The Zionists and Spinoza

Jacob Adler

Abstract: Spinoza, though not a major figure in Zionist thought, recurs persistently in the works of Zionist writers. What is the significance of Spinoza
for them? Some see him as an inspiring character; others see him as a Zionist
before his time. The article examines, first, how a Jew who abandoned his
people could inspire those dedicated to their people; and, secondly, whether
Spinoza can in any way be called a Zionist. It is concluded that Spinoza,
though no Zionist, embraced some key elements of Zionist thought, and
thus might fairly be called a proto-Zionist, and that the later Zionists were
indeed influenced by these teachings of Spinoza.
Keywords: Ben-Gurion, Klatzkin, proto-Zionism, Sokolow, Spinoza,
Wellhausen, Zionism

Spinoza can hardly be counted as a major figure in Zionist thought. It is possible

to write a respectable history of Zionist thought (e.g., Dieckhoff 2003) without so
much as mentioning his name. Yet, his name keeps popping up in the writings of
Zionists.
In this paper, I propose to consider the significance of Spinoza for Zionist
thought. I will argue that although Spinozas writings cannot be considered a true
anticipation of ZionismZionism before its time, so to speakone can classify
him in two ways as preparing the way for Zionism. First, some of his doctrines,
though not amounting to an assertion of Zionism, are essential elements of Zionist
thought. Secondly, his life served as an inspirational example for the lives of some
of the important Zionists.
One challenge in approaching this topic is the sparseness of the record. The
Zionists of whom we speak (with some exceptions) were not Spinoza scholars.
Their words on Spinoza are scattered here and there, in places not always easy to
find. Eliezer Schweid, for example, quotes Klausners famous proclamationYou
are our brother!from memory. He writes: I have a personal recollection of
the fact, but I have not succeeded in finding the original documentation of it.
(Schweid 2001: 20). And Menahem Dorman writes, We do not know the extent
of Ben-Gurions involvement in the various debates on Spinoza that flared up from

Israel Studies Forum, Volume 24, Issue 1, Spring 2009: 2538 Association for Israel Studies
doi: 10.3167/isf.2009.240102

26 | Jacob Adler

time to time in the Jewish world in general, and in particular in Erets Yisrael.
(Dorman 1990: 157).
The One Famous Sentence. It is with a single striking sentence that Spinoza
entered the history of Zionism. Towards the end of Chapter 3 of the Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza writes:
Indeed, were it not that the fundamental principles of their religion
discourage manliness, I would not hesitate to believe that they will one day,
given the opportunitysuch is the mutability of human affairsestablish
once more their independent state, and that God will again choose them
(Spinoza 1998: 47).

This statement is cited as proof of Spinozas Zionism before its time by various
Zionist thinkers. Ben-Zion Dinur is probably the most enthusiastic:
There is greater reality in the general and abstract confidence in the
political resurgence of Israel in the words of Spinozawho went so far
as to believe that if the fundamental principle of their religion would not
weaken their spirit, then the Jews, at some time or other, so changeable are
human affairs, would re-establish their statethan in Moses Mendelssohns
detailed and realistic dissection of the possibility The Philosopher from
Amsterdam, who was almost completely cut off from his Jewish environment and who seems to have looked upon the fate of his people with the
indifference of one who has gone far off, was nonetheless completely
permeated with a sense of the powerful national essence of the Hebrew
people and a recognition of the forces of resurgence stored away in this
essence (Dinur 1955: 252).

One may compare the similar statement in Sefer ha-Tsiyonut:

[ ] Spinoza sees the revelation of the unique characteristics of Israel precisely
in the political field, precisely in the creation of the fabric of laws specially suited
to its society, in its ability to obey laws and keep them, in its civic-political
essence and in its power of persistence. [He here cites Chapter 3 of the Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus.] In all this view, there is not only the desire to bring forth
the Israelite national essence from the holy to the secular; there is also a new
proof of Jewish existence, a proof drawn from the feeling of Israelite national
essence and which distinguishes nicely the political foundations which, owing
to historical circumstances, have not yet been revealed. One should therefore
see in Spinozs opinions on the possibility of the realization of redemption and
on the basis of this possibility a sort of first revelation of some of the elements of
modern Zionism (Dinur 1938: 90).

