Summary
A Prague Zionist whose essays in Der Jude Peretz uses to show the Prague circle sharing Franz Oppenheimer’s and the Altneuland (journal) circle’s fantasy of the benevolent conqueror and its Gemeinschaft-oriented, anti-capitalist Zionism (Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, PDF p.283-285).
Details
- Martin Buber approached Bergmann, among others, to contribute to an anthology against “the infiltration of imperialism, mercantilism and other demons in Palestine”; the essays were printed in Buber’s journal Der Jude (PDF p.283).
- In “Die wahre Autonomie” (Der Jude 3 (1918-19)) Bergmann rejected making Palestine a “bridge” or “buffer state”, and held this was not a rejection of capitalist work methods but of the capitalist mindset: “Factories and machines do not make capitalism. Capitalist is the spirit” (PDF p.284).
- Bergmann reminded readers that “‘Palestine’s colonization’ is not the goal of Zionism; it is … only a pretext. The goal is the creation of a new type of Jew!” and wrote of the equation of labour with religious worship (PDF p.285).
Related pages
Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, Franz Oppenheimer, Martin Buber, Brit Shalom, New Jew