"In Suffering, a Dazzling Light": Jewish Historiography in the Debate over Zionism, 1837-1919

     Jews have been writing their history for thousands of years. This massive historiographical tradition must be reckoned with when considering questions of Jewish identity, because history gives content and meaning to... [ view full abstract ]

     Jews have been writing their history for thousands of years. This massive historiographical tradition must be reckoned with when considering questions of Jewish identity, because history gives content and meaning to this identity. One of the important motifs in Jewish history is the idea of election, that the Jews are the uniquely chosen people of the one god. Modern Zionists claim that election has a meaning for the Jewish nation, and that the Jewish nation ought to lead the world. But if modern Zionism means having a nation state in the model of France or Germany, one like all the other nations, then Zionism is thrust into the dilemma of the biblical judge Samuel when he had to establish the Davidic monarchy—the question of what can be said to be special and chosen about the Jewish nation if it is to have a nation like all the others. In this question can be found the collision of three important topics: election, history, and politics. These concepts refuse to keep to the domain of merely semantic argumentation, but instead impose themselves in the concrete political agendas and policies of Jews around the world. This paper will look at three important figures from the early period of Modern Zionism, Moses Hess, Heinrich Graetz and Hermann Cohen, and examine how their historiographical arguments condition the meaning of Jewish election and how they translate this into an answer to the Zionist question.