In 1889, Asher Ginzberg, also known as Ahad Ha'am, published his article "This is Not the Way". Widely regarded as his most important work, it laid the foundation for the Cultural Zionist movement.
According to him, the current approach of the Hovevei Zion movement to settlement in the Land of Israel was wrong and called for change.
He argued that the settlement process was progressing too quickly—regarding it as a failure—and that some colonies suffered from poor conditions and harsh living environments. According to him, the movement had rushed to implement the idea of settlement without allowing it to develop naturally. As a result, the few existing colonies were poor, impoverished, and struggling under harsh conditions.
The title "This is not the Way" expressed his opposition to immigration and mass settlement in the Land of Israel. Asher Ginzberg affirmed that the Land of Israel cannot absorb the masses from Exile and, therefore, is not meant to solve the existential problem of the Jews but rather to address their spiritual and cultural challenges.
He explained that it was not enough for the Jewish State to serve merely as a national home or refuge for the Jews; it must also possess a spiritual and cultural identity to justify its existence.
The solution that Ahad Ha'am offers to this problem is the “training of the hearts”(הכשרת הלבבות - "Harcharat Halevavot"), or, in other words, the Zionist movement should focus on spiritual-educational work among the Jewish people, which will be done gradually by a qualitative minority, and only in the end, will it be possible to implement the idea of settling.
In this article, Ahad Ha'am explicitly defined Jewish national identity as a secular one while maintaining an affinity for tradition. He envisioned the Land of Israel as Judaism's spiritual and cultural center.
By signing with the pseudonym "Ahad Ha'am" ("one of the people" in Hebrew) at the end of the article, he conveyed the sentiment that he was a simple Jewish individual troubled by his people's fate.
Sources:
Comentarios