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Protester in Tel Aviv, 2023.
Photo: Eyal Warshavsky / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Brenner, the massacre on October 7th and the bitter dispute over Israel's deployment of the army has brought Zionism back into the spotlight. As a description, as a swear word, as a political term. What exactly is Zionism?
Brenner:
Zionism is a bit like anti-Semitism. It's not so easy to find a formula that everyone can agree on. I would say: It is the national movement of the Jewish people that has set itself the goal of establishing a state for the Jews.
SPIEGEL:
But the state has existed for 75 years now.
Brenner:
That's why many people in Israel talk about post-Zionism. I would prefer to expand the concept of Zionism: today it means recognizing and affirming the existence of this state. Recognition of the fact that Jews have the right to their own state.
SPIEGEL:
An explicitly Jewish state.
Brenner:
Exactly. There are again many opinions as to what exactly this means.
SPIEGEL:
Maybe we're approaching the questions historically. How did Zionism come about?
Brenner:
Zionism had two driving forces: Zionism out of desperation and Zionism out of enthusiasm. The first one was coined by Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century. A feature writer from Vienna who actually wanted to be a German writer. But he always had to realize that even as a completely assimilated Jew with a Christmas tree at home, he would never be viewed as an equal by the other Austrians. He went to Paris as a journalist - and there he witnessed the Dreyfus affair.
SPIEGEL:
A judicial scandal involving a French officer who was innocently convicted primarily because of his Jewish origins.
Brenner:
That shocked Herzl deeply. Even in the land of unity, freedom and fraternity, he thought, people were not safe from anti-Semitism.
SPIEGEL:
What was his reaction?
Brenner:
Herzl's first idea was very naive: All Jews should go to St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna and be baptized. But he quickly understood that it wasn't that easy. Anti-Semitism was no longer religiously motivated; it had become racist. He then wrote the book “The Jewish State” – and came to the conclusion that would become central to Zionism: the Jews are one people.
SPIEGEL:
Was that new?
Brenner:
At least the majority of Austrian or German Jews had not seen it that way before. For them, the beginning of emancipation was a promise of being able to become part of the majority society. They believed that they could become Germans who simply had a different faith. Herzl had a different perspective. He no longer saw the Jews as a religious community. We are a people also meant: We are also entitled to a state - like every people.
SPIEGEL:
Why do you call this the Zionism of despair?
Brenner:
Because he was born out of necessity. This Zionism was a reaction to anti-Semitic discrimination throughout Europe. Without anti-Semitism, Herzl would never have become a Zionist.
SPIEGEL:
But this Zionism was not the only one.
Brenner:
No. Especially in Eastern Europe there was a Zionism that drew on a different source. He came from the feeling that Jewish culture could only be preserved by reviving its ancient center - the Land of Israel. Just like the Hebrew language. What Herzl didn't want at all. This movement towards the old center of Judaism, according to the idea, would also revitalize the diaspora. This is what I call the Zionism of enthusiasm.
SPIEGEL:
You locate the desperation in the West and the enthusiasm in the East. Why? The situation of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe was much more desperate than in the West. Pogroms occurred again and again.
Brenner:
In fact, the pogroms that occurred again and again in Russia contributed to Herzl finding his followers primarily there. And conversely, there were a whole series of Zionists in the West who saw themselves more as cultural Zionists: Martin Buber would be the best-known example. For him it was about the renaissance of Jewish culture - and the fight against assimilation, which was much more advanced in the West than in Russia. And in Eastern Europe, for most Jews there was no question of being part of the Jewish people. They knew Hebrew as the language of religion and also had their own language in everyday life: Yiddish.
SPIEGEL:
Is there a simple chronology of Zionism?
Brenner:
After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, there were bloody pogroms in Russia and a large wave of Jewish emigration to the USA - as well as a small one to Palestine. That's before Theodor Herzl. The next step was the publication of Herzl's "Jewish State" in 1896. In 1897, Herzl called the first Zionist Congress. It was actually supposed to take place in Munich, but the Jewish community there and the German Rabbinical Association rejected it. They said they were German citizens of Jewish faith and that they did not want a Jewish state. Especially not in the desert. So the congress took place in Switzerland.
SPIEGEL:
Herzl died in 1904.
Brenner:
At first things didn't look good for the Zionists, because there was no other charismatic leading figure. Until Chaim Weizmann, a Russian Jew living in England, showed up.
SPIEGEL:
Who persuaded the British government to issue the so-called Balfour Declaration in 1917.
Brenner:
The government recognized that the Jews have a right to a “national home” in Palestine. What exactly that meant, however, was completely unclear. At that time, the British had no sovereignty over this country; it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
SPIEGEL:
What changed with the end of the First World War.
Brenner:
The British were awarded the mandate territory - and the word Palestine appeared on a map for the first time.
SPIEGEL:
How did the Zionists imagine Palestine? As an empty land?
