Achad Ha'am and Cultural Zionism

Achad Ha'am and Cultural Zionism

Achad Ha'am (1856-1927) (Ahad Ha'am, Ehad Ha'am or Echad Ha'am according to various spellings) meaning "one of the people" is the pen name of Asher Ginzberg, an ardent Russian Zionist who was the founder of cultural or moral Zionism. Ginzberg was a friend and supporter of Leon Pinsker, and a leader of the 'Hovevei Tzion(lovers of Zion) movement. Their practical aim was settlement of Jews in Palestine, and they produced the settlements of the first Aliya (immigration wave). See also - History of Zionism and the Creation of Israel. The Zionist settlement program of those days was, however, beset by nearly insurmountable practical difficulties, so that many of these settlements failed or were failing.
Unlike Pinsker, however, Echad Ha'am did not believe in political Zionism or in settlement of Palestine before conditions were ripe. Conditions would somehow ripen, he thought, by spreading enthusiasm for the idea of returning to the Land and nationalist sentiment and culture among Jews in the Diaspora. He split from the Zionist movement after the first Zionist congress, because he did not believe that Herzl's program was practical. He would have laughed had he known that Herzl wrote in his diary after the first Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, in August, 1897:
Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word- which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly- it would be this: ‘At Basle, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in 5 years, certainly in 50, everyone will know it.’
Achad Ha'am wrote Jewish State Jewish Problem just after the Zionist Congress of 1897. He repeatedly ridiculed Herzl's obsession with a political solution, a national home secured in accordance with international law - völkerrechtlich. That German word appears again and again in Achad Ha'am's article below:
Let us imagine, then, that the consent of Turkey and the other Powers has already been obtained, and the State is established -- and, if you will, established völkerrechtlich [in accord with international law], with the full sanction of international law, as the more extreme members of the Congress desire. Does this bring, or bring near, the end of the material trouble?... we may prophesy with perfect certainty that home competition in every branch of production (and home competition will be inevitable because the amount of labor available will increase more quickly than the demand for it) will prevent any one branch from developing as it should. And then the Jews will turn and leave their State, flying from the most deadly of all enemies -- an enemy not to be kept off even by the magic word völkerrechtlich : from hunger
Achad Ha'am traveled frequently to Palestine and published reports about the progress of Jewish settlement there. They were generally glum. They reported on hunger, on Arab dissatisfaction and unrest, on unemployment, and on people leaving Palestine. He believed that rather than aspiring to establish a "National Home" or state immediately, Zionism must aspire to bring Jews to Palestine gradually, making it a cultural center. At the same time, Zionism must inspire a revival of Jewish national life abroad; that would help to bring about a Jewish majority in Palestine. Then and only then will the Jewish people be strong enough to assume the mantle of building a nation state, according to Achad Ha'am. He simply could not believe that the impoverished settlers of his time, ignored by the majority of Jews, would every lead to a Jewish homeland. He saw that the Hovevei Tzion movement of which he was a member, was a failure, in that the new villages created in Israel were dependent on the largess of outside benefactors.
Achad Ha'am's ideas were popular at a very difficult time for Zionism, beginning after the failures of the first Aliya. His unique contribution was to emphasize the importance of reviving Hebrew and Jewish culture both in Palestine and in the Diaspora, and this was recognized only belatedly and became part of the Zionist program after 1898. Herzl did not have much use for Hebrew, and many wanted German to be the language of the Jewish state. Achad Ha'am is in some ways responsible for the revival of Hebrew and Jewish culture, and for cementing the link between the Jewish state in the making and Hebrew culture. However, Achad Ha'am's historical view both of the settlement movement and of the future of political Zionism were incorrect:
It needs not an independent State, but only the creation in its native land of conditions favorable to its development: a good-sized settlement of Jews working without hindrance [1] in every branch of culture, from agriculture and handicrafts to science and literature. This Jewish settlement, which will be a gradual growth, will become in course of time the centre of the nation, wherein its spirit will find pure expression and develop in all its aspects up to the highest degree of perfection of which it is capable.
The British Mandate ban on Jewish immigration and settlement in 1939 was to prove precisely that only an independent state could provide the the Jews with the ability to work without hindrance in Palestine. Herzl too was proven wrong, since the ban on immigration and settlement was imposed despite the very völkerrechtlich, legally recognized mandate to create a Jewish national home. However, it was not Achad Ha'am whose ideas were vindicated but rather the practical Zionists who believed in settling the land, regardless of laws.


Achad Ha'am saw what was in front of him - the impoverished settlements and the pitiful conditions in Palestine. Herzl looked down from the mountain and saw the promised land. Achad Ha'am could not have foreseen the first World War or the Balfour declaration, nor the Holocaust. He should have understood however, that while few Jews would come to Palestine as long as conditions were what they were under the Ottoman Empire, increasing numbers of immigrants would be attracted by improving conditions and by statehood. Like Herzl, Achad Ha'am was apparently blind to the potential of Jews of the Arab countries. For him, and for everyone else at the Zionist congress, "the East" was Russia.
Achad Ha'am's "cultural Zionism" and his writings have been widely distorted however, or misunderstood and quoted out of context to imply that he thought Jews should not settle in their land, or that he thought it was impossible to ever establish a Jewish state. This is clearly not supported by the record, since he supported both settlement and the The Balfour Declaration in practical ways.
In 1889 his first article criticizing practical Zionism, called "This is not the way ("The wrong way") (Lo Zeh Haderech) appeared in "Ha - Melitz." The ideas in this article were the basis for the Bnai Moshe (sons of Moses) group that he founded that year. The Bnai Moshe lasted until 1897. It occupied itself with the improvement of Hebrew education, with the dissemination of Hebrew literature, and with the interests of the Palestinian settlements. In 1898, the Zionist congress adopted the idea of disseminating Jewish culture in the Diaspora as a means of advancing the Zionist movement and the revival of the Jewish people. The Bnai Moshe founded Rehovoth, as a settlement that was to be self sufficient, as well the Achiasaf Hebrew publishing company. Achad Ha'am died in Tel-Aviv in 1927.