The Zionists and Spinoza

| 27

We may also make note of an anthology of Zionist thought that includes the abovequoted sentence from the Tractatus under the title, Spinozas Credo (Ha-Ani
Maamin shel Spinozah) (Barmeir 1967: 32)thus turning Spinozas rather hesitant
and conditional statement into an article of faith. Ben-Gurion writes in more measured language, declaring Spinoza to be in a certain sense the first Zionist in
the last three hundred years, who predicted the re-establishment of the state of
Israel. (Ben-Gurion 1962: 7). The name of Leon Pinsker must also be mentioned
here. It appears that a reading of this famous passage from the Tractatus was instrumental in making him a Zionist. As related by Zeev Levy,
When [Pinsker] read that passage for the first time, he pondered on it a longwhile [sic], and finally declared: Oh yes, if Spinoza, the moderate and unbiased
thinker, who considers everything very carefully, and does not show much
sympathy to Judaismif he could believe in the possibility that the Jews may, if
the occasion offers raise up their empire afresh, and that God may a second
time elect them, this proves that it is no mere dream or illusion. (Levy 1989: 74,
citing Klausner 1955: 296)

Among Zionist figures, only Nahum Sokolowa scholar of Spinoza whose book
still has value (Sokolow 1928)recognizes the depth of the Amsterdam philosophers alienation from his people. He describes Spinozas attitudes in the following
words: Neither Judaism nor the Jews had any right to exist. They should disappear. And he calls some earlier writers to account for their uncritical acceptance
of Spinoza as a good Jewish thinker (Sokolow 1962: 183).
General scholarly opinion rejects a Zionist interpretation of this famous passage. Zeev Levy calls it wishful thinking (Levy 1989: 74). Popkin, too, writes
dismissively of this interpretation (Popkin 2004: 62). Hermann Cohen goes so far
as to say that Spinoza was speaking ironically (Cohen 1915: 97). We need not, however, go so far as Cohen. Although Spinoza sees the restoration of a Jewish state as
a possibility, he says nothing that would lead us to think that such a restoration is
either likely or desirable. On the contrary, he seems to suggest that the restoration
is unlikely: It would be possible only if the principles of Judaism did not weaken
the Jews spirit, but, in fact, they do weaken the Jews spirit. So a restoration of Zion
is not to be expected.1 One should note, moreover, that Spinoza makes no mention
of the possible location of this putative restored Jewish kingdom. Readers seem to
have assumed that he had in mind the historic Land of Israel, but he never says
so, and Daniel Lindenberg suggests that Spinoza, if he can be called a precursor of
any Jewish nationalist movement, should be called the precursor of territorialism
(Lindenberg 1997: 70).
Moreover, the restoration of Zion or, in general, the future of the Jewish people
is not mentioned again by Spinoza outside this one passage (see Pines 1997: 301).

28 | Jacob Adler

It therefore presents the impression of a throwaway remark, not to be taken seriously. It has indeed been suggested that it is a sort of off-color joke. It comes in the
context of a paragraph devoted mostly to circumcision as practice that preserves
the distinct identity of the Jewish people in their dispersion. And then Spinoza
goes on to point out that the principles of Judaism emasculate the spirit of the Jews
(Popkin 2004: 6162).
One may grant, with Leo Strauss, that we find in Spinoza the first inkling of
unqualifiedly political Zionism (Strauss 1981: 20), but this political Zionism is
mentioned only once, and then merely as a remote and not particularly desirable possibility. This is hardly enough to make Spinoza a Father of Zionism. It is,
perhaps, enough to make Spinoza an inspirer of Zionism, but only by chance and
indirection.
Spinozists or Sphinozaphiles? Though we cannot call Spinoza a proponent of
Zionism before its time, it is still clear that Spinoza exercised some sort of influence
over a number of Zionist thinkers. A discussion provoked by a paper by Elhanan
Yakira brings up an important question: Were these thinkers Spinozists or Spinozaphiles? That is, were they influenced by the thought or by the example of Spinoza?
Yakira (without asserting or denying the influence of Spinozas thought) is primarily interested in the role of Spinoza as a symbol or a slogan of Zionism (Yakira
1993: 457). Eliezer Schweid, on the other hand, emphasizes the pervasive (though
concealed) influence of Spinozas thought on Zionism (Schweid 2001).
Spinoza as Exemplar. I will consider first the use of Spinoza by the Zionists as
an exemplar, or, as Yakira puts it, a symbol or slogan of Zionism. One sees among
various writers an admiration, or, indeed, an identification with Spinozas life situation. Of course, this admiration or identification is not unique to the Zionists.
Enlightened Jews of many stripes saw in Spinoza a brother and teacher: in the
nineteenth century one could list Meir Letteris, Senior (Shneuer) Sachs, Shlomo
Rubin, Abraham Krochmal, and even (it has been claimed) in a covert way, Abrahams father, Nahman Krochmal (Schwartz 2005), as well as the early German-Jewish enlightener, Immanuel Wolf (Walther 1997: 213, 218). One might also mention
here the fictional characters in the writings of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Bernard
Malamud (Singer 1961; Malamud 1966). Indeed, in some ways Spinoza was more
congenial to the non-Zionist maskilim than to the Zionists (Walther 1997: 225).
There was nonetheless a particular affinity between the Zionists and Spinoza. He
was an innovative thinker, oppressed by narrow-minded rabbis, whose religion
emasculated them. When he tried to exercise his freedom of thought, they expelled
him from the community. The Jewish people thus spurned one of its greatest geniuses. And he at least had the thought of the restoration of the Jewish kingdom,
even if he did not say much else about it.
This trend in Zionist thought is seen in the attempt to rehabilitate Spinoza. One
of the challenges to doing so is Spinozas apparent lack of interest in, and identifi-

