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Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927), primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name Ahad Ha'am (, lit. 'one of the people', ), was a Hebrew journalist and essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. He is known as the founder of cultural Zionism. With his vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Eretz Israel, his views regarding the purpose of a Jewish state contrasted with those of prominent figures within the Zionist movement such as Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism. Unlike Herzl, Ahad Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews".
From a young age, Ginsberg was interested in the Haskalah movement. He was critical of the dogmatic nature of Orthodox Judaism, and began to distance himself from Orthodoxy by the time he was 16. Still, he remained loyal to his cultural heritage, especially the ethical ideals of Judaism. Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, vol. 1, Ahad Ha'am, New York, 1971, pp. 13–14 Ginsberg felt uncomfortable with taking the identity of Misnagdim (non-Hasidic Orthodox jew) or maskil (Jewish Enlightener), so he simply referred to himself as "Ohev Yisrael", or "Lover of Israel". He married his wife Rivke at the age of 17. They had three children, Shlomo Ginossar, Leah, and Rachel. In 1886 he settled in Odessa with his parents, wife and children, and entered the family business. In 1908, following a trip to Palestine, Ginsberg moved to London to manage the office of the Wissotzky Tea company. He settled in Tel Aviv in early 1922, where he served as a member of the Executive Committee of the city council until 1926. Plagued by ill health, Ginsberg died there in 1927.
In his late teens and early twenties, Ginsberg dedicated himself to the study of religion, as well as subjects outside of Judaism such as Russian and German. During his first visit to Odessa in 1878, he became acquainted with another young man staying in the same hotel as him. There, he was introduced to the literature of Russian philosopher Dmitry Pisarev, who inspired him greatly. He returned home with the goal of enrolling in a university, and resolved to master the subjects required in a high school curriculum. However, he found that he had little time or desire to master the "intrinsically unimportant details" that students were required to learn in order to pass their exams, and abandoned the idea of enrolling at a Russian university. His subsequent attempts to attend university in Breslau, Berlin, Vienna and Leipzig faced various roadblocks, and his lack of higher education caused deep frustration. He experienced dissatisfaction with his lack of higher education, and this in part inspired his move to Odessa.
"the emancipation of ourselves from the inner slavery and the spiritual degradation which assimilation has produced in us, and the strengthening of our national unity by joint action in every sphere of our national life, until we become capable and worthy of a life of dignity and freedom at some time in the future."His criticism of political Zionism would give way to the development of his doctrine of cultural Zionism. From 1889 to 1906, Ginzberg flourished as a preeminent intellectual in Zionist politics.
He also founded the Hebrew monthly newspaper Ha-Shiloaḥ, a prominent Hebrew-language literary journal in the early twentieth century, and was chief editor from 1896 to 1902 before stepping down.
After his move to Tel Aviv in Palestine he published a 4-volume collection of his essays called " Al Parashat Derakhim" as well as a 6-volume collection of his edited letters.
Ginsberg named the publication Ha-Shiloah after a river in the Bible. The river in the Bible was known for water that goes softly, and he wanted his monthly to reflect the slow, methodical development of Hebrew literature he hoped his monthly would curate.
Ginsberg's desire for a respected Hebrew journal drove him to run the monthly with a high standard and tight control. His goal was to create a journal that was Judeocentric with the same quality of respected European journals at the time. To create this standard, prose and fictional writings were kept to separate sections, and had to maintain the theme of focus on the Jewish experience. Ginsberg's editorial style was also thorough and aggressive, often omitting entire pages of articles and restructuring whole essays where he deemed fit. Though the journal was respected by Western scholars, the sales were small and dwindled every year. Ginsberg eventually resigned in October 1902 when he predicted either the paper would be closed, or he would be fired.
