Zionism out of Love

The following is part of T’ruah’s new thought leadership series, “Tekiyah Gedolah.”

In a provocative essay published in 1943, Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel (Lita/Palestine), then the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, proposed a paradigm for a Zionism based in love and emulation of God, rather than primarily focused on the realpolitik of the moment. In this article, I will offer an extended reading of Amiel’s essay, “Zionism from Love ((Tzionut mitoch chibah)) and Zionism from Hate (Tzionut mitoch sinah)” along with my own thoughts about how his words might form the basis for a new approach to Zionism and to Israel that can lead us toward a political solution that allows for both Jews and Palestinians to live in safety and dignity on their shared ancestral land.¹ 

To be clear, intellectual and ideological debates about Zionism should not be a priority at this time. Over the past two years, the people of Gaza have suffered unbearable death, starvation, disease, and displacement. During that time, Israeli hostages remained trapped in Hamas tunnels, fighting for their lives. The most urgent task for all people of good will is to put aside internal ideological disagreements, and to pressure the Israeli, American, and international governments to move Israelis and Palestinians toward a long-term political solution.

Yet along the way, these two years have also surfaced fierce ideological disagreements about Zionism and about the future of a Jewish state. Like others, I’ve been researching and studying pathways for a new articulation of the possibilities and paradoxes of Zionism, which is clearly needed. 

In major parts of the left, there is a consensus that the brutality of Israel’s response to October 7 proves that the entire project of Zionism is based in massive military violence and racist supremacy, and that there can be no future for a Jewish state in the Middle East. In major parts of the right, there is a consensus that the atrocities of Hamas’s attack on October 7 and the global outpouring of support for Palestine prove that the world will always be against the Jews, and that Israel is therefore justified in taking any actions—no matter how deadly—to ensure its own physical survival. Ironically, both left and right seem to agree about the necessity of brutal domination to the Zionist project.

The majority of Jews, and many other realistic and compassionate people around the world, are actually standing in a third space that rejects the ideological fatalism of the poles on left and right. They have care and concern for Israel and Israelis as well as for Palestine and Palestinians. They understand the reality and the value of Jewish society in the Land of Israel, that the actions of this Israeli government are not the only possible expression of Zionism, and that a different one will be needed to ensure a peaceful and secure future for two peoples in the land.

However, the language to articulate such a politics has become harder to find, harder to remember, harder to speak and to hear. It has been drowned out by the explosions of bombs and missiles, and by the shouting of ideological partisans. In particular, a religious language rooted in Jewish traditional texts feels urgent to recover, because “religious Zionism” has become a trademarked property of the most violent and racist elements of the Israeli settler movement and its rabbis and politicans. 

My hope is that a close look at the writings of groundbreaking religious thinkers of the past can offer a religious language for a new approach to Zionism and the future of Israeli and Palestinian coexistence.

Zionism from hate

Zionism from hate, Amiel lamented in his day, had become dominant. This Zionism, according to him, “sees in its world nothing but hatred alone.”² It emerged from an atmosphere of antisemitism, including “the oppressors of Israel during the time of Dreyfus . . . the pogroms, the world war, Grabski in Poland, Hitler in Germany and their ilk.” (Note that he wrote this essay before the end of World War II and the revelation of the full horrors of the Holocaust.) That is, “Zionism from hate” refers to the hatred of others toward Jews. This kind of Zionism was based upon the reality of that hatred, and came to be shaped by that reality as well:

The basic foundation of the Zionism from hatred is that the war of nations against each other is a natural and necessary thing and will remain so forever. . . justice lies with whoever has power. And if we want to survive in the world – it is sufficient for us too to be a power within the world—a power in its literal sense and not only its deeper meaning. Because it is also an overriding principle that the strong hate the weak, and therefore the nations of the world hate us, but nevertheless when we too have a land they too will have to take account of us.  In this approach, the whole concept of justice is only a matter of reciprocity: “Protect me and I’ll protect you.” And if we want the world to deal with us justly – we need to be at a level by which others can also turn to us with the request of “Protect me…” and that alone is enough. “

