Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: Rawidowicz Kaplan Kohn (The Modern Jewish Experience)

About this book

Today Zionism is understood as a national movement whose primary historical goal was the establishment of a Jewish state. However Zionisms association with national sovereignty was not foreordained. Zionism and the Roads Not Taken uncovers the thought of three key interwar Jewish intellectuals who defined Zionisms central mission as challenging the model of a sovereign nation-state: historian Simon Rawidowicz religious thinker Mordecai Kaplan and political theorist Hans Kohn. Although their models differed each of these three thinkers conceived of a more practical and ethical paradigm of national cohesion that was not tied to a sovereign state. Recovering these roads not taken helps us to reimagine Jewish identity and collectivity past present and future.