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The End of Building: Zionism and the Politics of the Concrete

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Eyal Chowers
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Abstract

The article reflects on the place of building (both as an activity and as an object) in modern, organic nationalism. In particular, it studies the role of building in the movement that epitomizes the Promethean aspect of modernity—Zionism. In this Jewish national movement metaphors ofbuilding are used very often to connote belonging on three different levels: in the material world produced by human beings, in a historically meaningful and humanized space, and in a community of constructors that willfully reshapes both space and matter. But by conceptualizing their collective project as a building, and by envisioning themselves as builders, many Zionists espoused a problematic understanding of democratic politics: the practical skills required by builders do not foster the critical thought, independence, and moral judgment required of the citizen, and the nonverbal solidarity among builders is essentially different from the solidarity required by a plurality of citizens. In other words, the ethos of builders that was essential for establishing a commonwealth from scratch is fundamentally at odds with the ethos required from an ongoing, democratic polity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , Fall 2002 , pp. 599 - 626
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2002

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References

An earlier version of this essay was recently presented at the annual convention of the American Political Science Association (Boston, 2002). I would also like to thank the anonymous readers of The Review of Politics and the Editor Walter Nicgorski for their very useful and enlightening comments. In addition, I would like to thank Neil Diammant, Eppie Kreitner, Janet Benton, Nancy Schwartz, and Bernard Yack for their helpful suggestions and encouragement.

1. Tchernichovsky, Shaul, in his Shirim (Tel-Aviv: Schocken, 1950), p. 466Google Scholar (throughout this article, all the translations from Hebrew to English are mine). This unidirectional view of the relation between nature and the human soul led the poet to a melancholic conclusion that, as someone born in thediaspora, he is destined to feel eternal estrangement from Palestine. The pioneers of the second Aliya, however, embraced a more active and dialectic attitude toward the land in their attempt to silence this estrangement.

2. Katznelson, Berl, Kitevi B. Katznelson, vol. 2 (Tel-Aviv: Davar, 1946), p. 197.Google Scholar Such pronouncements express the Zionists′ belief that their project in space is fueled by a craving they cultivated for two thousand years. Yet this craving cannot be seen merely in terms of Jewish historyand out of its wider cultural context. By picturing an essentialist connection to the land, Zionists embraced Herder's view that a people cannot exist as a nation without a bond to a particular land. Herder's conception of nationalism was highly influential in Central and EasternEurope, where most Jews lived. It should also be mentioned that, in its relation to the land, Zionists were influenced by other modern schools, such as the physiocratic, Russian populism, and English Romanticism. See Kark, Ruth, “Land-God-Man: Concepts of Land Ownership in Traditional Cultures in Eretz-Israel,” in Ideology and Landscape in Historical Perspective, ed. Baker, A. and Biger, G. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 63–82.Google Scholar

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4. Heidegger, , Basic Writings, p. 324.Google Scholar As noted, Heidegger embraces a noninstrumental view of building, since he believes that, in building, humans learn to dwell and acquire a sense of being-in-the-world. He suggests that in those houses and other structures that are built appropriately (such as the old farmhouses in the Black Forest), we see “the power to let earth and heaven, divinities and mortals enter a simple oneness into things” (p. 338)Google Scholar. Within this fourfold, Heidegger is concerned particularly with the earth. He argues that “mortals dwell in that they save the earth. … To save really means to set something free into its essence” (p. 328)Google Scholar. A building helps human beings free and save the earth when its wooden walls evoke in them the nearby forest, when its location on the hillside reminds them of the hill's sheltering potential against winds and storms, and so on. The house both articulates pre-existing aspects of the environment and shapes the way we experience and behold the surroundings in return. In facilitating the earth to emerge in such a way, the building allows mortals to begin relating to and caring for the earth rather then seeing it as a mere object and a standing reserve.

5. Aristotle, , The Politics, trans. Barker, Ernest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946), 1328a30.Google Scholar

6. This resemblance between Heidegger and Zionism in the sphere of building does not suggest that they had much else in common. Zionism contains a strong Promethean aspect that is not shared by Heidegger, and, needless to say, Heidegger's leader-centeredness and other disturbing political ideas have nothing to do with the political vision of Zionism.

7. Berdyczewski, Micha Josef, Kol Ma'amari Micha Josef Berdyczewski (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1954), p. 41.Google Scholar On the Zionist rejection of the diasporic Jew, see Krakotzkin, Amnon Raz-, “Exile within Sovereignty: Toward a Critique of the ‘Negation of Exile’ in Israeli Culture,” Theory and Criticism 4 (1993): 23–55Google Scholar (Hebrew). Raz-Krakotzkin also calls for integrating the experience of exile within contemporary Israeli culture.

