Book description
An incisive biography of the guiding intellectual presence Â- and
chief internal critic Â- of Zionism, during the movement's formative
years between the 1880s and the 1920s. Ahad Ha'am (Â One of the
People') was the pen name of Asher Ginzberg (1856-1927), a Russian Jew
whose life intersected nearly every important trend and current in
contemporary Jewry. His influence extended to figures as varied as the
scholar of mysticism Gershom Scholem, the Hebrew poet Hayyim Nahman
Bialik, and the historian Simon Dubnow. Theodor Herzl may have been
the poltical leader of the Zionist movement, but Ahad Ha'am exerted a
rare, perhaps unequalled, authority within Jewish culture through his
writings. Ahad Ha'am was a Hebrew essayist of extraordinary knowledge
and skill, a public intellectual who spoke with refreshing (and also,
according to many, exasperating) candour on every controversial issue
of the day. He was the first Zionist to call attention to the issue of
Palestinian Arabs. He was a critic of the use of aggression as a tool
in advancing Jewish nationalism and a foe of clericalism in Jewish
public life. His analysis of the prehistory of Israeli political
culture was incisive and prescient. Steven J. Zipperstein offers all
those interested in contemporary Jewry, in Zionism, and in the
ambiguities of modern nationalism a wide-ranging, perceptive
reassessment of Ahad Ha'am's life against the back-drop of his
contentious political world. This influential figure comes to life in
a penetrating and engaging examination of his relations with his
father, with Herzl, and with his devotees and opponents alike.
Zipperstein explores the tensions of a man continually torn between
sublimation and self-revelation, between detachment and deep
commitment to his people, between irony and lyricism, between the
inspiration of his study and the excitement of the streets. As a
Zionist intellectual, Ahad Ha'am rejected both xenophobia and
assimilation, seeking for the Jews a usable past and a plausible future.
