Customer Reviews

Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha'am and the Origins of Zionism

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This is definitely a five-star book: an exemplary intellectual and cultural history of an underexamined figure in early Zionism. I do think that the editorial reviews above, and the reader review below, do misrepresent the importance of the book in certain ways. Ahad Ha'am (or "One of the People"---"Ha'am" is not and cannot be used as if a last name as below!) was a central figure in early Zionism, and yet represents a strand of "cultural" or "spiritual" Zionism opposed to the political tactics and image of a polis in Zion represented by Herzl. Herzl won. It is important to note not only the ways that Ahad Ha'am influenced today's Zionism, but also to identify in him an idealistic, spiritually rich, and above all tolerant and inclusive vision of Zionism that has since been lost. All of this comes through in this marvelous book. I also handle these themes in my recent book _Prague Territories: National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka's Fin de Siecle_: Ahad Ha'am and Martin Buber were especially influential in Kafka's Prague.

At best it describes the relationships within Ha'am's life as reflective of his peculiar ideological formulations without. At least that is what I found to be most interesting. At the least it was a truthful account of certain trends within Asher Ginzberg's intellectual life. Still, the author didn't fully address the fundamental yet implicit drives/reactions that animated Ha'am; namely, civilizationalism, evolution, utopia- anti.utopia...Asher didn't merely "want out" of russia (or later as he found out, europe) for pragmatic reasons, he instead pursued an idea far ahead of his time: civilizational sovereignty, a thorough break I think with nation-state building that reigned and still does in most of the world today. Still this work does further a discussion, and I thank the author for writing it.