The Zionists and Spinoza

| 29

cation with, the people of his origin. Spinoza always refers to the Jews in the third
personthem rather than usand his closest associates were liberal Protestants.
(See, generally, Meinsma 1896 [in Dutch] or Meinsma 1983 [French translation],
and Klever 1997.) He speaks, moreover, admiringly of Jesus, to whom he always
refers as Christ. (See, for example, the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Chapter
4.) The thinkers who attempted to rehabilitate Spinoza thus had to show that he
really was Jewish, after alla thesis maintained by some philosophers as well as
less philosophically inclined Zionists. (See, for example, Brykman 1994. Brykman
argues that Spinoza underwent a sort of return to Judaism later in life.) Moses Hess
was no doubt the first Zionist thinker to attempt this rehabilitation (Hess 1995:
Epilogue, AIII). A respectable, if not conclusive, argument can be made for the
claim that Spinoza, despite the mutual alienation between him and his people, retained key elements of Judaism. We thus find a series of writings aimed at showing
that Spinoza and his thought, despite appearances to the contrary, are really Jewish
(Ben-Gurion 1962; Klatzkin 1962; Klausner 1962; Sokolow 1962).
Having established Spinozas Jewishness to their satisfaction, the writers of this
sort take him in the exemplary way mentioned: just as Spinoza was too brilliant
for the rabbis, so the Zionists are too brilliant for the rabbis of their day. Just as
Spinoza (in their mind) retained Jewishness while rejecting conventional Jewish
religion, so did many of the Zionists retain a deep sense of Judaism while rejecting
conventional Jewish religion. The Judaism of the rabbis emasculated the Jews and
prevented them from rising up to re-establish their state.
In this vein we can see Ben-Gurions article, Let Us Right the Wrong. He
concludes:
Spinoza is an immortal son of the eternal people, and it is our duty to restore to
our Hebrew language and culture the writings of the most original thinker and
the most profound philosophy that Judaism has produced in the two thousand
years (Ben-Gurion 1962: 9).

And along the same lines we have Joseph Klausners famous speech, delivered
upon Mount Scopus (which we have already alluded to). His moving words are
worth citing:
To Spinoza we call out, in acknowledgment of the great sin that his people
committed against him and the also not insignificant sin that he committed
against his people, three hundred years after his birth, from the heights of
Mount Scopus, from our Small Sanctuary,2 the Hebrew University:3 The ban
is dissolved!Wiped away is Judaisms transgression against you!Atoned is your
guilt against [Judaism].You are our brother! You are our brother! You are our
brother! (Klausner 1962: 133)

30 | Jacob Adler

The religious overtones are unmistakable: Spinoza is a sort of secular saint, whose
temple is not on Mount Moriah, but on Mount Scopus. Although the words
of Ben-Gurion are less expressly religious, it seems that for him, too, Spinozas
thought has a religious significance. Consider his words on Spinoza in an interview
with Moshe Pearlman:
What happened when we went into exile? We continued to live in our hearts and
our minds within the bounds of the Biblical heritage. But we did not continue
our creative process except for multiplying our interpretations of interpretations
and explanations of the explanations of our sacred writings. Our spiritual lives,
like our material lives, were impoverished. They were shrivelled. And if we did
produce some creative genius, we were quick to condemn him. In the seventeenth century, at the beginning of the modern renaissance period, a great eagle,
Baruch Spinoza, emerged from our midst and in his lofty thought rose to the
skies. What did we do? We cast him out. We gave his wisdom to others, uttering
his profound words in a foreign tongue. We lived in a political, an economic,
and also a spiritual ghetto. This was not because our creative power had atrophiedif it had, we could never have maintained our identity under the terrible
hardships we sufferedbut because we had been torn from the source of our
peoples vitality, their independent homeland (Ben-Gurion 1970: 198).