Despite Ha-Shiloah's low sales, Ginsberg's strict curation and editorial style led to him being recognized as a key contributor in the development of a new, secular Hebrew essay writing style that is now known as the Odessa Style. This style is often described as being clear, succinct, positivist, and anti-romantic, and it almost entirely focuses on Jewish topics. As editor of Ha-Shiloah from 1896 until 1902, Ahad Ha'am established the Odessa Style as a benchmark for Hebrew writing.
"Truth from Eretz Israel" raised concerns about the Turkish government and native Arab population, both of whom would heavily resist the transformation of Palestine into a Jewish state. The essay also questioned the survival and prosperity of Jewish settlers currently in Palestine. The reliance on viticulture was unproven and currently unsustainable for Jewish farmers. This, along with inflated land prices, raised additional barriers to any goal of Zionism. Ahad Ha'am ultimately believed the Hovevei Zion movement would be a failure because the new villages were dependent on the largesse of outside benefactors, and the impoverished settlers of his day would struggle to build any Jewish homeland.
The series of essays is considered to be among the first works to seriously address the "Arab Issue" within the Zionist movement. Ahad Ha'am warned of future enmity between Arabs and Jews when relations would turn sour:
"From abroad we are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all desert savages, like donkeys, who neither see nor understand what goes on around them. But this is a big mistake. The Arab, like all children of Shem, has a sharp intellect and is very cunning. The cities of Syria and Eretz Israel are full of Arab merchants who also know how to exploit the public and to proceed furtively with all those with whom they deal, exactly as in Europe. The Arabs, and especially those in the cities, understand our deeds and our desires in Eretz Israel, but they keep quiet and pretend not to understand, since they do not see our present activities as a threat to their future. Therefore they try to exploit us as well, to extract some benefit from the new visitors as long as they can. Yet they mock us in their hearts. The farmers are happy to have a new Hebrew colony founded in their midst since they receive a good wage for their labor and get wealthier from year to year, as experience shows; and the owners of large properties are also happy with us, since we pay them a huge price-more than they dreamed possible-for stony and sandy land. However, if the time comes when the life of our people in Eretz Israel develops to the point of encroaching upon the native population, they will not easily yield their place..."
He reported of the early Zionist settlers:
"They were slaves in their land of exile, and they suddenly find themselves with unlimited freedom, the kind of wild freedom to be found only in a country like Turkey. This sudden change has engendered in them an impulse to despotism, as always happens when "a slave becomes a king," and behold they walk with the Arabs in hostility and cruelty, unjustly encroaching on them, shamefully beating them for no good reason, and even bragging about what they do, and there is no one to stand in the breach and call a halt to this dangerous and despicable impulse. To be sure our people are correct in saying that the Arab respects only those who demonstrate strength and courage, but this is relevant only when he feels that his rival is acting justly; it is not the case if there is reason to think his rival's actions are oppressive and unjust."
Ahad Ha'am believed the solution was to bring Jews to Palestine gradually, while turning it into a cultural centre. At the same time, it was incumbent upon Zionism to inspire a revival of Jewish national life in the Diaspora. Only then would the Jewish people be strong enough to assume the mantle of building a nation state.
The series was criticized heavily within the Zionist movement, with many claiming that the essays provided a one-sided view of the Jewish national efforts, and others claiming that the series defamed Jewish settlers, both generally and specifically in Palestine. Asher Ginsberg's critiques of the Hovevei Zionists, an organization of which he was a member, cemented his reputation as an internal critic and moral compass for Zionism.
He eclipsed nationalists like Peretz Smolenskin arguing assimilative individualism in the west further alienated Russified Jewry, who were seeking to reduce migration: isolating it beggared Eastern European Jewry. Even those in Hovevei seeking to restrict emigration would, he feared, bring the extinguishment of national consciousness; and atomisation of Jewish identity. Only anti-Semitism had made Jews of us.Herzl to Nordau; Zipperstein, p.344 Derekh argued that nations had waxed and waned throughout history, but nationalism had all but vanished from Jewish consciousness. Only a small group of nobles kept it going.