8. Because of their mistrust in language, even Zionist writers in Palestine believed that they should not promote “the beauty of the new Hebrew terms” for its own sake, but rather should develop a language that expresses life, “working life and thought about work.” Only a language that is based on the concrete could be trusted and respected. See Brenner, Y. C., “Adama,” (“Soil”) in Kol Kiteve Y. C. Brenner, vol. 3, (Tel-Aviv: Ha-kibutz Hameuhad, 1967), p. 481 (1919).Google Scholar

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10. Nietzsche, Friedrich, Human, All Too Human (Lincoln, NE: University of ebraska Press, 1996), p.19.Google Scholar

11. For the multiplicity of political visions in Zionism see, for example, Silberstein, Laurence, The Post Zionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture (New York and London: Routledge, 1999).Google Scholar

12. Mosse, George, The Nationalization of the Masses (New York: American Library, 1975), p. 59.Google Scholar See chap. 3 for an inclusive discussion of this subject. See also Schorske's, Carl reflections on the relations between the architecture of the Ringstrasse in Vienna and Austrian politics in his Thinking With History: Explorations in the Passage to Modernism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), chap. 7.Google Scholar

13. Bialik, Hayyim Nahman, Kol Kiteve Chiam Nachman Bialik (Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1943), p. 206.Google Scholar

14. The First Temple was destroyed in 586 BC, and the Second Temple in 70 AD. The Hebrew word for the Temple is “beit h-mikdash” or simply “h-bayitt” (the house). Some even refer to the State of Israel as “The Third Bayitt” (i.e., the third commonwealth), but the pioneers of early Zionism seldom use this expression.

15. See, for example, Ha'am, Ahad, Alparashat derachim (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1921), p. 6.Google Scholar While Ahad Ha'am, then, expanded the use of the word binyan, he was still operating within a world of associations familiar to his readers; otherwise, the metaphor would not havebeen effective. Indeed, as Lakoff and Johnson observe, “metaphor is used within a system ofconventions“ (Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark, Metaphors We Live By [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980], p. 54).Google Scholar

16. See, for example, Gordon's, Aharon David uses of this term in “Land and Its Redemption,” in Sepher A. D. Gordon: mishnato v-devaro, ed. Iges, Yehuda (Tel-Aviv: hoved h-zioni, 1943), p. 109.Google ScholarGordon, (1856–1922) came to Palestine from Russia when he was 46Google Scholar. He became an important figure in the second Aliya, partly because his writings and reflections are grounded in hisown experience as a hard-working pioneer who was undeterred by barriers of age and poor health. Gordon was not a socialist or a Marxist, but he celebrated the capacity of human beings to labor with their own hands as their highest quality. He believed that the revival of the individual Jew will demand taxing physical work, since only such work could reconnect the Jew with nature and the cosmic, spiritual dimension of existence; this mode of life, moreover, will grant Jews economic independence and dignity that they lacked in the diaspora. While Gordon was interested in the fate ofthe individual Jew, his thought is organic and perceives single men and women as inseparable fromthe national group. However, in contrast to Ben-Gurion, Gordon was not particularly concerned withpolitical issues and the project of stateformation; his organic nationalism was part of a worldviewthat was chiefly spiritual and existential. For a general discussion of Gordon's work, see Schwied, Eliezer, Hayahid: olamo shel A. D. Gordon (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1970),Google Scholar and Shimoni, Gideon, The Zionist Ideology (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1995), pp. 208–216.Google Scholar

17. Gordon, , “The Individual's Responsibility,” in Sepher, p. 116.Google Scholar

18. In trying to answer these questions, I will not refer to building in its political and instrumental functions. It is well known that, since its inception, Zionist politics has perceived construction (often backed by military power) as the ultimate assurance of ownership over land; even today, the settlements in the occupied territories are used to redraw the boundaries of the Israeli state. Massive construction, moreover, was an urgent solution to the housing problems of an emigrant society and had a critical role in the new economy. Indeed, the Jewish economy in Palestine was shaped to a large extent by the ups and downs in the construction industry, and this economy was thereby greatly influenced by the influx of newcomers. (To some extent, this is still the case today.) In the years 1932– 33, for example, the investments in the construction business composed 45 percent of the total investments of the Jewish economy in Palestine (see Levi, Shelomo, ed., Beshnat ha-sheloshim [Tel-Aviv: Davar, 1952], p. 331).Google Scholar While these practical motivations for building are essential for grasping why construction occupies such a prominent place in the Zionist imagination, my interest below is limited to the meaning of building from the viewpointof political philosophy.

