ABSTRACT
Modern Hebrew-based education created a heretical blend of religious tradition with secular nationalism. Heresy dominates 19th- and early 20th-century Hebrew literature, whose main concerns are the secularization of Jewish life and the rejection of a pacifist rabbinic Judaism out of place in a secular world of nationalism and war. As Jewish patriotism grew, so did attachment of Jews to separate European cultures, no longer as ‘foreign’ but as their own. In a manner reminiscent of the effect of ancient Greek anti-Judaism on Hellenistic Judaism, modern European anti-Semitism inhibited Jewish assimilation within European culture. Zionism was born out of disillusionment both with traditional rabbinic authority and European culture, but also out of a desire to harness both in the cause of Jewish national interests. The Haskalah maintained the traditional deference of Jews to power in the quest for protection as an exiled minority; Zionism sought the power by which Jews would be able to defend themselves against their enemies. As Eastern European Jews increasingly determined the character of Zionism, the movement accepted Hebrew (though not without serious misgivings and opposition) as the only language uniting Jewish communities worldwide: this recognition of a national language which hardly anyone spoke had the most profound consequences for Jewish education.