This essentially describes political Zionism: Jews will never find safety in other nations’ lands, or as a perpetually weak people, and therefore will find protection only in having a nation like other nations, able to hold its own in the power struggle among nations. He echoes the language of Leon Pinsker who, in his famous essay “Auto-Emancipation,” written in 1882 following the Russian pogroms the previous year, describes the world’s hatred of Jews as stemming from the perception of Jews as “ghosts,” bereft of their homeland, but somehow still walking among the living. “The Jews are not a living nation,” Pinsker wrote, “they are everywhere aliens; therefore they are despised. . . the only solution is in the creation of a Jewish nationality, of a people living upon its own soil, the auto-emancipation of the Jews, their return to the ranks of the nations by the acquisition of a Jewish homeland.”³ Pinsker, who had once advocated for Jews to seek equal rights within the Russian Empire, became disillusioned after the outbreak of violence against Jews following the assassination of the Tsar, and went on to become the leader of Chibat Tzion, a proto-Zionist movement through which a number of Jews relocated to Ottoman Palestine. 

Thus Amiel notes:

If we sometimes wonder why this type of Zionism has led to the aspiration that ‘the Jewish people are like all other nations’ even in things that do not directly relate to the essence of Zionism, this is not surprising at all, because all of these things emerge from its very essence, from the central source from which it draws succor, which are the idols of hate and enmity, the idols of war. . . 

David Ben Gurion is famously reported to have said that Israel would be a state like any other when prostitutes and thieves did their business in Hebrew, and a Jewish police officer arrested them.⁴ That time has long passed. Israel has not only prostitutes and thieves, but a police force under the command of a notorious and oft-indicted Kahanist that regularly commits violence against Israeli protesters, including hostage families; an army that has occupied another people for more than half a century and that has credibly been accused of war crimes in Gaza; and a forever war policy that is turning the country into a pariah state. As Amiel warned, the worship of hate, enmity, and war, and the drive to exert power among the nations, has led the State of Israel and many of its supporters to abandon basic ethical principles:

The impression one gets from this. . . type of Zionism is as if we have despaired of all our mission and essence from the beginning of our existence as a nation destined to “repair the world under the sovereignty of God” and to ensure the triumph of the yetzer hatov over the yetzer hara in human beings. . . 

This despair is evident today in parts of the American Jewish community, some of whose leaders and thinkers have inveighed against “tikkun olam” as a distraction or even a danger to protecting Jews. And it’s evident among those who prioritize holding onto the land of Israel above concern for the people who live there. “We must admit the truth,” Amiel says in a different context, “Many of us observe the external aspects of Torah with all kinds of guards and fences, but completely lose sight of the Torah’s inner meaning. . . and pay no attention to the essence at all.” (Hegyonot el Ami, Vayishlach 43) 

Amiel’s warning about the repercussions of a Zionism from hate rings painfully true today:

And the same Zionism whose pregnancy and birth came from hate, albeit from the hatred of others toward us, will not be capable of bringing about love, also between us and ourselves.

Today, the Netanyahu government has violated its basic social contract with its citizens—from attempting to overthrow the judiciary to abandoning the hostages to continuing to fight a war that is leaving only death and destruction in its wake. It is little surprise that the hatred of Palestinians, cultivated over decades, has spawned internal hatred, including the government’s longstanding smearing of human rights and civil society organizations, the betrayal of the hostages and of soldiers, and the violence against protesters including hostage families. And it’s no surprise that some Israelis have been warning of civil war, given the anger of multiple ethnic, religious, and political factions toward one another. Hatred cultivated toward others will almost inevitably also turn internal. 

The Zionism from hate is embodied by Israel’s ruling coalition, and the settler movement that is attempting, and tragically succeeding, to impose its violent, messianic, and nihilistic worldview on the entire country. It’s embodied by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s repeated affirmation that his answer to the biblical question, “Must the sword devour forever” (II Samuel 2:26) is yes—that there is no victory without the sword. Of course, in the Bible itself, the sword is a curse: “Therefore the sword shall never depart from your House because you spurned Me.” (II Samuel 12: 10) And it’s embodied by government policies that insist that security will come only through the exertion of military power. 