Throughout the 1890s Ahad Ha'am worked to keep the flame of nationalism alive.Vital, The People Apart, p.348 Emphasis fell on moral concepts, honor of the flag, self-improvement, national revitalisation. A departure occurred in Avdut betokh herut(Slavery in Freedom) published in 1891 discussing pessimism about the future for independent Jewishness. Critic Simon Dubnov alluded to this but was compromised by his westernised idealizing of French Jewry. For the movement, the preoccupation with assimilation at Odessa was fatal for Ahad Ha'am's progressive Zionism. The requirement arose in 1891 for a "spiritual centre" in Palestine; Bnei Moshe's implacable opposition to his support for Vladimir (Zeev) Tiomkin's ideal community at Jaffa compounded the controversy in Emet me'eretz Yisrael ( The Truth from the Land of Israel).
In 1896, he became editor of Hashiloah, a Hebrew monthly, a position he held for six years. After stepping down as editor in 1903, he went back to the business world with the Wissotzky Tea Company. (2025). 9780415260305, David McKay. ISBN 9780415260305
In 1897, following the Basel Zionist Congress calling for a Jewish national home "recognized in international law" ( völkerrechtlich), Ha'am wrote an article called Jewish State Jewish Problem ridiculing the idea of a völkerrechtlich recognized state, given the pitiful plight of the Jewish settlements in Palestine at the time. He emphasized that without a Jewish nationalist revival abroad, it would be impossible to mobilize genuine support for a Jewish national home. Even if the national home were created and recognized in international law, it would be weak and unsustainable.
In 1898, the Zionist Congress adopted the idea of disseminating Jewish culture in the Diaspora as a tool for furthering the goals of the Zionist movement and bringing about a revival of the Jewish people. Bnei Moshe helped to found Rehovot as a model for self-sufficiency, and established Achiasaf, a Hebrew publishing company. Ahad Ha'am (1856 – 1927)
Ginsberg's first significant political action was founding the Bnei Moshe, a secret political organization, in 1889, and assuming leadership. He also joined the Odessa committee, a committee advocating for the immigration of Jewish people to Israel, along with many of his Bnei Moshe brethren from 1891 to 1895.
Ahad Ha'am's influence in the political realm stemmed more from his impact on political leaders and his spiritual authority than from any official role he held. For the "Democratic Fraction", a party that espoused cultural Zionism (founded in 1901 by Chaim Weizmann), he served "as a symbol for the movement's culturalists, the faction's most coherent totem. He was, however, not – certainly not to the extent to which members of this group, especially Chaim Weizmann, would later contend – its chief ideological influence." Though the party wished for Ahad's participation or even endorsement, he would remain uninvolved.Steven J. Zipperstein, Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha'am and the Origins of Zionism, London: Peter Halban 1993, p. 144
Ahad Ha'am was a talented negotiator. He used his skills in compromise during the "language controversy" that accompanied the founding of the Haifa Technikum (today: the Technion) and in the negotiations culminating in the Balfour Declaration.Zipperstein, Elusive Prophet, 269, 296–301 Ahad Ha'am was also a close advisor to Chaim Weizmann and other British Zionists at the time of the negotiations. After the Balfour Declaration he held a position on the Zionist "Political Committee", along with being a powerful advisor to the British Zionists as they battled anti-Zionist efforts.
Ahad Ha'am Versus Theodor Herzl
Ahad Ha'am had the potential to represent a political alternative to Theodor Herzl after the First Zionist Congress in Basel. His critique of the congress, along with his success in convincing the 160 delegates of the All-Russian Zionism Conference to support his beliefs, provided a strong foundation for a countermovement to Herzl's vision. Despite this strong support, Ahad's choices to not join the second Congress and defend his position, as well as call for the dissolution of Bnei Moshe in 1895 and 1897, resulted in Herzlian Zionism becoming the dominant approach. Ahad Ha'am and Theodor Herzl would remain rivals for years, and their conflicting views would spark disagreements between Eastern and Western Zionists throughout the early twentieth century.
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