Summary
The Zionist monthly journal published in Berlin between 1904 and 1906 and edited by Franz Oppenheimer, Otto Warburg and Selig Soskin, which Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine argues was consciously designed as a discursive interface between German colonialism and German Zionism, and as a German colonial journal (Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, PDF p.26, p.36).
Details
-
The journal published essays by Jewish and non-Jewish experts on colonization; much of its material was written by non-Jewish authors or reprinted from non-Jewish publications (PDF p.26, p.36).
-
Peretz argues it sought to introduce the Jewish public to German colonial discourse, formulate a distinct German-Jewish approach to it, reframe Zionism as a synthesis of German and Jewish patriotism, establish Zionism as a pillar of secular Jewish identity, and serve as a networking platform for liberally minded Jewish and non-Jewish colonial advocates seeking to reform German domestic policy towards Jews through colonial expansion (PDF p.36).
-
The journal is distinct from Altneuland, Theodor Herzl’s 1902 utopian novel, treated on its own page; any naming relation between the two is taken up in the later chapters of the work, not in the pages read for this part.
-
Chapter 4 gives the journal’s origin in the CEEP (founded 1902) and its journal Palästina, edited by Alfred Nossig and Davis Trietsch; after the Sixth Congress the CEEP became the CEP under Oppenheimer, Warburg and Soskin, and the journal took the name Altneuland with Herzl’s permission (November 1903), Warburg intending to give the novel’s ideas a scientific foundation — the naming relation to Herzl’s novel treated in the part 1 note is thus supplied here (PDF p.138-139, p.143-144).
-
Peretz reads the journal as a German colonial text whose circle sought an alternative, liberal form of empire inclusive to Jews; it appeared as a Die Welt supplement, its 1906 edition also in Russian, and its name reverted to Palästina at the end of 1906 (PDF p.134-135, p.139, p.145).
-
Chapter 4 continued: the journal’s mapping made Palestine “within measurable grasp”, its “second discovery” trope cast Aaron Aaronson’s wild emmer find as intellectual conquest preparatory to colonization, and its target audience was not immigrants — it printed only one practical immigration article — but liberal educated middle-class businessmen and academics who would fund and staff colonization (PDF p.150-153, p.164).
-
The CEP widened the circle through the Hamburg trade company, the Olive Tree Fund and the planting association Palästina, and through the Köthen lecture courses of 1905-1906 aimed at a Palästinakunde based on economics and natural sciences (PDF p.167-169, p.173).
-
Chapter 5 opens by noting the journal’s silence, while it claimed German colonies in Africa as “our” colonies, on the genocide against the Herero and Nama then being waged in German South West Africa (PDF p.182-183).
-
Chapter 5 continued: its relandscaping presented Palestine’s barrenness as neglect against natural abundance, its meteorological network with the DPV began measurement in Jewish settlements at the beginning of 1905 in three stations, and its health writing centred on Aron Sandler and malaria, trachoma and leprosy (PDF p.200-203, p.207-210).
-
Its education schemes aimed to create future citizens of a European nation of Hebrews, training settlers as farmers or craftsmen rather than administrators, with Hebrew as village instruction language and Arabic as the only foreign language there, while Bezalel taught handicrafts under German discipline (PDF p.213-219).
-
Its final issue’s utopian report claimed robberies and raids had become “a thing of the past” and that “The Fellah became accustomed to his civilized neighbor and befriended him”, urging Jews to recognize Palestine as “Terra nova” and “Terra aurea” (PDF p.239-240).
Related pages
Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, Franz Oppenheimer, Otto Warburg, Selig Soskin, Altneuland, Colonial fantasies