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Zionism: Jewish People
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Zionism is a diaspora nationalism of the Jewish people. In a diaspora nationalism, most members of the national group are not resident on the claimed national territory, and the nation state can only be achieved by 'return' migration. Zionism is an unusual nationalism: it is largely the creation of a single individual, Theodor Herzl. He was the first to make a public claim to a Jewish State, and promoted that idea in Europe. His work reflected the general climate of nationalist revival movements in eastern Europe at the time, especially in the Austro-Hungarian empire. It was almost inevitable, that a Jewish movement would identify Jews as 'a people' when all around them Germans, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Hungarians were doing the same.
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Before Zionism there was a Kingdom of Jewish people where Israel now stands. In it's center stood Mount Zion, Jerusalem, The Temple. In 586 BCE the Babylonians invaded and the Jews were sent into exile for the first time. It is here that Zionism, the longing to return to Zion begins.
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Prof. Anita Shapira: "As an ideology which has successfully implemented its main objectives in the founding of a sovereign Jewish state, Zionism is increasingly losing its relevance for Jews living in Israel. For them, Zionism is no longer an ideology, but a way of life, and should be substituted by the contemporary concept of Israeli patriotism. For Jews in the Diaspora, who seek a focus for their Jewish identity, Zionism is the ideology by which they maintain their links with the Jewish people. Therefore, Zionism is still of vital importance in safeguarding the identity of the Jewish people as a whole and in reflecting Jewish solidarity, although more so outside of Israel than within."
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Zionism, on the other hand, sought and gained for the Jewish people the ability to rule themselves, which is a basic right shared by every nation. Under exile Jews where either oppressed by others or depended on the whims of the majority they leaved among. Whims and wimps that often turned into persecutions and pogroms.
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Today, decades after the actual founding of a Jewish state, Zionism continues to be the guiding nationalist movement of the majority of Jews around the world who believe in, support and identify with the State of Israel. Zionism, the national aspiration of the Jewish people to a homeland, is to the Jewish people what the liberation movements of Africa and Asia have been to their peoples.
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Since 1948, Zionism has seen its task as continuing to encourage the "ingathering of the exiles," which at times has called for extraordinary efforts to rescue endangered (physically and spiritually) Jewish communities. It ... strives to preserve the unity and continuity of the Jewish people as well as to focus on the centrality of Israel in Jewish life everywhere.
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