19. David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973), the first prime minister of Israel and its leading politician inthe age leading to independence and after, also had a formative influence on Israel's ideology and practice. I cannot explore his thought at any length here, but will mention a few ideas pertinent to this paper. While a labor leader and a self-proclaimed socialist, Ben-Gurion also believed that the goal of erecting a Jewish state was more important than that of realizing a socialistvision; notions such as collective ownership over the means of production or just distribution of wealth, he claimed, are secondary compared to the central, national goal of Zionism (as he interpreted this movement). As prime minister, he pushed this position a step further, suggesting that citizens in the young nation should overcome their group and party loyalties, and act according tothe general interests of the state. Ben-Gurion held that the fate of the Zionist movement will be determined in Palestine, not in the political arena of the diaspora; in fact, he epitomizes the activist strand of Zionism that was committed to concentrating efforts on creating a new social, economic, demographic, and military reality in Palestine before it would be too late. Though an atheist, he saw the Bible as the most important source for shaping the new Hebrew's identity; and despite his firm realism, he held a Utopian vision of the Zionist movement and later of the state of Israel. For Ben-Gurion's attitude toward the Bible, see Ben-Gurion, David, lyonim be-sepher yehoshoa (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1960);Google Scholar and Shapira, Anita, “Ben-Gurion and the Bible:The Creation of a Historical Narrative,” in New Jew, Old Jew (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1997), pp. 213–47.Google Scholar For Ben-Gurion's relations with the intellectual elite of the young state, see Keren, Michael, Ben-Gurion and the Intellectuals: Power, Knowledge, and Charisma (Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1983).Google Scholar For general discussions of Ben-Gurion, see Bar-Zohar, Michael, The Armed Prophet (Barker: London, 1967);Google Scholar and Teveth, Shabtai, Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, 1886–1948 (Boston: Houghton, 1987).Google Scholar

20. Quoted here from Tisdall, C., and Bozzolla, A., Futurism (London: Themes and Hudson, 1972), p. 130.Google Scholar The manifesto was written by the architect Sant'Elia. In Russian, the word stroitel'stvo means to build and construct, but also to put something into order. For a discussion of building metaphors in the Soviet discourse, see Richard Anderson, “Metaphors of Dictatorshipand Democracy: Changes in the Russian Political Lexicon and the Transformation of Russian Politics” (forthcoming). For a general discussion of spatial metaphors, see Lakoff, and Johnson, , Metaphors We Live By, esp. p. 17.Google Scholar

21. Eliade, Mircea, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959), pp. 76–77.Google Scholar

22. Gordon, , “Redemption and Justice,” in Sepher, p. 32.Google Scholar

23. Chowers, Eyal, “Time in Zionism: The Life and Afterlife of a Temporal Revolution,” Political Theory 26, no. 5 (1998): 652–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Despite their long-term plans, it is important to remember that for the pioneers of the Second Aliya the notion of Palestine as a physical shelter was still distant: they were politically powerless and wholly impoverished. Many pioneers left the country, and those who remained were often onthe verge of despair.

25. “The Land of Israel will be ours,” says Ben-Gurion, “not when the Turks, British, or the next peace council allow this and ratify a diplomatic agreement— but when we, the Jews, build (nivneh) it. … The aim of our revival effort is the building of the Land (binyan ha-aretz)” (Ben-Gurion, David, Mi'ma'amad le'am [Tel-Aviv: Iyanot, 1955], pp. 23–24).Google Scholar

26. Gordon, , “Work,” in Kitzur kitevi A. D. Gordon (Tel-Aviv: Shtible, 1936), pp. 50–51.Google Scholar

27. Ben-Gurion, , Mi'tna'amad le'am, p. 85.Google Scholar

28. Marx, Karl, “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts,” in Karl Marx: Early Texts, ed. McLennan, David (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971), p. 140.Google Scholar

29. Ben-Gurion, , Mi'ma'amad le'am, p. 41.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 188. Needless to say, the unity of subject and object, of individual builders and a collective project, was strongest in the Kibbutzim.