The fact that the loudest voices championing this ideology come from within the religious Zionist community represents a shift over the past decades within this community from a focus on religious connection to the land and to the mitzvot that can only be carried out there, to the worship of militaristic power—what Israeli historian Dror Greenblum has called the shift from a “Redemptive-universalist stance” (ha’emdah ha’geulit-universalit) to a “Messianic-activist stance” (ha’emdah hameshichit-activistit).⁵ 

The elevation of physical might over all else is brutally evident both in the support within religious Zionist communities for the continuation of the war in Gaza and for the expulsion of Palestinians in order to expand the settlement project, and in the near daily violence by settlers in West Bank villages—including actions that constitute outright violations of Jewish law, most obviously in relation to murder and assault, and also in regard to Shabbat and holiday prohibitions. One who acts as such is, in the language of the medieval thinker Ramban, a naval birshut HaTorah—a person who perverts the language of Torah in order to do evil.

What could counter this Zionism from hate, based in fear of the hatred of others, and cultivating its own hatred toward those others with a veneration of power over all else? 

For some on the left, enraged by the devastation in Gaza and the decades of intractable occupation, the only answer can be the end to Israel as a Jewish state, and the repudiation of Zionism altogether. 

Zionism from love

Rav Amiel offers a different answer. Rather than a Zionism based in hatred, fear, and reverence for power, he proposes a vision for a “Zionism from love”:

This is the Zionism that began in the time of Abraham Avinu and continued throughout the period of the patriarchs, the prophets, the members of the Great Assembly, the Tannaim and the Amoraim, etc., etc.

Zionism as we know it did not, of course, begin with Abraham and Sarah. While the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel does date back to the Torah, Abraham and Sarah and their progeny were not Zionists per se. 

Both self-declared Zionists and anti-Zionists regularly err in understanding the relationship between ancient history and the current moment. Right wing supporters of Israel often note, correctly, that in the Torah, God promises that Abraham and Sarah’s descendants will flourish in the Land of Israel, and leads the Israelites out of slavery toward the promised land. Jews ultimately achieved sovereignty in this promised land, these defenders point out, lost that sovereignty to the Babylonians and again to the Romans, and spent millennia praying for a return to Israel before the fulfillment of this dream with the establishment of the state in 1948. 

On the left, some opponents of Israel counter that Zionism is a European political movement foisted on Judaism, or even go so far as to claim that the Jews currently living in Israel are not “real” Jews, but rather European invaders or descendants of Khazar converts (a reference to an old antisemitic conspiracy theory. Note that this accusation is absolutely not true, and also that converts are as Jewish as a person born Jewish.) Recently, an acquaintance with whom I once served on the board of a social justice organization put up a social media post comparing today’s Israeli Jews to the Crusaders, whom Muslim forces eventually expelled from the Holy Land. Some in this camp deny Jewish history in the Land of Israel, that the Temples ever existed, and that modern Jews have any natural connection to the place.

Both of these positions are misguided. Zionism is a modern political movement that emerged in the same moment as other national movements—both in Europe and in colonized regions—when many minority national and ethnic groups were pursuing autonomy and statehood. The innovation of Zionism was not to assert that the Land of Israel was the Jewish homeland—this was well known by Jews and non-Jews alike—but to argue that return to the Land of Israel could be achieved through modern political means, including appeals to the Ottoman and then British and international powers, rather than by waiting for divine intervention. 

Amiel regularly railed against both the religious authorities who rejected Zionism as an illegitimate attempt to “hasten the end of days” by interfering with God’s plan for redemption, and against political Zionists (as we have seen) who had little use for God or mitzvot.⁶ 

Amiel may elide history in order to draw a direct line from Abraham to the emerging state, established soon after his death. But his vision still offers a useful framing for a Zionism based in ethical ideals derived from Torah, rather than in the realpolitik of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. 

This Zionism comes from love. It saw in the great and small world only love and affection. The God of Israel is the One about whom it is said (Deuteronomy 33:3): “God is a lover of nations” (af chovev amim), and simultaneously “the One who chooses God’s people Israel with love.” And just as God chose the people of Israel – so too God chose the Land of Israel, on which “God keeps an eye, from year’s beginning to year’s end.” (Deuteronomy 11:12). . . And these choices of love do not bring about extra rights, but on the contrary, they impose on us duties of love for all nations and languages.

God, Amiel asserts, models a balance between particular and universal love. God may establish a particular relationship with the Jewish people, but maintains a love for all of humanity. “Beloved (chaviv) is the human being, who was created in the image of God. . . beloved are the Children of Israel, who are called children of God.” (Pirkei Avot 3:14) 

Particularistic love—for one’s family, one’s community, one’s people, or one’s country—has the potential to move a person in one of two directions: toward more generalized care for those outside of one’s own circle, and even for humanity as a whole, or toward an exclusive care for one’s own community even to the point of being willing to employ violence against those outside of one’s circle. God models the former option, and so, Amiel suggests, should the Jewish people. Jews may have a special affection for the land of Israel, and for the Jewish people, but this love can and should also elicit love for other nations. 

