Am Scheidewege. Ausgewählte Essays. Autorisierte Übersetzung aus dem Hebräischen von Israel Friedländer

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In German. Frontispiece, xvii, 271, (11) pages. 212 x 145 mm. Blank free endpapers and frontispiece are detached. Traces of glue from book plate of a long defunct library. Minor damage to pages 6&7, see image. Top edge dyed. Gilt letters on boards and spine in the Jugendstil-Design. See: 'Jüdischen Lexikon' I.69-75. Ahad Ha'am (Asher Ginsberg) Born Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (August 18, 1856 Skvyra, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire, in present day Ukrain - January 2, 1927 Tel Aviv, Erets Israel) was primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name Ahad Ha'am (which means 'one of the people', Genesis 26:10). He was a Hebrew essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. He is known as the founder of cultural Zionism. With his secular vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Israel, he confronted Theodor Herzl. Unlike Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jew.? Born to pious well-to-do Hasidic parents, he began to teach himself to read Russian at age 8 and studied in heder until age 12. Ginsberg was critical of the dogmatic nature of Orthodox Judaism but remained loyal to his cultural heritage, especially the ethical ideals of Judaism. He married at 17, had two children, and in 1886 he settled in Odessa with his parents, wife and children, and entered the family business. In 1908, following a trip to Eretz Israel, Ginsberg moved to London to manage the office of the Wissotzky Tea company. He settled in Tel Aviv in early 1922, where he served as a member of the Executive Committee of the city council until 1926. In his thirties, Ginsberg returned to Odessa where he was influenced by Leon Pinsker, a leader of the Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement whose goal was settlement of Jews in Palestine. Unlike Pinsker, Ginsberg did not believe in political Zionism. Instead he hailed the spiritual value of the Hebrew renaissance including in the diaspora. He did not believe that the ingathering of Jews in Palestine was feasible. He saw it as a spiritual center. He split from the Zionist movement after the First Zionist Congress, because he felt that Theodor Herzl's program was impractical. In 1896 he founded the Hebrew monthly. Ha-Shiloah, the leading Hebrew-language literary journal in the early twentieth century, to promote Jewish nationalism and a platform for discussion issues relevant to Judaism. The name was taken from a river mentioned in Isaiah 8:6, ?The waters of Shiloah flow slowly,? alluding to the moderate stance of the paper. He traveled frequently to Eretz Israel and published reports about the progress of Jewish settlement there. They were generally grim, reporting on hunger, Arab dissatisfaction and unrest, unemployment, and on people leaving. He warned against those Jewish settlers that treated the fellahin with contempt, which he felt was undeserved. He did not believe that the impoverished settlers of his day would ever build a Jewish homeland. Ahad Ha'am's ideas were popular at a very difficult time for Zionism, beginning after the failures of the first Aliya. His unique contribution was to emphasize the importance of reviving Hebrew and Jewish culture both in Palestine and throughout the Diaspora, which became part of the Zionist program after 1898. Herzl did not have much use for Hebrew, and many wanted German to be the language of the Jewish state. Ahad Ha'am played an important role in the revival of the Hebrew language and Jewish culture. His first article criticizing practical Zionism, called "Lo zu haderekh" (This is not the way) published in 1888 appeared in HaMelitz. In it, he wrote that the Land of Israel will not be capable of absorbing most of the Jewish diaspora and argued that establishing a "national home" in Zion will not solve the "Jewish problem." And even if a national home were created and recognized in international law, it would be weak and unsustainable. N° de ref. del artículo 013471

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