A Vision Shared: From Napoleon to Herzl

For eighteen centuries after the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman legions, small numbers of Jews continued to make the dangerous journey to the Holy Land to live, study Torah, die, and be buried in the sacred soil. At the beginning of the 19th century, with the advent of the Enlightenment and the rise of nationalism in Europe, the concept of the restoration of Jewish self-government in the Holy Land arose in the minds of prominent Jews and Christians in Europe. Jews – traditional and secular – identified changes in the political environment that were conducive to reawakening the latent national component of Judaism, a religion that, although including such a identity, had no means of expression for almost two millennia. To the traditional, it meant an active form of messianism to be initiated by the people as predicted in the source literature. To the secular, it meant that the Jews, like other peoples, had the right to sovereignty in their ancient homeland. Christians - fundamentalist and secular – took an active interest in the return of the Jews to their historic homeland. To the fundamentalists, it meant that the return would lead to the establishment of the Kingdom of God as envisioned by Christianity. To the secular, particularly in England and France, a Jewish state in the strategically important eastern Mediterranean would be supportive of the empire that assisted them in the return to the land that they longed for in hope and prayer. Although there were many actors in the drama of reawakened interest in the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel, the narratives in this book are about the most prominent few. Their efforts were not met with success but they were the precursors of the political Zionist movement founded by Theodore Herzl that led ultimately to the establishment of the State of Israel.

Publisher:

Targum Press

Pages:

252

Date Published:

2018