Ghassan Kanafani

On Zionist Literature

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The period that separates the good and kindly Wandering Jew from his depiction in the seventeenth century reveals the legend’s clear transformation. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Western Europe, it was believed that the Wandering Jew was a frightening figure who – as a bad omen – only accompanied the appearance of storms: “in such places he was spoken of in whispers. When a storm arose, people gathered together to pray that their town might be spared from a visit by the Wanderer.”5 This belief naturally reflected a dominant Christian position of the age.

The novel also "recti-fies" Disraeli's Zionism by regarding Palestine as "a politically expedient means of gathering Jews from the Diaspora."17 This claim, which has since become ubiquitous, was enshrined here as a principle of Zionism - i.e., that Zionism represents a response to racism and anti-semitism. It is a position that conceals the essence of Zionism, which counters racist oppression with racism.

In order to reject the romantic Jewish hero, and along with it the idea of social integration, Disraeli had to offer an alternative solution which, at this early historical stage of Zionism, was stunningly clear: racism. Disraeli took the claim of Jewish superiority (which represented a survival attribute according to Freud) to its inevitable conclusion by turning it into a conquering force. Rejecting integration necessitated one of two possibilities: to either assume a position of inferiority or that of superiority. Having rejected integration, Disraeli was compelled to choose the racist position.

If Jewish her-itage, or what Weiss-Rosmarin called "Jewish self-assertion," was established during times of reprieve, then calls for such conditions should have been the message of the Zionist movement. But the movement took the opposite position - for racist purposes - by claiming Jewish superiority and refusing to integrate, which in turn always contributed to undermining the prospects of coexistence. Consequently, these positions not only refute the recurring claim in Zionist literature that Israel was a part of the response to oppression, but also reveals the reason behind the bind in which the Zionist novelist constantly finds himself: to feel a constant need to "justify Israel" - and to adopt racist positions toward that end.

Such political instrumentalization of a traditional religious matter (which never meant what Goldberg wanted it to mean forgets that many Jews did not actually know Hebrew, and that they uttered Hebrew words during their prayers without knowing their meaning.

Though the practice of writing in other languages was a natural custom, this of course does not mean that Jews were not proud of the language. They have always been so, but such pride was always associated with the language's sacred func-tion.!5

The language occupied a purely religious position; it was "the language of the Jewish spirit ... even during the times when Hebrew ceased to be a complete language."1º During times when Hebrew was only the language of religion and prayer, and when Jews did not suffer from religious, political or racist persecution, they chose to use the languages of the societies in which they lived in their philosophical, intellectual and literary production. Such decisions indicate the natural status of the Hebrew language.

Thus, language became of utmost impor-tance. Hebrew was subordinated to the movement's political ends and was made, through incremental and constant direction, into a justification for the movement's existence because it represented the tenuous link that connects the world's Jews. Because Hebrew actually reflected a religious bond and not a national one, Zionism regarded the task of changing that to be among its foremost priori-ties.

While Zionism does not in fact emerge from scriptural tradition or cultural practice, it insists on its own supremacy as the primary model and final arbiter of Jewish peoplehood. This effort was not the sole domain of Jewish people. The imperial powers and philosemitic luminaries played an important role. Kanafani does not treat Zionism as a natural response to European antisemitism, instead exploring intracommunal dynamics around class and religious devotion.

On Zionist Literature

Highlights