This SIIS session provides essential readings in the history of political Zionism. A combination of primary and secondary materials provides interested readers with a comprehensive, foundational knowledge of Zionism.
Essential Reading (Primary Sources)
Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea : A Historical Analysis and Reader, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1997), ISBN/ISSN: 0827606222
– Leo Pinsker: “Auto-Emancipation: An Appeal to His People by a Russian Jew” pgs. 178-198
– Theodor Herzl: “The Jewish State” pp. 204-223
– Max Nordau: “Zionism” pp. 242-245
Max Nordau
“Jewry of Muscle” in The Jew in the Modern World,
ed. Paul R. Mendes-Flohr, Jehuda Reinharz
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)
ISBN/ISSN: 019507453X
Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall,” Article written November 4, 1923 (pp. 41-43) in Rabinovich/Reinharz reader Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present.
Essential Reading (Secondary Sources)
Gideon Shimoni, Chapter 8 in The Zionist Ideology (Brandeis University Press, 1995)
Recommended Reading
Michael Brenner, Zionism: A Brief History (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2003)
– The Early History of Political Zionism pp. 3-22
– An International Nationalism: The Topography of Early Zionism pp. 25-63
Chaim Gans, The Limits of Nationalism (Cambridge University Press 2003)
Introduction and Chapter 1: Part 1 Part 2
Leo Strauss
“The Zionism of Nordau”
in Leo Strauss: The Early Writings, ed. and trans. Michael Zank
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002)
ISBN/ISSN: 0795453294
Walter Laquer
Chapter 2: “The Forerunners”
A History of Zionism, pp. 40-83
(New York: MJF Books, 1996)
ISBN/ISSN: 0805211497
Michael Stanislawski
Zionism and the Fin de Siecle
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)
ISBN/ISSN: 0520227883
E.J. Hobsbawm
Preface/Introduction
in Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)
ISBN/ISSN: 0521439612
Max Nordau, “Speech to the First Zionist Congress”
in Hertzberg’s “The Zionist Idea,” pp. 233-245.
Vladimir Jabotinsky, “Evidence Submitted to the Palestine Royal Commission” (1937)
in Hertzberg’s “The Zionist Idea,” pp. 559-571