Zionism and Judaism
A New Theory

This book argues that Zionism is only a coherent political stance when it is intelligently rooted in Judaism.

David Novak (Author)

9781107099951, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 March 2015

274 pages
21.8 x 14.5 x 2.5 cm, 0.45 kg

'A book of literally vast (if cleverly hidden) erudition, written by the leading Jewish theologian of our time, David Novak's Zionism and Judaism is a clearly written superstructure built upon an understructure of deep philosophical sophistication, addressed to all thoughtful people, Jew and Gentile alike, who take theology seriously. … [Novak] articulates a religious Zionism that takes Jewish nationhood to be rooted in Judaism, not the other way around. The Zionism thus articulated is not a consequence of 'push' (anti-Semitism, persecution, alienation) but of 'pull' (the natural drive - and right! - of a people not only to survive, but to prosper intellectually and spiritually in the world). … One finds in Zionism and Judaism a distillation of Novak's many theologically sophisticated and philosophically acute ruminations on election, covenant, natural rights and the place of Gentiles in Judaism. Everyone who struggles with the questions addressed in this book will be in Novak's debt.' Menachem Kellner, Shalem College, Jerusalem

Why should anyone be a Zionist, a supporter of a Jewish state in the land of Israel? Why should there be a Jewish state in the land of Israel? This book seeks to provide a philosophical answer to these questions. Although a Zionist need not be Jewish, nonetheless this book argues that Zionism is only a coherent political stance when it is intelligently rooted in Judaism, especially in the classical Jewish doctrine of God's election of the people of Israel and the commandment to them to settle the land of Israel. The religious Zionism advocated here is contrasted with secular versions of Zionism that take Zionism to be a replacement of Judaism. It is also contrasted with versions of religious Zionism that ascribe messianic significance to the State of Israel, or which see the main task of religious Zionism to be the establishment of an Israeli theocracy.

Introduction
1. Why Zionism?
2. Was Spinoza the first Zionist?
3. Secular Zionism: political or cultural?
4. Should Israel be a theocracy?
5. Why the Jews and why the land of Israel?
6. Can the state of Israel be both Jewish and democratic?
7. What could be the status of non-Jews in a Jewish state?
8. What is the connection between the Holocaust and the state of Israel?

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP], Jewish studies [JFSR1], Theology [HRLB], Judaism [HRJ], Religion: general [HRA], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Philosophy [HP]