The implication is that the Ethics, the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, and Spinozas
other writings are to their time what the Bible was to its timeonly the weight of
galut blinded the Jews of Amsterdam to the wisdom of their native son. Now, once
more in their homeland, the Jews could restore the works of Spinoza to their rightful place as kitve kodesh of the new era.
This attitude towards Spinoza perhaps explains Ben-Gurions rather strange
approach to Spinozas writings. Ben-Gurions interest in Spinoza dated back to his
days in Russia: he discusses Spinoza in the very first of his published collected letters (Ben-Gurion 19711974: vol. 1, letter 1, pp. 45). His interest in Spinoza was
far from casual. One must say, however, even with a good measure of interpretive
charity, that Ben-Gurion did not have the kind of understanding of Spinoza that a
philosopher would respect. Amos Oz recollects a discussion of Spinoza that took
place between him and Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion, in this discussion, maintained
that the essence of Spinozas teaching is that a person should always remain calm,
the rest being hair-splitting and paraphrase. When Oz tried to express a different
view, Ben-Gurion responded with a furious outburst (Oz 2004: 442443). And in
an exchange between Ben-Gurion and MK Yohanan Bader, Ben-Gurion insists that
Spinoza does not deal with what courage is (Keren 1983: 163165), even though
Spinoza defines courage in the Ethics, Part 3, in the demonstration for proposition
52. It is true that Spinoza makes no great point about courage, but he does define

The Zionists and Spinoza

| 31

it. Amos Oz cites Isaiah Berlins comment: Ben-Gurion was no intellectual, Plato
and Spinoza notwithstanding (Oz 2004: 445).
Ben-Gurions own words may help us here: He seems to regard Spinozas writings not as a philosopher would, but as though they were a sort of holy scripture.
He quotes them and invokes them for political ends the way a person of an earlier
time might invoke the words of the prophets. And Ben-Gurion, as the one of the
political leaders of his day, is best situated to interpret this scripture, just as the
rabbis interpreted Torah in the time of their ascendancy. It matters not, in either
case, whether a literal reading supports the proposed interpretation. Rabbinic
interpretation of Torah often differs markedly from the peshat, and Ben-Gurions
interpretation of Spinoza often differs markedly from the peshat of Spinoza; but
the privileged interpreter has the right to interpret differently (cf. Keren 1983:
Chapter 5).
How can we assess the Zionist adoption of Spinoza as a Zionist symbol? In one
sense, a symbol has pragmatic value: If it inspires, then it is valid. Yet if the inspiration involves a false conception of the symbol, it can hardly be called secure, even
from a pragmatic point of view. So here the argument turns on the Jewishness of
Spinoza, or lack of it. The Zionists need to believe that the Jews rejected Spinoza,
and not vice versa. If they came to the opposite conclusionthat Spinoza rejected
the Jewshe would hardly have been an inspiring figure to the Zionists. A paper
of this scope can hardly begin to resolve the question. Yet we can consider the
question briefly.
There is considerable reason to think that Spinoza rejected all Jewish identity,
whether religious or ethnic. He saw his ideal person as cosmopolitan: ideal persons live in accordance with the guidance of reason, and necessarily agree with
one another (Ethics Part 4, Prop. 3536). Ethnic distinctions are thus obliterated,
or made irrelevant, in such people. Spinoza saw his own teaching in this light. As
he says in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, in a work based on reason, one need
not inquire into the authors life, pursuits and character, the language in which
he wrote, and for whom and when. (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, ch. 7). For
such reasons Spinoza, as he saw death approaching, asked that his works should
be published without indicating his name, and indeed they were published with
only his initials, B.D.S. (Jarig Jelles, Preface to Spinoza 1677). He thus did not
want his works to be seen as a work of Jewish philosophy. Indeed, the very term
Jewish philosophy would seem like a contradiction in terms to Spinoza: there
is no Jewish philosophy, nor French philosophy, nor German philosophy, but
simply philosophy.
Nor did Spinozas life evince much in the way of Jewish identification, either
religious or ethnic. As noted, Spinoza wrote favorably about Jesus and associated
mostly with liberal Protestants. Among his correspondents, there are no Jews4
(and, for that matter, few Catholics). Yirmiyahu Yovel refers to Spinoza as the first