31. Gershon Shafir, for example, argues that while early Zionist pioneers were interested in promoting the national goal, they also advanced their economic interests by creating “an ethnic plantation colony” (Shafir, , Land, Labor, and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882–1914 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989]. p. 79)Google Scholar that distinguished between skilled (Jewish) and unskilled (Arab) workers. This ethnic distinction allowed Jewish workers to monopolize certain professions and therefore to demand higher wages from their Jewish employers (p. 60).Google Scholar

32. The valorization of Hebrew work and the notion of a unified national subject (people) with the national building, no longer holds as an ideal. Since 1967, most of the workforce in construction and agriculture has been comprised of Palestinian workers. During the nineties, many foreign workers from various countries joined this workforce and replaced some of the Palestinians. Needless to say, construction and agricultural work lost their normative value in Israeli society, and many of the foreign workers live in dire conditions and have no political or social rights.

33. Ben-Gurion, David, Mi'ma'amad le'am, p. 24.Google Scholar

34. Gordon, , “Paths of Redemption” in Sepher, p. 22.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., p. 21.

36. Arendt, Hannah, The Life of the Mind: Willing, vol. 2 (New York: Jovanovich, 1978), p. 37.Google Scholar

37. Gordon, , Kitzur kitevi, p. 9.Google Scholar

38. Gordon, , “Our Rights in Palestine” in Sepher, p. 108.Google Scholar

39. Agnon, Samuel, In the Heart of the Sea [Temol Shilshom], (Tel-Aviv: Schocken, 1993), p. 1Google Scholar (Hebrew version). Agnon, of course, is alluding here to Abraham. In the Heart of the Seas, incidentally, is considered by many to be the most important novel of modern Hebrew literature.

40. Gordon, for example, says that “the land of Israel is the land of the people, and they should revive it—and revive their claim upon it—through their work, creation, and life” (Gordon, , “Zionist Politics,” in Sepher, p. 41Google Scholar). Moreover, the commitment to the biblical space is still an important feature of Zionism—and not only among those on the political Right. Even prominent speakers on the Left, such as Amos Oz, cherish this commitment. This writer says that precisely with the Oslo agreement, it may be “indeed appropriate to renew this settlement [in Hebron].” Oz adds that one should take care that this renewal is done by Jews who respect the Palestine population and their rights. See Oz, Amos, “To Renew the Jewish Settlement in Hebron,” Yediot Acharonot, 16, no. 1 (1997).Google Scholar The conviction that the land belongs to the “people”—who have moral claim upon it and are committed to it—led Zionists to keep the land in the government's hands. Until recently, the government owned over 90 percent of the lands in Israel.

41. Exceptions are the poems written by women poets. Early Zionist poets such as Rachel, Bat-Miriam, and Ester Rab, who wrote their poetry during the first decades of the twentieth century, express great care toward the natural environment and landscape of Palestine. See Sapir, Revital, “Al em ha-derech” (Master Thesis, Political Science Department, Tel-Aviv University, 1999).Google Scholar

42. Lefebvre, , The Production of Space, pp. 49–51.Google Scholar

43. In contrast to settlers in the New World, who preserved native names such as Connecticut and Massachusetts, the Zionists′ quest to give ancient meaning to the land led them to ignore the Arabic names of places in Palestine. The new Hebrew map used mostly Biblical names, translated into Hebrew the Arabic names, or invented new Hebrew names. The naming process of the different locations in the state of Israel was a part of a deliberate plan that erased the Palestinian map. See on this issue Benvenisti's, Meron “The Hebrew Map,” Theory and Criticism 11 (1997): 7–30.Google Scholar

44. I am greatly helped in this section by Harries, Karsten. See his The Ethical Function of Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), p. 156.Google Scholar For the importance of place in human experience, at least as expressed in modern literature and philosophy, see Malpas, J. E., Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and on the increasing disappearance of place and the implications of this development for our sense of self, see Augé, Marc, Non-Places: An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (London: Verso, 1995).Google Scholar

45. Ben-Gurion, , Mi'ma'amad le'am, p. 224.Google Scholar Gordon expresses a similar idea: “We, who are coming to build a new building, would certainly not be able to build much on the basis of divisions among us“ (Gordon, , “Pioneering and the Union of the Nation,” in Sepher, p. 14).Google Scholar

46. Gordon complains that “the fundamental thing that a national creation requires—a creation that is great, liberating, and reviving—we [Zionists] are missing. We lack the union of wills and forces vital for a collective creation“ (Gordon, , “National Unity,” in Sepher, p. 25).Google Scholar

