Book Review

Comparative/World

Georges Bensoussan's sweeping and massive volume introduces French readers to the rich and complex history of Zionism in its formative period of development and growth. The author wishes to rescue the subject from the polemics surrounding contemporary discussions of the Middle East, which have stigmatized the term "Zionist" and have limited its understanding to an examination of the Arab-Jewish conflict. In choosing to concentrate on the period between 1860 (a moment that Bensoussan claims witnessed the "crisscrossing" of romanticism, secularization, and nationalism) and 1940 (when, he argues, all of the major issues associated with the settlement of the land of Israel had already been analyzed and discussed), the author also seeks to avoid "teleological" analyses of Zionism that trace its origins to the longing for the biblical Zion and see its inevitable triumph in the creation of the Jewish state.

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The major thesis of the work is that Zionism was not simply a response to antisemitism at the end of the nineteenth century but rather a serious effort to radically reshape European Jewish identity in the face of the challenge of secularization. Its primary goal, Bensoussan maintains, was to liberate Jewry from religious Orthodoxy while avoiding the pitfall of assimilationism, through the development of a new collective national identity. Bensoussan develops this theme through an exhaustive examination of the various strains of Zionist thought, from socialist Zionism to Revisionism, and of major challenges to the young Yishuv, including immigration, economic development, the choice of an appropriate language, and the role of religious observance.

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