Most Zionist concepts are positive ideas that express Jewish optimism of renewal and rejuvenation. Returning to Eretz Yisrael, building and settling the land, and aliyah (in Hebrew, to “move up”) are positive ideas that focus on the progress of the Jewish people after years of persecution and exile. Zionists are known as dreamers looking to improve the fate and future of the Jewish people, and to help repair the world of its ills.
Zionism’s opponents try to paint it in a negative light, accusing it of being a regressive movement. They focus on Israel’s wars, its treatment of Palestinians and pride in its military to characterize Israel as an oppressive and violent state fueled by a brutal movement.
Some negative Zionist concepts, however, remain internal, such as the condemnatory concept of the galut (“exile”) mentality. This term was used by Zionists to disparage Jews who advocated for appeasement to Jewish oppressors instead of standing up for Jewish rights. Those who favored appeasement understood that Jews lived in foreign lands at the grace of foreign rulers. If the rulers oppressed the Jews under their rule, it was best to appease to avoid agitating the ruling class and risk even worse mistreatment.
Many early Zionists addressed the corrosive nature of the “gault mentality,” attributing it to life in the ghetto. In his book, The Jewish State, journalist and Zionist leader Theodor Herzl wrote, “The ghetto has warped us; it has made us petty, fearful and dependent. In our own land, we shall stand upright, free from the cringing habits of centuries, and become a nation like all others.” In “The Iron Wall,” Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote, “We must break the chains of the ghetto mind, which clings to weakness and passivity. Only through strength and self-reliance in our own land can we cast off the servility that history has forced upon us.”
The early Zionists saw the return to Israel and the establishment of a Jewish state as the first steps to no longer having to appease their enemies to attain security. With their own country and army, they could stand up and fight against those persecuting Jews. The enemies of the Jewish people would learn to think twice before attacking Jews.
“Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally assured homeland in Palestine. Only there can Jews live without fear of oppression, as masters of their own destiny,” said Zionist leader Max Nordau in a speech at the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. In a speech to the Paris Peace Conference, Chaim Weizmann, who served as president of the Zionist Organization and later as the first president of Israel, said: “Zionism is the answer to the Jewish problem—a homeland where our people can live in security and dignity, free from the fear that has haunted us for centuries.”
Even journalist Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (Ahad Ha’am), who usually focused on a more cultural approach to Zionism, spoke about security in his essay, “The Jewish State and the Jewish Problem,” writing: “In a Jewish state, our people will no longer be subject to the whims of others, living in constant dread; Instead, they will find a home where they can breathe freely.”
After the establishment of the modern-day State of Israel in 1948, when Jews could finally defend themselves from attacking enemies, Zionists disparaged those Jews who still advocated for appeasement as having a “galut mentality.” The Zionists viewed them as living in the State of Israel physically, but with a mentality that was stuck in exile. They had yet to evolve into the strong and mighty Jew of the third commonwealth, ready to stand up to the Jewish people’s enemies.
Seventy-seven years after Israel’s establishment, the debate over whether policies are strategically moderate or expressions of the “galut mentality” continues. Some may say that those who oppose taking strong action against Jew-hatred on campus because they fear it only fuels further antisemitism and feeds into longstanding tropes are expressing a modern-day version of a “galut mentality.”
There are other areas where the debate between moderation and accusations of the “galut mentality” expresses itself, such as between those who advocate for stronger action against Hamas and Iran, and those who advocate for moderation and are accused of suffering from a “galut mentality.”
It is understandable that the accusation of having such a mentality makes many Jews uncomfortable, as it was designed to evoke specific emotional responses and paint those who advocate for a moderate approach as weak. The debate between a moderate approach and a strong hand will never end, as Jews do not take monolithic approaches to any subject, especially important ones like the defense against antisemitism and terror attacks.
Many of the debates that early Zionists staged with each other over the policies of Israel have not been solved. Debate, if carried out civilly and with respect, is healthy for society. To understand the issues of such policy debates, Zionists should review the ones debated 100 years ago by the founders of the Jewish state. In the context of history and Israel’s founding, modern-day conundrums might be better understood.