1 - Law and Culture in Early Zionist Literature

Summary

Chapter 1 considers the accounts of law offered by early Zionist utopian works and clarifies the distinction between the cultural and the meta-cultural debate in Zionism; that is, between the disputes over culture and identity, and the debate whether a cultural dispute over modern Jewish identity would be worthwhile and wise. In light of the emotional Jewish and Zionist cultural debates, the question inevitably arose as to whether such culture wars were advantageous or detrimental to the realization of Zionism’s goal, the establishment of a Jewish national home. To avoid a Kulturkampf, Zionist leaders decided to stress the common and consensual elements of national culture, while stifling the religious, cultural and identity differences over the definition of Judaism, Jewish state and Jewish law, and block their entry into the Zionist movement’s official documents and projects.