Introduction to Zionism and Israel pdf

Dan Mark Cohn-Sherbok is a rabbi of Reform Judaism and a Jewish theologian. He is Professor Emeritus of Judaism at the University of Wales.Born in Denver, Colorado, he graduated from East High School (Denver) and was a student at Williams College, Massachusetts, spending a junior year abroad in Athens, Greece.
He was ordained a Reform rabbi at the Hebrew Union College at Cincinnati. He was a Chaplain of the Colorado House of Representative, and Honorary Colonel Aide-de-Camp of New Mexico. He has served as a rabbi in the United States, England, Australia and South Africa. He was a student at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and rowed in the Wolfson College boat. He received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Cambridge in England. Later, he received an honorary doctorate in divinity from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, New York City. He taught theology at the University of Kent and served as Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Society, and was Professor of Judaism at the University of Wales. He has served as visiting professor at University of Essex, Middlesex University, St. Andrews University, Durham University, University of Vilnius, Lithuania, Charles University, Prague, York St John University, Trinity University College, St Mary's University, Twickenham, St Andrews Biblical Theological College, Moscow and Honorary Professor at Aberystwyth University. He has been a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and Harris Manchester College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Corresponding Fellow of the Academy of Jewish Philosophy, a Visiting Research Fellow of Heythrop College, University of London, a Life Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge, an Honorary Senior Member of Darwin College, University of Kent, an Associate Member of the SCR Christ Church, Oxford, a Member of the SCR Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and a Member of the London Society for the Study of Religion and the Arts and Humanities Peer Review College. He has also served as a Visiting Scholar of Mansfield College, Oxford, the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies and Sarum College. He was a finalist of the Times Preacher of the Year, and winner of the Royal Academy Friends design competition. He is married to Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok.

Introduction to Zionism and Israel pdf by Dan Cohn-Sherbok

Introduction to Zionism and Israel: From Ideology to History

With the conversion of Shabbatai Zevi in the seventeenth century, Jewish preoccupation with messianic calculation diminished. Many Jews became disillusioned with centuries of messianic anticipation and disappointment: the longing for the Messiah who would lead the Jewish people to the Holy Land and bring about the end of history seemed a distant hope. Instead eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Jewry hailed the breaking down of the ghetto walls and the elimination of social barriers between Jews and Christians. In this milieu the belief in the Kingdom of God inaugurated by the Messiah-king receded in importance. In this milieu there emerged a number of leading secularists who were preoccupied with the problem of antisemitism rather than messianic deliverance. Moses Hess, for example, argued that anti-Jewish sentiment is unavoidable. No reform of Judaism can eliminate Jew- hatred from Western society. According to Hess, the only solution to the Jewish problem is the creation of a Jewish state which will enable world Jewry to undergo a renaissance and serve as a spiritual centre for all of humanity. Similarly, Leo Pinsker contended that Judeophobia is an extricable part of Western society – the only remedy for antisemitism is for Jewry to reconstitute themselves as a separate people in their own land. Echoing such sentiments Theodor Herzl espoused the creation of a Jewish homeland and undertook political steps to bring about its realization. Among Jewish activists who joined this quest to deliver the Jewish nation from their wanderings was Ber Borochov who attempted to integrate Jewish nationalism with Marxist ideology. For Borochov, the national struggle will liberate Jewry from its dependence on non-Jewish economic structures and enable Jews to be integrated with the universal revolutionary movement. Another major thinker of this period was Vladimir Jabotinsky who stressed the importance of armed struggle in the quest for national autonomy. Although these various figures departed radically from traditional patterns of Jewish thought about Jewish redemption, like their religious and spiritual counterparts they foresaw the need for a Jewish state in contemporary society. Their desire for a return to Israel was a modern expression of a deep longing within the Jewish soul.