Zionism's Messianic Spirit

This is the second of four posts examining Jacqueline Rose’s “The Question of Zion”. The first covered the preface. This post discusses Zionism’s Messianic Spirit. Subsequent posts will look at Zionism’s critical self-reflections as well as political Zionism. (All page references are to the 2005 hard cover edition).

Proto-Zionism and Shabtai Zvi

Zionism is a collective movement whose motives, justifications and successes have implicitly entailed and even required - the Jewish messianic mythos. This mythos finds its “proto-Zionist” precursor in the 17th century apostate Shabtai Zvi, whose “historic task was to return the Jews to Palestine.” (p. 3) Zvi was scandal, violation and blasphemy. He was transgression, wantonness and destruction. These, however, were what established his power and influence. He was, “not that of a saint who suffers and whose suffering is mysteriously bound to God, but that of a saint who is outrageous, a saint who sins.” (p.3) Further, Zvi was a Messiah consorting “with evil as much as he defeats it”, a Messiah exhorting “his followers to blasphemy.” (p. 3) When Zvi proclaims himself King of Israel, the claim fulfills itself:

From Sale of Morocco, the Ten Tribes of Israel were reported as appearing daily in greater and greater multitudes, about eight thousand troops covering a vast tract of ground - strangers, an unknown People whose language those who went to inquire of them ‘understood not.’ An army of mythic potency, although they carry no guns - ‘their Arms are swords, bows, arrows and lances’ - ‘whosoever goeth to contend with this People in Battel, are presently vanquished and slain.’ At their head, their ‘Chief Leader’ was a ‘Holy Man’ who ‘marcheth before them, doing miracles.’ These reports spread. Letters from Egypt referring to the appearance of the lost tribes in Arabia arrived in Amsterdam and were carried from there across Europe. When the reports from Arabia and Morocco merged, the ‘Arabian’ army became the vanguard of an even larger Jewish army advancing from Africa. With every report the numbers grew, from tens of thousands, to three hundred thousand, to millions. (p. 4/5)

read more