ABSTRACT
In a series of lectures given in Berlin in the winter of 1899-1900, reviewing the history of the Jews and Judaism during the nineteenth century, the popular writer Gustav Karpeles took note of the rise of the new secular Jewish nationalism. The lowest stage of religious development is the stage of a national religion, the highest the stage of a world-religion. The thrust of Hermann Cohen's argument was developed further by the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, who similarly stripped the notion of the national home of its territorial content. The strong nationalist views of Rabbi Kook facilitated an alliance between religious and secular Zionists on the common ground of devotion to the land and people of Israel, but they failed to redirect the secularists toward a new synthesis of traditional and modern Jewish nationalism. The establishment of the reborn State of Israel in May 1948 raised a peculiar dilemma for Jewish nationalism.