47. The notion of “one building,” or one national project, shaped the type of socialism that evolved in Palestine. This socialism, which is often termed “constructive socialism,” embraced socialist ideas such as the cooperatives and hegemony of the working class, but denied the notion of class war. The picture of shared building limited, from the outset, any idea of civil conflict over power and resources. Syrkin, Nahman was the first to use the term “constructive socialism” in the Zionist context (1919),Google Scholar and Berl Katznelson later elaborated it. For a discussion of the term, see Shimoni, , The Zionist Ideology, pp. 194–201Google Scholar, and Sternhell, Zeev, The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

48. As I indicate at the beginning of this essay, the cementing function of building should not be taken at face value. Perhaps this point is already intimated by the biblical story about the tower of Babel. To be sure, the conventional interpretation of the story suggests that social friction began when the collective project of erecting the tower failed. However, it may be also true that only people who have lost their faith in linguistically based solidarity would have engaged in grand building in the first place. The tower may have been the first symptom of decline rather than its initial cause. For a recent attempt to reflect upon the connection between building and language, see Sallis, John, “Babylonian Captivity,” Research in Phenomenology 22 (1992): 23–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. Weizmann, Chaim, Devarim, vol. 1 (Tel-Aviv: Mitzpe, 1936), p. 68.Google Scholar

50. Ben-Gurion, , Mi'ma'amad le'am, p. 224.Google Scholar

51. After the war of independence, the architect A. Sharon was called to form a plan that would determine the location of new housing projects, their urban planning, and their style of building. For the most part, his plan called for creating small, intimate towns that would be spread throughout the unpopulated parts of the country and would transfer the immigrant population to these undesirable areas. Sharon's town was designed like a big kibbutz: with significant distances among houses, a lot of green areas, and a central area of services. From an architectonic and demographic point of view, these towns are a complete failure. See on this issue Efrat, Zevi, “The Plan,” in Theory and Criticism 16 (2000): 203–210.Google Scholar For a discussion of the role of the “plan” in Zionism, see Chowers, , “Time in Zionism,” pp. 670–73.Google Scholar

52. Scruton, Roger, The Aesthetics of Architecture (London: Methuen, 1979), p. 15.Google Scholar

53. On the lack of genuine individuality in the early days of Israeli society see Ezrahi, Yaron, Rubber Bullets: Power and Conscience in Modern Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).Google Scholar

54. Gordon, , Kitzur kiteui, p. 103.Google Scholar

55. Jabotinsky, V., The World of Jabotinsky: A Selection of His Works and the Essentials of His Teaching, ed. Bella, Moshe (Tel-Aviv: Dephosim, 1972), p. 232Google Scholar (emphasis added). Jabotinsky was the leader of the Revisionist party, and the founder of the ideology still animating the Right in Israel today.

56. Instead of the moral-religious saint, Zionism valorized and cultivated the practical and military skills required for nation building; it even presented this cultivation as an expression of laudable, spiritual character. “We always demanded the best for service in the IDF,” declares Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin in his celebrated speech at Mount Scopus in 06 1967.Google Scholar “When we said the best for the air force …we did not mean those who are best in the technical or skillful sense.” Rather, he continues, in order to defeat the entire enemy forces of four states in just a few hours, pilots must possess “values of moral goodness, values of human goodness.” In general, the manifestations of valor and professionalism by soldiers during the Six Day War “begin in the spirit and end in the spirit.” With these words, Zionism arrived at an ironic point, since the IDF solider replaced the traditional righteous “zadic” (who was characterized by the adamant shunning of violence) as the possessor of exemplary spirit. See Rabin's, Yitzhak speech in Neum le-kol et (Tel- Aviv: The Open University, 1993), p. 63.Google Scholar On the military ethos in Israel, see Helman, Sara, “War and Resistance: Israeli Civil Militarism and Its Emergent Crisis,” Constellations 6, no. 3 (1999): 391–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This essay appears in a special issue of the journal Constellations devoted to contemporary Israel.

57. Mautner, M., Sagi, A., and Shamir, R., “Reflections on Multiculturalism in Israel,” in Multiculturalism in a Democratic and Jewish State (Tel-Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1998), p. 75.Google Scholar See also, in the special issue of Constellation noted above (note 51), the essays by Yonah, Yossi, “Fifty Years Later: TheScope and Limits of Liberal Democracy in Israel,” pp. 411–28;Google Scholar and Ram, Uri, “The State of the Nation: Contemporary Challenges to Zionism in Israel,” pp. 325–38.Google Scholar