Ahad Ha'am

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Ahad Ha'am

Ascher Hirsch Ginsberg ( Russian Ушер Исаевич (Ушер Хирш) Гинцберг Uscher Issajewitsch (Uscher Chirsch) Ginzberg , Hebrew אָשֵׁר צְבִי (הִירְשׁ) גִּינְצְבֶּרְג Āšēr Zvī (Hīrš) Gīnzberg ; born on August 18, 1856 in Skwyra near Kiev , Ukraine ; died January 2, 1927 in Tel Aviv , Palestine ), also known by his pseudonym Achad Ha'am ( Hebrew אַחַד הָעַם Achad Haʿam , German for 'one of the people' ), was a Zionist activist and journalist. He is considered to be the main exponent of what later became known as cultural Zionism , the doctrine of the “spiritual center” ( Hebrew מֶרְכָּז רוּחָנִי merkas rūẖanī ) in Palestine.

Life

Ascher Ginsberg, whose father was a Hasid and wealthy village trader, received a traditional Jewish upbringing at home. With a private tutor he learned the Talmud and medieval philosophy, with an emphasis on Maimonides ' Guide of the Undecided . In addition, he self-taught modern languages ​​(Russian, German, French, English) and Latin. After his marriage to Rivke Schneersohn in 1873, he continued his private studies, especially philosophy and natural sciences. He tried several times in vain to enroll at a university and remained self-taught. Due to strong rationalist tendencies, he first gave up Hasidism and then completely turned away from religious beliefs.

In 1884 he settled with his wife Rivke (1856–1931), his children and parents in Odessa , where he took over the father's business, which was a leading center of Hebrew literature at the time. He stayed there with short interruptions until 1907. In Odessa he joined the early Zionist movement Chovevei Zion ("Lover of Zion"). In his first significant article, Lo seh ha-Derech ("This is not the way"), which appeared in 1889 under the pseudonym Achad Ha'am ("One of the people"), he sharply criticized the policy of Chovevei Zion , the immediate settlement of Erez Israel and instead called for educational work as a basic requirement for a committed and permanent settlement. A secret society called Bnei Moshe ("Sons of Moses"), which existed for eight years and was under the direction of Achad Ha'am, tried to realize the ideas expressed in its first article.

After two trips to Palestine in 1891 and 1893, Achad Ha'am came to the opinion that the establishment of a Jewish state there would lead to many, sometimes serious problems, and from then on he favored an approach that first demanded the Jewish culture in the area to anchor again. Achad Ha'am's attitude, which was therefore also called cultural Zionism, differed little in the analysis from the results of the so-called political Zionists. However, Achad Ha'am had no confidence in the effectiveness of Theodor Herzl's diplomatic efforts and accused Herzl and Nordau of neglecting Jewish values. To him, cultural work was an indispensable prerequisite for Zionism and a protection against assimilation . After a renewed visit to Palestine in 1900 he criticized the employees of Baron Edmond Rothschild working there in Paris, their dictatorial behavior and the neglect of national values ​​in the educational system of the Alliance Israélite Universelle . While the Political Zionists advocated the establishment of a state and would have switched to other settlement areas if necessary, Achad Ha'am and his supporters limited their political ambitions, but preferred Erez Israel as their target. Zion as an intellectual and cultural center takes precedence over the political and economic development and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Although he had participated in the drafting of the Balfour Declaration , he could not join the Zionist movement's enthusiasm for its publication, as he saw its limited effect primarily in connection with the understanding he needed with the Palestinian Arabs, for theirs national rights he campaigned. The cultural Zionist cause was later represented by Martin Buber and other intellectuals and was taken into account in the Zionist education system.

Only Chaim Weizmann succeeded in reuniting the two Zionist factions that had fallen apart.

In 1913, Achad Ha'am answered the question “What is Judaism?” In a letter: “I think religion itself is only one of the forms of culture. And Judaism is neither one nor the other, but the national creative power, which in the past was expressed as a mainly religious culture. Judaism will continue to express itself in this form in the future. "

In 1903 Achad Ha'am gave up his work as editor of the monthly magazine Ha-Schiloach, which he founded in 1896 . He became a sales representative for the Wissotzky Tea Company . From 1907 he lived in London . In 1921 he sued the German nationalist journalist Ernst Graf zu Reventlow , who had spread that Achad Ha'am was the author of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion , an anti-Semitic fiction that was supposed to prove Jewish plans for world domination . In 1923 Reventlow had to withdraw his claim.

In 1922 Achad Ha'am, already suffering from a physical condition, settled in Tel-Aviv, where he became the first honorary citizen and where a street was named after him. He died in Tel-Aviv in 1927.

Achad Ha'am was the creator of a new Hebrew style for journalism and science and is considered one of the best modern Hebrew writers and literary critics of his time.

Trivia

In Maxim Biller's novel Biography , a cemetery is named after him.

Works (selection)

  • Lo see ha-Derech. (“This is not the way.”) The first essay on a Zionist topic, written in Odessa in 1889.
  • al paraschat ha-drachim. ("At the crossroads.") Essays and treatises, 4 volumes, 1895.
  • Hashiloach. Scientific journal, 1896 ff.
  • The yishuv and his guardian. Well-received newspaper article, 1902.

literature

  • Zvi Rudy : Achad Haam. In: Wilhelm Bernsdorf , Horst Knospe (Ed.): Internationales Soziologenlexikon. Volume 1: Articles on sociologists who died by the end of 1969. 2nd revised edition. Enke, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-432-82652-4 , p. 1 f.
  • Article in: John F. Oppenheimer, Emanuel Bin Gorin et al. (Ed.): Lexicon of Judaism. Bertelsmann Lexikon-Verlag, 2nd edition, Gütersloh 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , Sp. 24.
  • Article in: Julius H. Schoeps / Redaktion des Moses-Mendelssohn-Zentrum (Hrsg.): Neues Lexikon des Judentums . Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich. Revised new edition 1998.
  • Steven J. Zipperstein : Elusive Prophet. Ahad Ha'am and the Origins of Zionism. University of California Press, Berkeley 1993, ISBN 0-520-08111-0 .
  • Paul Mendes-Flohr : Cultural Zionism. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 3: He-Lu. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02503-6 , pp. 454–458.

Web links

Commons : Achad Ha'am  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian Hartmann , Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plöckinger, Roman Töppel (eds.): Hitler, Mein Kampf. A critical edition . Institute for Contemporary History Munich - Berlin, Munich 2016, vol. 1, p. 802.
  2. ↑ Cf. there the chapter Enlightenment in the Achad Ha'am Cemetery .
personal data
SURNAME Ahad Ha'am
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ginsberg, Asher (maiden name); Ahad Ha'am; Ginsberg, Ascher
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Zionist activist, main exponent of so-called Cultural Zionism
BIRTH DATE August 18, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Skwyra near Kiev
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 1927
PLACE OF DEATH Tel-Aviv