In this formulation, a Zionism of love is a first step toward love for humanity. One cannot learn to love universally without first loving in the particular. A person who claims to love everyone equally loves no one, for love assumes a special relationship, not a generalized one.

But what if they hate us

Amiel is hardly naïve about the violent nature of the world, or about antisemitism. He survived World War I in a region of Poland under Russian control, and made it to Mandate Palestine just before the outbreak of World War II. And yet, he affirms that the Zionism of love should prevail even in the face of antisemitism:

And these choices of love do not bring about extra rights,  but on the contrary, they impose on us duties of love for all nations and languages. This is the case even if they all hate us – “And why is its name called: ‘Mount Sinai’? Because hatred (sinah) descended upon the nations of the world on it” (Shabbat 89b) – we must not respond to hatred with hatred. On the contrary, it is our duty to pray for them, to seek their peace and well-being; we even offered sacrifices for them. And if the troubles overcame us to the point of being unbearable, to the point that we said: “we are lost,” (Number 17:27) then we found consolation again in love, and we said: “For the one God loves, God rebukes,” (Proverbs 3:12).

Even in the darkest times, he continues:

This is the power of love, that it brings about great optimism, and our faith was strong, that at last, ‘injustice will close its mouth, and all the wickedness will vanish like smoke, when You remove the rule of evil (or the evil government) from the earth’ (High Holiday liturgy). . . In short, despite all of our disappointments, we never for a moment despaired of the future triumph of absolute justice, and despite all the overwhelming hatred that prevailed against us, we never for a moment became distracted from our seal of love.

Approaching the world primarily through a lens of fear and hatred leads to a cynical worldview that assumes that war and power struggles are inevitable and eternal. But taking a God’s-eye view demands looking at the world through the lens of love, rejecting cynicism, and believing that justice remains possible.

Amiel was consistent in his insistence on acting out of love, rather than allowing fear to drive hatred or even violence. During the Arab uprising that began in 1936, and that included violence toward both British and Jewish targets, the Yishuv adopted an official position of havlagah, restraint, justified as a pragmatic response to violence. Amiel objected, not to the policy of restraint, but to the pragmatic, rather than moral, reasoning behind it:

I am opposed to the term “havlagah” (policy of restraint), as the implication is that the only prohibition on shedding the blood of Arabs is only because of “havlagah.” In truth, it is forbidden to us by the commandment ‘do not murder.’ It represents unprecedented moral decay if we argue that the sin of murdering people is because it has no benefit. In my opinion, even if we knew for certain that through murder, we would merit complete redemption, we would be obligated to push away this “redemption” with two hands, and not to be redeemed through blood. And not only that: Even if we succeed in catching a number of murderous Arabs, if we have even one doubt in a thousand, that among them, we may find one innocent one, it is incumbent upon us to refrain from touching them, lest in doing so, we cause suffering also to the innocent one.⁷

In today’s world, the assumption that they will always hate us has led major Jewish donors and institutions to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into defense efforts that include attempting to quash any criticism of Israeli policy, public shaming of individuals for both antisemitic speech and for pro-Palestine activity, and stirring up fear in order to drive donations and communal participation. The politics of fear also manifests in the oft-stated complaint that they (which can refer to progressive organizations and leaders, communities of color, immigrants, LGBTQ communities, and others) abandoned the Jewish community after October 7, despite years of Jewish communities standing with them. Therefore, complainants conclude, we should focus on defending ourselves now, not standing with them against increased government repression.

The “we” and “they” here, of course is artificial—Jewish communities include progressives, people of color, LGBTQ people, immigrants, etc. It is true that many far left organizations, leaders, and individuals ignored, justified, or even celebrated the atrocious violence of October 7, sometimes belying an underlying antisemitism. These groups can and should be challenged for this response, ideally within the context of relationships and thoughtful dialogue. But the fear response of retreating into our own communities rather than investing in building deeper and broader relationships only reinforces a worldview that assumes that human beings are fated to eternal strife among nations. 

