Voelkerpsychologie and Aesthetics in Early Zionism: Leo Motzkin’s Expedition to Palestine in 1898

This paper is concerned with the production of knowledge in one of the first scientific endeavours of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO): Leo Motzkin’s Expedition to Palestine in 1898. Motzkin had been tasked to „analyze the social and economical circumstances of the Jews“ and to find out „what prospects the Palestinian elements offer for the future and if they are suitable to colonizational or industrial enterprises“ .
While the findings of this expedition were made public during the Second Zionist Congress in 1898, little is known of the process that led towards the knowledge presented therein.
 Indeed, the unpublished material related to the expedition is of considerable volume. Motzkin gathered information by correspondence with many inhabitants of the Yishuv, kept a diary and even kept writing about his experience years after he had left Palestine. 
This paper attempts to give a first overview of Motzkin’s scientific method, focusing on Motzkin’s central concept of the ‚ethnopsychological and social-psychological impression’ . 
I will argue that this concept stems on the one hand from Moritz Lazarus’ early writings on Ethnopsychology and their ambition to determine „the laws of the inner, spiritual, or ideal actions“ of a people, and, on the other hand, from German Aesthetics as witnessed in Friedrich Schiller’s politically minded ‚Aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen‘. I attempt to show that this concept entails a critique of contemporary Zionist models of Jewish culture.