32 | Jacob Adler

secular Jew, but it would seem more accurate to call him simply secular. His life
seems to be more that of an assimilationist than a secular Jew.
Of course, the supporters of Spinozas Jewishness have their arguments. Some
point to his letter to Albert Burgh, in which he speaks eloquently of the bravery of a
Jewish martyr, who, burnt at the stake, and apparently already dead, began singing
Psalm 25 (Ben-Gurion 1962: 8; Spinoza, Letters, no. 76 [to Albert Burgh]). Yet the
tone of Spinozas letter is hardly friendly to the Jews. In any case, his point is not to
assert the superiority of Jews, but simply the ubiquity of human bravery.
A more serious argument is offered by Jakob Klatzkin, who translated Spinozas
Ethics into Hebrew. Klatzkin (see Preface to Spinoza 1923) goes so far as to suggest
that the Hebrew Ethics is the original, of which Spinozas Latin Ethics is a translation! He argues for this claim by showing that certain puzzling locutions in the
Latin text become clear and obvious when expressed in Hebrew. Yet even this view
has its critics. Franz Rosenzweig argues that this effect is produced by the translator, not by the original text: that Klatzkin, imbued with Zionist fervor, saw Spinoza
the way he wanted to see him. Rosenzweig (1953), moreover, points out a number
of cases in which Hebrew turns a fine Latin phrase into a limping Hebrew one.
There is, of course, the faute-de-mieux mentioned above: Even if Spinoza himself had left Jewishness behind, he could still inspire Jews who wanted to retain
some connection with their people or religion,5 and it seems that he did in fact
inspire generations of Zionists. They would no doubt be disillusioned if they could
see Spinoza with less ideological eyes, but a sullied hero is still a sort of a hero.
Spinoza as a Quasi-Zionist. Under the heading of Quasi-Zionism, I refer to any
body of teaching that includes significant main elements of Zionism without going
so far as to constitute a kind of Zionism. The question then is: can we see Spinoza
as a quasi-Zionist?
Here we seem to stand on firmer ground. Spinozas teachings do contain significant elements of Zionism, though (as we have seen) there are sufficient gaps and
variances as to prevent us from putting him squarely in that category.
To see why Spinoza fall short of true Zionism, we may begin, by way of contrast,
by considering Julius Wellhausens opinions on Spinoza and the Jewish question.
Wellhausen, with an attitude not uncommon to German Protestants of his time,
saw Judaism as a relic, destined to be swept away in the stream of history (see,
e.g., Wellhausen 1885: 425; Levenson 1993: 4143). Viewing Spinoza with this
preconception, he saw in him only an assimilationist, who looked forward to the
disappearance of the Jewish people. Citing the very same paragraph admired by
the Zionists (though, of course, not the same sentence), Wellhausen concludes:
The persistency of the race may of course be a harder thing to overcome than
Spinoza has supposed; but nevertheless he will be found to have spoken truly in
declaring that the so-called emancipation of the Jews must inevitably lead to the

The Zionists and Spinoza

| 33

extinction of Judaism wherever the process is extended beyond the political to

the social sphere. For this accomplishment of this[,] centuries may be required.
(Wellhausen 1885: 548)6