Where do we go from here?

Here’s how Rav Amiel concludes:

In short, we must return the crown to its former glory (Yoma 69b), and instead of Zionism of hate return again to Zionism from love; We must restore the word that was dropped from within Zionism, the omission of ahavah (love)and chibbah (affection) “Ahavat Zion” and “Chibbat Zion.”⁸

Easier said than done!

What would it take to restore a Zionism from love?

One first step requires distinguishing among three oft-conflated terms: Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), Am Yisrael (the People of Israel), and Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel).

Eretz Yisrael refers to the eternal homeland of the Jewish people, the land that God promises to Abraham in the Torah, where Jews enjoyed sovereignty before the Roman conquest, and where certain mitzvot can only be practiced. Am Yisrael refers to the Jewish people, named after the biblical Jacob/Israel, in all of our ethnic, religious, political, geographical, and other difference. And Medinat Yisrael, the newest of these terms, refers to the modern political state of Israel, a nation state in a world of nation states. 

Much of the Jewish and Christian right views Medinat Yisrael as indistinguishable from Eretz Yisrael, and as an object of religious concern. This leads to arguments equating the centuries-old Jewish longing for return to Eretz Yisrael with the modern Zionist movement, as well as rejections of international law regarding occupation by reference to the significance of cities like Hebron and Shchem in Jewish history. It’s true of course that Jews have prayed for a return to Eretz Yisrael since the destruction of the Temple. And it’s also true that a small Jewish community always remained in the Land of Israel, and that individuals and sometimes larger groups sometimes migrated there. But those praying and fasting for the rebuilding of Jerusalem understood that a return en masse would arrive only through divine intervention. The establishment of Jewish sovereignty in even part of Eretz Yisrael has political, and also religious significance, but should not be confused with the onset of the messianic era. 

Israel, like so many other nation states, was forged in blood and in the partial displacement and expulsion of another people—a fact with which Israelis and Jews need to come to terms. Like many states founded in the 20^th century, it arose from the collapse of an Empire, and from the withdrawal of a colonial power. And this state, like other nation states, is a modern creation, bound like others to international law. As but one example, the borders of Medinat Yisrael overlap somewhat with those of Eretz Yisrael, but are established by the agreement of international bodies as in the case of other nation states, not by the Bible (which, in any case, does not provide precise boundaries for Eretz Yisrael but promises that these boundaries will shift as reward or punishment for compliance with divine commandments.) 

As for Am Yisrael, for too much of the Jewish and Christian right, the imperative of care and concern for the Jewish people has become subservient to loyalty for the State of Israel, or rather to the policies and practices of its current government. In the American Jewish community, this has led, for example, to unquestioning defense for Israeli policy, even when hundreds of thousands of Israelis are marching in the street opposing their own government. At one protest I attended, an Israeli held up a sign reading, “Your unconditional support is killing us.” This posture has also led to multiple prominent figures declaring Jewish pro-Palestine activists to be “un-Jews” or “no longer part of us.” Jewish law has long established that while excommunication is possible, it’s virtually impossible to shed Judaism or to strip a person of their Judaism altogether. A person who is born into or converts into the Jewish people remains Jewish, regardless of their religious practices, political beliefs, or personal behaviors. (Sanhedrin 44a)

Some activists on the Jewish far left also conflate these three terms, though with different results. For some, anger about the current and past policies of Medinat Yisrael—including the occupation of Palestinians, the Nakba, and the ongoing war in Gaza, and de jure and de facto policies of Jewish supremacy and exclusivity—have led also to a denial of the centrality of Eretz Yisrael in Judaism, and to a deprioritization or deferral of care and concern for the half of Am Yisrael who live in Israel. Attempts to separate one’s own Judaism from any trace of Zionism have led, in some corners, to the minimization of Eretz Yisrael in Jewish history, and even, at the extremes, prayer services that scrub any reference to the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and Tisha B’Av observances that focus solely on disasters to other communities without regard for the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem. And some believe that prioritizing the urgent suffering of Palestinians requires ignoring or minimizing the deaths of Israeli Jews, downplaying incidents of antisemitism within pro-Palestine movements, and dismissing real fears of violence against Jews in Diaspora communities. 

