Beyond Zion - (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) by Laura Almagor (Hardcover)

About the Book

Jewish political and cultural behaviour during the first half of the twentieth century comes to the fore in this portrayal of a forgotten movement with contemporary relevance. Beyond Zion reconstructs the changing ideologies of Jewish Territorialism and of ideas about how to be Jewish in the twentieth century.

Book Synopsis

Finalist for National Jewish Book Award for Writing Based on Archival Material 2022.

Jewish political and cultural behaviour during the first half of the twentieth century comes to the fore in this portrayal of a forgotten movement with contemporary relevance. Commencing with the Zionist rejection of the Uganda proposal in 1905, the Jewish Territorialist Movement searched for areas outside Palestine in which to create settlements of Jews. This study analyses the Territorialists' ideology and activities in the Jewish context of the time, but their thought and discourse also reflect geopolitical concerns that still have resonance today in debates about colonialist attitudes to peoplehood, territory, and space. As the colonial world order rapidly changed after 1945, the Territorialists did not abandon their aspirations in overseas lands. Instead, in their attempts to find settlement solutions for Europe's 'surplus' Jews, they moved from negotiating predominantly with the European colonizers to negotiating also with the ever more powerful non-Western leaders of decolonizing nations.

This book reconstructs the rich history of the activities and changing ideologies of Jewish Territorialism, represented by Israel Zangwill's Jewish Territorial Organisation (the ITO) and, later, by the Freeland League for Jewish Colonization under the leadership of Isaac Steinberg. Via Uganda, Angola, Madagascar, Australia, and Suriname, this story eventually leads us to questions about yidishkeyt, and to forgotten early twentieth-century ideas of how to be Jewish.

Review Quotes

"Beyond Zion...shows that Jewish politics in the pre-War and immediate post-War years were more complex and diverse than we might think."
Simon Rocker, The Jewish Chronicle

'In clear and compelling prose, Beyond Zion provides a window onto Jewish international strategies following the collapse of the post-World War I order.' David Engel, New York University

'Laura Almagor offers us a biography of an entire though largely forgotten movement. It is especially relevant to recall this story at a moment of fierce contestation between globalization and a resurgent, territorially based ethnocentric nationalism. What other forms of collective political organization than the nation-state have been proposed over time? How do they hold up? Almagor's study pushes us toward those questions.' David Myers, Professor of Jewish History, UCLA

About the Author

Laura Almagor is a lecturer in twentieth-century European history at the University of Sheffield, and was previously a teaching fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has held fellowships at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, the Center for Jewish History in New York City, and the Central European University in Budapest.