It seems that Wellhausen is gazing through spectacles that allow him to see precisely what the Zionists spectacles prevent them from seeing. A more neutral lens
allows us to see that Spinoza presents a dyadic choice: either Jewish survival in a
state of their own, or the disappearance of Jews by way of assimilation (Strauss
1981: 2021; Yovel 1989: 197; Schweid 2001: 9). (There is actually a third possibility: continuation of the status quo, in which Jewish distinctness in the diaspora
goes together with Jewish suffering.) Spinoza evinces little concern as to the future of the Jews, but to the extent that we can glean anything at all, he seems to
favor assimilation. Spinoza asserts that it is the Jews insistence on maintaining
their distinctive customs that makes them the object of hatred, and this hatred
alone preserves them. If they would only drop their way of life, the hatred would
abate and the Jews would be assimilated among their neighbors (Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, ch. 3, pp. 4546; Smith 1997: 103). Still, at least theoretically, reconstitution of the Jewish nation on a territory of their own is another
possibility.
Although Spinozas policy recommendation (if we have discerned it correctly) is
far from Zionist, his idea of the stark either/or is very much in line with the Zionists. Jewish life in the diaspora is doomed, either by persecution or by assimilation.
We see here the doctrine of shelilat ha-galut.
Moreover, the reconstituted Jewish stateif it should come into beingwill
arise, according to Spinoza, by purely natural causes, the same sort of natural
causes that led the Chinese to lose and then regain dominion over their country (Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, ch. 3, p. 46; Smith 1997: 102). Thus
Spinoza, like the Zionists, rejects the prevailing religious idea that the Jews must
wait passively for the messiah.
This passivism may be what Spinoza is referring to when he says that the foundations of the Jewish religion emasculate the minds of the Jews. It is not clear that
he is referring precisely to the prohibition on human action to re-establish Zion; he
may just be referring in a general way to those Jewish teachings that (in his mind)
weaken the Jewish spirit. In any case, Spinoza states, by implication, one more major teaching of (secular) Zionism: if the Jews are ever to re-establish their state, they
must reject the foundations of their religion (Levy 1989: 75; Smith 1997: 102).
The secular Zionists rejected religion altogether. Theoretically, Spinozas statement allows for the revision of the basic principles of Jewish religion, exchanging
old doctrines that weaken the spirit for new ones that strengthen it. So, Reconstructionism is another possible Zionism (see Kaplan 1934: 17376 and Kaplan
n.d.).

34 | Jacob Adler

A final common feature is that Spinoza sees the Jews as a social or national
group, not as a religious community (Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, ch. 3,
p. 38; see also the remarks of P.-F. Moreau presented as an appendix to Yakira 1993:
458). Indeed, their happiness requires jettisoning their religion.
Thus, many of the central doctrines of Zionism can be found in Spinoza: perhaps all the important ones, except for the view that the Jews should return to
Zion! Of course, the fact of this agreement does not mean that the Zionists derived
their philosophy from Spinoza. Of all the writers on the subject, Eliezer Schweid
presents the strongest case for the actual influence of Spinoza on the Zionists.
According to Schweid, Jewish admirers of Spinoza, such as Moses Hess, Samuel
Zvi Hirsh and Micah Joseph Berdichevsky, were strongly influenced by his views,
which they wished not only to study but also to put into effect. The latter figures
wished to rebel against prophetic-rabbinic Judaism, as opposed to the Biblical
Judaism of other times. They saw prophetic-rabbinic Judaism as responsible for
the exile, indeed, for most of the Jews ills. Spinoza called for a rejection of such
Judaism. These students of Spinoza were, according to Schweid, among the leading educators of the generation in the era of the pre-state Yishuv, and they thus
influenced a generation of Jews in Palestine. The origin of the ideas, however, was
lost; so many later Zionists did not know that Spinoza lay behind them.7 Schweid
adds that Ben-Gurion was an avid student of the work of Berdichevsky (Schweid
2001: 14).
This hypothesis explains the apparent contradiction raised above. How, I asked,
could Ben-Gurion be a Spinozist when his knowledge of Spinoza is so spotty.
The answer is that he may have been employing Spinozistic hand-me-downs. His
knowledge of Spinoza is deficient because he has it second hand: not from Spinoza
himself, but from people like Berdichevsky. This would explain how Ben-Gurion
could have said that Spinoza says nothing about courage. One who actually read
the Ethics with any attention at all would surely remember that one of its five
parts is devoted entirely to the the Nature and Origin of the Emotions (Ethics,
Part 3), and would hesitate to state categorically that Spinoza says nothing about
courage. Ben-Gurion in particular is said to have had a photographic memory (Oz
2004: 444): if he had read the relevant part of the Ethics, he is not likely to have
forgotten it.
It would take considerable additional study to verify Schweids claim, but it
makes sense. In any case, the similarity of thought is there between Spinoza and
the Zionists, and Schweids proposal seems at least plausible.
We can thus conclude: Spinoza was not a Zionist, and those who tried to cast
him in that role were carried away by enthusiasm. He was an inspiring figure,
and the Zionists were inspired. Whether it made sense for them to be inspired
by a figure apparently so alienated from Judaism is a difficult question. Spinoza,
for various reasons, revealed little about himself; we may never know how much

The Zionists and Spinoza

| 35

connection he retained with his people of origin. Spinoza was, however, a quasiZionist in the specific sense defined here: he held many of the key doctrines of
Zionism without advocating the re-establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine
(or elsewhere). Granting Schweids claims, it seems that the quasi-Zionism of Spinoza was inherited by the early Zionists and transmuted into the actual Zionism
that brought about the establishment, years later, of the Jewish state mentioned so
off-handedly by the genius of Amsterdam almost 300 years before.

Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the Israel Studies Forum anonymous readers for
their comments, as well as Rabbi Joseph Levine for providing some hard-to-find
printed materials from his personal library.

Biographical Information
Jacob Adler received his PhD in philosophy from Harvard University in 1985 and
rabbinical ordination from the Reconstructionist R abbinical College in 2006. He
is the author of The Urgings of Conscience: A Theory of Punishment (1992) and
contributed notes to the Hackett edition of the Letters of Spinoza (1995). He is
associate professor of philosophy at the University of Arkansas and serves as the
rabbi of Temple Shalom in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Notes
1. The only exception seems to be Genevive Brykman, who calls Spinoza quasiment sioniste, but even this is in such a qualified sense as to be self-defeating.
See Brykman 1977: 30.
2. Ger. kleinen Heiligtum, no doubt a translation of mikdash meat.
3. The syntax of these introductory words is rather confusing, making it seem as
though Spinoza committed a sin three hundred years after his birth. Clearly,
what Klausner had in mind was: To Spinozain acknowledgment of the great
sin that his people committed against him and the also not insignificant sin that
he committed against his peoplewe call out, three hundred years after his
birth, from the heights of Mount Scopus Translation may have contributed
to the infelicitous arrangement of the English words (I have not had the privilege
of seeing the original Hebrew) and in any case the nuances of the spoken word
must have made the meaning clear to Klausners listeners.
4. See, generally, Spinoza, Letters. There are records that show Spinoza, even
after his ban, associating with Jewish friends or already associated. There is, for

36 | Jacob Adler

example, Juan de Prado: but Prado was no better a Jew than Spinoza (Rvah,
Spinoza et le Dr Juan de Prado). Spinoza also had an apparently close friendship
with one Dr Henry Morelli, a Sephardic Jew. Here again, Morellis Jewishness
seems to have been merely vestigial (Popkin 2004: 111112; Bayle 1731: 4:872,
no. 5).
5. The author admits to having been inspired in this way by Spinoza during his
30s. He expressed the situation by the following figure: a person who is leaving
a house can hold the door open for someone who wishes to enter.
6. This quotation originally appeared in the Wellhausens article, Israel, in the
ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (18751889), which is reprinted
in toto in Wellhausen (1885).
7. S chweid 2001: 1415. Schweid discusses the chain of influence at greater length
than we can examine here.

References
Barmeir, Tsevi, ed. Yalkut ha-Rayon ha-Tsiyoni, Jerusalem: Ha-Histadrut ha-Tsiyonit,
ha-Mahlakah le-Inyene ha-Noar vehe-aluts, 1967.
Bayle, Pierre. 1731. uvres Diverses de Mr Pierre Bayle. The Hague: P. Husson et al.
Ben-Gurion, David. 1970. Ben-Gurion Looks Back in Talks with Moshe Pearlman. New
York: Schocken.
. 19711974. Igrot David Ben-Gurion, ed. Y. Erez, 3 vols. Tel-Aviv: Hotsaat Am
Oved ve-Universitat Tel-Aviv.
. 1962. Lasset uns gutmachen das Unrecht. Pp. 19 in Hessing 1962.
Brykman, Genevive. 1994. Ha-Yehudiyut shel Spinoza, Trans. Reuven Moran Jerusalem: Carmel.
. 1977. Pourquoi la judit de Spinoza? Les Nouveaux Cahiers 13: 2531.
Cohen, Hermann. 1915. Spinoza ber Staat uwnd Religion, Judentum und Christentum. Jahrbuch fr jdische Geschichte und Literatur 18: 56150.
Dinur, Ben-Zion. 1938. Sefer ha-Tsiyonut, vol. 1 (no more issued). Tel-Aviv: Mosad
Bialik, Dvir.
. 1955. Be-Mifneh ha-Dorot. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik.
Dorman, Menahem. 1990. Vikuhe Spinzah be-Aspaklariyah Yehudit. Tel-Aviv: HaKibuts ha-Meyu.
Glatzer, Nahum N. 1953. Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought. New York:
Schocken.
Hess, Moses. [1918] 1995. The Revival of Israel: Rome and Jerusalem, The Last Nationalist Question. Trans. Meyer Waxman Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press
(Reprint of the edition published in New York by Bloch 1918).
Hessing, Siegfried, ed. Spinoza: Dreihundert Jahre Ewigkeit: Spinoza-Festschrift 1632
1932, 2nd ed. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

