Zionism`s Redemptive Narratives and Narrative Redemptions

This paper looks at the ways in which Zionists sought to create a historical narrative of the path of Zionism itself. Its focus is on the construction of a Zionist consciousness of the past, and through that, of images of the future which, I argue, placed redemptive visions at their very heart. Although scholars have in the past examined the ways in which Zionist-oriented historians have reshaped the image of the Jewish past, little to no attention has been paid to the construction of a Zionist past in the form of both popular and professional historiographies.

Smaller-scale efforts to narrate Zionism’s story were often embedded in writings with other purposes. The first grand-scale history was Nahum Sokolow’s History of Zionism. Published in 1919, on the heels of the Balfour Declaration, the book constitutes simultaneously a work of diplomacy, an erudite piece of historiography, and a foray into popular memory. A redemptive vision was central to Sokolow’s understanding of Zionism and of his literary and diplomatic activity on its behalf. Sokolow makes surprising historiographical claims, connecting the birth of Zionism to both Jewish and Christian messianic expectations. The fulfilment of these, he suggests, will come with a full Jewish and human redemption with the restoration of the Jews to Palestine.

Ambivalent and multivocal echoes of messianic traditions play central roles in these constructions of images of Zionist origins, the Zionist past, and its trajectory, and have much to teach about Zionism`s image of itself and its visions of its ultimate goals.









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