Nietzsche and Zionism

I have often pointed out that the current Jewish state is indeed one of the most important signs of the times, but it is certainly not the fulfillment of God’s promise concerning Israel’s national restoration. I was reminded of this again today when I read a report about a World Congress of Jewish Studies currently taking place in Jerusalem. It clearly shows that this movement is, at its core, an act of rebellion against God and against the expectation of the Messiah. I quote:

A special session was dedicated to “The Death of God in Jewish Thought.” This theme is usually associated with Christian theology after Auschwitz, although the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is considered the intellectual father of the idea. However, the French scholar Ofer Nordheimer Nur showed that early Zionism from the 1920s was already influenced by this concept.

Early Zionism aimed at establishing a Jewish state in Israel as a homeland for all Jews worldwide. This idea was fueled by messianism within Judaism, though it had been secularized. Traditionally, the return to the land of Israel was connected to the coming of the Messiah.

Besides this Jewish influence, early Zionism also appears to have been inspired by Nietzsche. Nordheimer Nur demonstrated this using the example of the Zionist youth movement “HaShomer HaTzair” (“The Young Guard”). This movement was founded in 1916 in Vienna and had many members among the youth in Poland. The horrors of the First World War led them to believe that God had abandoned the world and the Jewish people. It was now up to man to take his fate into his own hands. The resulting urge to act led to a mass emigration of Jewish youth to Palestine. They no longer wanted to wait for the coming of the Messiah but decided instead to fulfill the Jewish dream of a homeland by their own efforts.

Previous blog posts on this topic:
The Justification of Neturei Karta
Zionism and the Holocaust

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