The Zionists and Spinoza

| 37

Isaac, Bashevis Singer .1961. The Spinoza of Market Street. Pp. 725 in Isaac Bashevis
Singer. The Spinoza of Market Street. New York: Avon.
Keren, Michael. 1983. Ben-Gurion and the Intellectuals: Power, Knowledge, and Charisma. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.
Klatzkin, Jakob. 1962. Der Miverstandene. Pp. 101108 in Hessing 1962.
Klausner, Joseph. 1955. Me-Aplaton ad Spinozah: Masot Filosofiyot. Jerusalem:
Madda.
. 1962. Der jdische Charakter der Lehre Spinozas. Pp. 109133 in Hessing
1962.
Klever, W. N. A. 1997. Mannen rond Spinoza, 16501700: Presentatie van een Emanciperende Generatie. Hilversum: Verloren.
Levenson, Jon. 1993. The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism:
Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Levy, Zeev. 1989. Baruch or Benedict: On Some Jewish Aspects of Spinozas Philosophy.
New York and Bern: Peter Lang.
Lindenberg, Daniel. 1997. Figures dIsral: lidentit juive entre marranisme et sionisme
(16481998). Paris: Hachette literatures.
Malamud, Bernard. 1966. The Fixer. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Meinsma, K. O. 1896. Spinoza en zijn Kring. sGravenhage: M. Nijhoff.
. 1983. Spinoza et son cercle. Paris: Vrin (French translation of Meinsma 1896).
Oz, Amos. 2004. A Tale of Love and Darkness, Trans. Nicholas de Lange. Orlando:
Harcourt.
Pines, Shlomo. 1977. Histabrut ha-Tekumah me-adash shel Medinah Yehudit lefi Yosef ibn Kaspi ule-fi Spinozah. in Ben Mahashevet Yisrael le-Mahashevet
ha-Amim. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik.
Popkin, Richard H. 2004. Spinoza. Oxford: Oneworld.
Rosenzweig, Franz. 1953. Classical and Modern Hebrew. Pp. 263271 in Glatzer
1953.
Schwartz, Daniel B. 2005. Reclaiming Spinoza in the Ninetweenth-Century Hebrew
Enlightenment: The Krochmal Connection. Paper presented at symposium,
Spinozas Place in Jewish Philosophy. Thirty-seventh annual conference of the
Association for Jewish Studies.
Schweid, Eliezer. 2001. Be-Amsterdam Hagiti et Medinat ha-Leom ha-Yehudit :
Spinozah veha-Zehut ha-Yehudit ha-Leumit. Jewish Political Studies Review 13,
(Hebrew section): 120.
Smith, Steven B. 1997. Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Sokolow, Nahum. 1928. Barukh Spinozah u-Zemano. Paris: Imprimerie dArt Voltaire.
. 1962. Der Jude Spinoza. Pp. 182192 in Hessing 1962.
Spinoza, Baruch de. 1677. Opera Posthuma. Leiden: Jan Riewertsz.
. 1923. Torat ha-Midot, Trans. and Preface by Jakob Klatzkin. Leipzig: Hotsaat
Avraham Yosef Shtibl.
. 1995. The Letters, Notes by Jacob Adler et al. Indianapolis: Hackett.

38 | Jacob Adler

. [1670] 1998. Theologico-Political Treatise, Trans. Samuel Shirley. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Strauss, Leo. 1981. Progress or Return? The Contemporary Crisis in Western Civilization. Modern Judaism 1.1: 1745.
Walther, Manfred. 1997. Was/Is Spinoza a Jewish Philosopher? Spinoza in the Struggle for a Modern Jewish Cultural Identity in Germany: A Meta-Reflection. Studia
Spinozana 13: 207237.
Wellhausen, Julius. 1885. Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Edinburgh: A. &
C. Black. Available online at <http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4732> (accessed 1
July 2007).
Yakira, Elhanan. 1993. Spinoza et les sionistes. Pp. 445457 in Spinoza au XXe sicle,
ed. O. Bloch. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Yovel, Yirmiyahu. 1989. Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.