... religion does not at all constitute an obstacle to Zionism.ii In reality just so long as Judaism was incorporated in the feudal system, the "dream of Zion" was nothing but a dream and did not correspond to any real interest of Judaism. The Jewish tavern owner or "farmer" of Sixteenth-Century Poland thought as little of "returning" to Palestine as does the Jewish millionaire in America today. Jewish religious Messianism was no whit different from the Messianism belonging to other religions. Jewish pilgrims who went to Palestine met Catholic, Orthodox and Moslem pilgrims. Besides it was not so much the "return to Palestine" which constituted the foundation of this Messianism as the belief in the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem. Start of the book! The Zionist awakening was perceived by the Rabbinic authorities as a secular human initiative, undertaken by heretics and freethinkers which at the same time pretended to achieve goals traditionally ...

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