2021/12/08 by David Engel · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies
paper · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190240943.013.5
openalex publication_date 2021/12/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract This chapter traces the origins and evolution of the idea that the welfare of Jews in the diaspora depends upon a strong Jewish presence in Palestine. The idea was initially generated out of a debate between Ahad Ha’am and Simon Dubnow over the prospects for developing a secular, “national” diaspora Jewish culture. Ahad Ha’am denied the possibility, insisting that only a “fixed center” in Palestine could weld dispersed Jews into a single cultural whole. Other Zionist spokesmen went farther, arguing that the diaspora was a source of physical danger or moral degeneracy that could be cured only by transplanting all the world’s Jews to Palestine. The chapter examines variations on this theme and the key texts in which they were introduced.