Without the

help of all these people it could never have happened.

Ephrat Balberg-Rotenstreich

An “Inside Intellectual”:

Remarks on the Public Thought of

Nathan Rotenstreich

AVI BARELI AND YOSSEF GORNY

The essence of Nathan Rotenstreich’s career may be adduced

from an incident that took place in his early adulthood.

In 1932, at the age of eighteen, he moved to Palestine.

Rotenstreich was a member of the Socialist-Zionist youth movement

Gordonia—a member of one of the first groups in the

movement—and a faithful adherent of the halutsic (Zionist pioneering)

ideology that the movement encouraged. In the natural

course of events, he would have become a haluts (pioneer)

along with the rest of the group. However, according to retellings

by friends and family members, the leaders of the movement

decided to treat him as an exception and have him enroll at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This, they thought, would

allow him to make a more meaningful contribution to the nation.

Thus, Rotenstreich’s endeavors in scholarship and research

were from their outset pregnant with social and national

significance and set within a political context. Rotenstreich was

committed to the Jewish settler society in Palestine and the Jewish

people and was their self-styled emissary. Furthermore, there

was a public that did consider him its emissary and designate him

to serve the causes of the collective. For decades, he was a member

of the leading party in the Zionist Labor Movement, Mapai,

and enjoyed an easy proximity to its leaders, including David

Ben-Gurion; he was also a key figure in a political group called

Min ha-Yesod, a faction that seceded from Mapai in the early

1960s.2 He maintained strong relations with Gordonia members

in the kibbutz movement, in Mapai, and, later on, in Min

ha-Yesod, and with their leader, Pinchas Lavon, a leading figure

in Mapai who became the leader of Min ha-Yesod. Nevertheless,

Rotenstreich was a strongly independent-minded intellectual

who did not subordinate himself to anyone. He was engage’,

devoted to the interests of the Jewish people at large, but did

not submit his own judgment to any authority. His formative

environment and national and social affiliations underlay

his evolution into an “inside intellectual” who contemplated his

society from the standpoint of one who was immersed in its life

and who identified with it—in a critical spirit.

Nathan Rotenstreich was born on March 31, 1914, in

Sambor, eastern Poland (today in Ukraine). His father, Dr.

Ephraim Fischel Rotenstreich, was a Polish Zionist leader and an

important public figure in his hometown. When independent

Poland was founded in 1918, the elder Rotenstreich was elected

to the Polish Senate and the Sejm as a representative of the

General Zionist Party. The family moved to Lvov, where Nathan

Rotenstreich finished high school. His teachers at the Hebrew

University included Samuel (Shmuel) Hugo Bergman, Gershom

Scholem, Julius Guttman, Leon (Haim Yehuda) Roth, and Joseph

Klausner. In 1938, he completed his PhD dissertation on

Marx’s Theory of Substance. He worked with the Jewish Agency

from the time he moved to Palestine until 1949, and in 1950 he

became a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University.

Contents

Foreword vii

An “Inside Intellectual”: Remarks on the Public Thought

of Nathan Rotenstreich 1

Avi Bareli and Yossef Gorny

Chapter One Return and Modernity 47

Chapter Two Activity and the Present 61

Chapter Three Aspects of Renaissance 73

Chapter Four The Negation of the Diaspora 87

Chapter Five The Values of Israeli Society 101

Chapter Six Toward a Reformulation of

Zionist Ideology 115

Afterword 127

Shlomo Avineri

Nathan Rotenstreich on Issues Relating to the Holocaust 133

Appendix 135

Ephrat Balberg-Rotenstreich

The Individual and Personal Responsibility 137

The Holocaust as a Unique Historical Event 155

Index 165

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