The Invention of a Tradition

The Messianic Zionism of the Gaon of Vilna

Immanuel Etkes (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

234 Seiten

2023
Stanford University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5036-3453-4 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

The Gaon of Vilna was the foremost intellectual leader of non-Hasidic Jewry in eighteenth-century Europe; his legacy is claimed by religious Jews, both Zionist and not. In the mid-twentieth century, Shlomo Zalman Rivlin wrote several books advancing the myth that the Gaon was an early progenitor of Zionism. Following the 1967 War in Israel, messianic sentiments spread in some circles of the national-religious public in Israel, who embraced this myth and made it a central component of the historical narrative they advanced. For those who identified with the religious Zionist enterprise, the myth of the Gaon and his disciples as the first Zionists was seen as proof of the righteousness of their path.

In this book, Israeli scholar Immanuel Etkes explores how what he calls the "Rivlinian myth" took hold, and demonstrates that it has no basis in historical reality. Etkes argues that proponents of the Rivlinian myth seek to blur the distinction between Zionism as a modern national movement and traditional messianic phenomenon—a distinction that underlies many of the central conflicts of contemporary Israeli politics. As historian David Biale suggests in his brief foreword to this English translation, "what is at stake here is not only historical truth but also the very identity of Zionism as a nationalist movement."

Immanuel Etkes is Professor Emeritus of the History of the Jewish People at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Foreword by David Biale

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I The books Hazon Zion and Kol ha-Tor and the Rivlinian myth

1. Hazon Zion, a Messianic Zionist movement

2. The main ideas of Kol ha-Tor

3. Does Kol ha-Tor express a Messianic Zionist doctrine held by the Vilna Gaon

PART II The Vilna Gaon and his disciples as the first Zionists: The evolution of a myth

4. Why did the disciples of the Vilna Gaon immigrate to the Land of Israel?

5. How did the Rivlinian myth take form?

6. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher's Ha-Tkufah ha-Gdolah

7. The academic version of the Rivlinian myth

8. Did Shlomo Zalman Rivlin receive the text of Kol ha-Tor from Yitzhak Zvi Rivlin?

PART III Additional writings by Shlomo Zalman Rivlin

9. Mossad ha-Yesod: The Old Yishuv recast as the beginnings of Zionism

10. Midrash Shlomo and the Department for Training Young Orators

11. Ha-Maggid Doresh Zion: Rabbi Moshe Rivlin as a "Zionist" leader

12. Sefer ha-Pizmonim: Yosef Yosha Rivlin as a "Messianic Zionist visionary

PART IV The creation of Kol ha-Tor

13. Who was the author of Kol ha-Tor?

14. Shlomo Zalman Rivlin: The man and his literary motives

15. The embrace of the Rivlinian myth and Kol ha-Tor in Religious Zionist circles

Conclusion

Appendix: Rivlin family members

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	04.10.2023
Reihe/Serie	Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture
Verlagsort	Palo Alto
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Judentum
ISBN-10	1-5036-3453-1 / 1503634531
ISBN-13	978-1-5036-3453-4 / 9781503634534
Zustand	Neuware