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.
Nonfiction
Beyond Zion:The Jewish Territorialist Movement
January 5, 2022
Discussion Questions
In her well-researched book, Laura Almagor tells the story of the Jewish Territorialist Movement, which searched for areas to settle the unwanted Jews of Eastern Europe following the Zionist rejection of the Uganda proposal in 1905. While Almagor analyzes the Territorialists’ ideology and activities in the Jewish context of the time, their thought and discourse also reflect the geopolitical concerns of today in debates about colonialist attitudes to peoplehood, territory, and space. As the colonial world order rapidly changed after 1945, the Territorialists continued their efforts to find settlement solutions for Europe’s “surplus” Jews. They negotiated with the 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 Organization (the ITO) and, later, by the Freeland League for Jewish Colonization led by Isaac Steinberg. Via Uganda, Angola, Madagascar, Australia, and Suriname, this story eventually leads us to questions about Yiddishkeit, and to forgotten ideas about how to be Jewish in the twentieth century. In reviewing Zionism’s monopoly on territorial Jewishness, it reconsiders a Jewish future beyond both state and exile and re-evaluates strategies of Jewish geopolitics.
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