Distinguishing among Eretz Yisrael, Am Yisrael, and Medinat Yisrael allows Jews to recommit to a religious connection to Eretz Yisrael. This includes both a rediscovery of the mitzvot connected to the land, and an internalization of God’s repeated warnings in the Torah that the land ultimately belongs to God alone, that sovereignty is conditional on observance of mitzvot, and that arrogance can result in our expulsion. This distinction also demands a posture of care and concern for the wellbeing of all of Am Yisrael, including Israeli Jews, and including Jews with whose politics or practices one might vehemently disagree. 

Separating Eretz Yisrael and Am Yisrael from Medinat Yisrael then allows for viewing the modern state as a modern state—a normal country, to use Ben Gurion’s purported words—with diverse and contested politics, obligations under international law, and filled with real-life human beings—neither as an object of religious adoration leading toward messianic redemption, nor as an ideological object for demonization as the root of all evil. A rightsizing of the definition of Medinat Yisrael allows for vigorous debate and protest, including about state policies, about the realities of the founding of the state, and about what political entity can best serve the needs of Israelis and Palestinians in the future. Jews may still pray for, and dream of, a return to a rebuilt Jerusalem, and sovereignty over the biblical land of Israel as we have for millennia, while also understanding that these prayers might not be realized through the current political configuration of the nation state. Distinguishing between Medinat Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael also allows for Jews to affirm, for example, the sanctity of certain holy sites such as the Temple Mount and Maarat HaMachpelah (the Tomb of the Patriarchs) in Hebron, without insisting that these sites must be held by means of violent settlers and a massive Israeli military guard. 

Love, the Talmud teaches, is preferable to fear when it comes to motivation for serving God and following God’s commandments. Even Job, the rabbis assert, in the midst of his suffering, worshipped God out of love (Sotah 31a). A Zionism from love extends its care to the present and future of Eretz Yisrael, Medinat Yisrael, and Am Yisrael and includes an investment in both the physical protection and in the moral character of each. It sees the ultimate goal of living in the Land of Israel as worship of God, whose concern extends to all of humanity. A Zionism based in love does not preclude the flourishing of another people also living in Eretz Yisrael, and with an equally legitimate claim to a homeland there. Refocusing on love rather than fear, can break us out of the cynical nihilism that has come to dominate discourse on Israel/Palestine, including the belief that a political solution is impossible and therefore a zero sum game is always required between Jews and Palestinians. A Zionism of love understands that a commitment to Eretz Yisrael and to Am Yisrael must include critique of Medinat Yisrael, including a sober look at its history, its policies, and its leadership. And this Zionism of love refuses to make an idol of the modern nation-state, and understands that in the modern political realm, negotiations and agreements over borders, including the establishment of a new Palestinian nation state next to Israel, may be necessary to ensure the safety and dignity of all of the people in the land—all subjects of divine love and concern.

Today, discourse about Israel and Palestine is infused with the politics of hatred. Partisans of each side internalize the hatred of others and project it back outward, dehumanizing the other in order to make their points. Too many Jews, on both the progressive left and the religious right, believe that Zionism inherently requires violence against Palestinians, perpetual occupation and war, and authoritarian politics. The Zionism of love shows a different path—one that honors the connection of both Jews and Palestinians to the land, emulates God’s love and concern for both people, and breaks out of the cynicism that assumes the inevitability of conflict. 

NOTES

1. In Amiel, LeNevuchei HaTekufah, Or Etzion, 2014 edition (originally published 1943) 
2.  Note that I have reversed the order of Amiel’s essay for stylistic reasons. He begins by talking about the Zionism of Love and then goes on to talk about the Zionism of hate. All translations from Amiel are my own. For quotes from the Bible and Talmud, I have also relied on the Jewish Publication Society Bible translation and on the William Davidson Talmud (as presented by Sefaria.) 
3. Available at: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-auto-emancipation-quot-leon-pinsker
4. There are multiple reported versions of this quote, which Ben Gurion may or may not have actually said.
5. MiGevurot HaRuach L’Kiddush Hakoach, Open University, 2016
6. On hastening the end of days, see Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:7 and Rashi on Talmud Ketubot 111a
7.  Techumim volume 10 p148
8. Amiel here seems to reference the proto-Zionist Chibat Tzion or Chovevei Tzion movement of the late nineteenth century, through which small numbers of Jews moved from Eastern Europe to Ottoman Palestine. This movement eventually became the cultural/spiritual bloc within the later Zionist movement.