The Train Wreck part 6

Theodore Herzl (1860-1904) was an assimilated, German speaking Swiss Jew. As a journalist for a Swiss newspaper, he was assigned to cover the Dreyfus trial in 1894. Alfred Dreyfus was a captain in the French army. France had just lost a war to Germany. His superior officers, ashamed of their blunders, forged documents showing that Dreyfus, a Jew, had been giving military information to the Germans. Without him, France would surely have won the war. He was tried, dishonorably discharged, and sent to Devils Island under a life sentence. He was finally exonerated in 1906. Herzl was shocked at the sight of mobs running through the streets of Paris, crying "Death to the Jews!". Was this, then, the land of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity? If the Jews are not safe in Paris, where could they be safe? He tried, but failed, to have all Jews around the world, present themselves at their local churches, to be Baptised at the same hour of the same day, thus putting an end to antisemitism, by putting an end to the Jews. He had no success in this endeavor. Instead, he wrote a book, Judenstaat, in which he set forth a vision of a secular Jewish state. He organized the First Zionist Congress in 1897. He thought that Jews from all over would rush to the new cause. But Western European Jews, despite Dreyfus, felt reasonably comfortable in their adopted homelands. A responsive chord was struck among the oppressed Jews of the Russian Empire. These Jews were also secular, and sought to create a Jewish worker's Paradise. It was only at the Third Zionist Congress that some religious Jews joined in. They made it clear that they thought the planned State would be secular, but with provisions made for the religious to feel comfortable. They specifically denied that they saw the movement as in any way messianic or representing Divine Redemption. They only needed a country that would be a safe haven. Let us be clear. This was a longing for a secular peoples' G-dless redemption. It was right out of Franlist ideology. Nearly every rabbi in the world opposed the new movement. The Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe declared it to be "worse than Christianity." Herzl was a great organizer, but a very shallow ideologue. The latter position was filled by Max Nordeau. Nordeau proposed the following. The Jews are a nation, like any other. In order to bind them together, Moses gave them a religion. When they lost their country, the rabbis gave them more religion, in the form of the Talmud. That, it was hoped, would keep them together, even while they were scattered. Now, in the days of every ethnic group forming a nation state (which essentially lead to World War I), a good Jew now is one who works for a state for the Jews. Religion, at this point, only divides, and should be eliminated. I should point out that every major Israeli city has a Herzl and a Nordeau street or avenue. The new settlers in the Holy Land clashed with the Old Yishuv. It must be pointed out that the Hareidim didn't come to Israel, but rather Israel came to them. The irreconcilable differences in ideology are a sore point to this very day. The idea of "Religious Zionism" came in some thirty years later, in the person of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. He boldly claimed that the Messianic redemption had begun. The institutions of the Zionist movement were "the foundation stones of the Divine Throne". What about the fact that the Zionists were not only secular, but deliberate, spiteful sinners. He "explained" that this, the final Redemption, was through "Rachamim Rabbim" (Great Mercies; Isaiah 54:7). The observance of Mitzvot, while still a good thing to do, was no longer a factor in Redemption. We had entered a new era. Sound familiar much?
Next time, well go back to the mid eighteenth century, to a dispute that divided Jewry (and still does), that still raises anger on each side. Guess what? It centers around Shabbaetai Tzvi.