Brenner:
That's a myth that you find very often in literature: that the Zionists imagined a country without a people - for a people without a country. But Herzl never said that. Herzl traveled to Palestine; he knew what it was like there. But he had this European view: We're bringing civilization to the Middle East. And he believed that the Zionists would be welcomed there with open arms. Others saw it differently. In the 1920s, the socialist movement became the dominant movement in Zionism. The Jewish socialists clearly perceived that a way of living together had to be found.
SPIEGEL:
The Zionists wanted to create a new human being. They wanted to get away from the old image of the Jew. Another language should be created, another country, another body.
Brenner:
The rejection of the diaspora or exile is at the beginning of Zionism. It is important to realize that Zionism - even though it is a modern political movement of the late 19th century - is based on religious ideas. Since the expulsion from the Land of Israel in the 1st and 2nd centuries, it was believed that there would be a return. To this day, Jews pray several times a day that they will return to Zion. This is Israel. This idea is very old. But Zionism also wanted a revolt. Namely against Jewish history of the last two thousand years. This was understood as a history of oppression and a lack of political sovereignty. You were dependent on other rulers, had no power, no military, and could not defend yourself if you were attacked. This mentality should be over.
SPIEGEL:
The writer Max Nordau spoke of “muscle Judaism.”
Brenner:
The Zionists founded sports clubs that they named after the heroic Maccabees. Paramilitary units were then set up in Palestine to protect themselves and enforce independence.
SPIEGEL:
What is the kibbutz all about? What did the Zionists see in agricultural work?
Brenner:
Jews had been excluded from certain professions in Europe for centuries and could not be farmers. This should be reversed. Working the soil by hand was the new ideal, a soil romance. There was also a mixture of Zionist and socialist ideas. Kibbutzim were agricultural collectives.
SPIEGEL:
What about the language? Ancient Hebrew, a sacred language, was fundamentally renewed and made into a living language.
Brenner:
Most Eastern European Jews already spoke Hebrew. But they only used it in a sacred context. It wasn't like Latin in Europe, an elite language. Hebrew was common. But yes, its modernization was a major undertaking.
SPIEGEL:
What did this movement that wanted to found a nation state actually imagine? The idealism must have ended quite quickly, as there was great resistance.
Brenner:
Herzl was very naive. He thought we would put guards in front of the Jewish settlements and that would be enough. Of course it wasn't like that. There were clashes even before the First World War and even more so after: in 1920/21 in Jaffa and in Jerusalem and then especially in 1929 in Hebron, where the entire community that had existed for centuries was destroyed.
SPIEGEL:
Conversely, there were also attacks by Zionists on Arabs.
Brenner:
Above all, there was their displacement from certain areas of land through land purchases. It was a cycle that became increasingly heated as anti-Semitism grew in Europe and more people immigrated. In the early 1920s, the United States restricted immigration opportunities. This meant that after 1933 non-Zionists also increasingly wanted to go to Palestine.
SPIEGEL:
How did the British feel about the Zionist movement?
Brenner:
Unclear. On the one hand, they had made the promise to create a “national home” for the Jews, which the Zionists understood as a perspective on Jewish sovereignty. On the other hand, they restricted Jewish immigration from the mid-1930s - when the Nazis were already in power in Germany and immigration could save lives.
SPIEGEL:
How important is the murder of European Jews by the Nazis for the creation of the state of Israel?
Brenner:
Nobody knows whether Israel would have existed without the Holocaust. What can be said: Zionism was already very well positioned in 1933. There was the Balfour Declaration, there was a strong Jewish presence in the Mandatory Territory, and there was Tel Aviv and the Hebrew-speaking cultural and political infrastructure. There are also the kibbutzim and the paramilitary movement, the Haganah. These are basically state structures – only without a state. The Holocaust then activated the world conscience after the war, so that in 1947 the UN voted for the division of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.
SPIEGEL:
What kind of ideas about a state did the Zionist movement have when it became clear that this state was a real possibility?
Brenner:
Basically, there were two opposing concepts: that of the Jewish state, which ultimately prevailed, and that of a binational configuration - which, however, was only preferred by a small, intellectual minority, especially German-speaking Zionists. What was most important was that there was no counterpart on the Arab side who would have offered the Zionists a partner in a common state.
SPIEGEL:
What did the founding of Israel mean for Zionism? The dream of a Jewish state had now come true.
Brenner:
There are people who say that Zionism simply took on a different function after 1948: bringing all Jews to Israel, for example, or securing the existence of the state. Since the Six-Day War in 1967, one could speak of a gradual movement to the right in Israel - which has also changed Zionism. The ideals of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, which were strongly influenced by socialism and linked to collectivist values, lost their strength.
SPIEGEL:
What took its place?
Brenner:
Since the 1970s, a new ideal has been emerging: a nationalism that has to do with the settler movement in the territories occupied in 1967. And there is the enormous increase in the religious part of the population.
SPIEGEL:
The relationship between the so-called Orthodox and Zionism is complicated.
Brenner:
Zionism was initially a secular movement - but it also included religious elements. David Ben Gurion…
SPIEGEL:
...the founder of the state...
Brenner:
... was a socialist-secular person. But he loved the Bible. He also saw it as a history book - from which one could derive a historical foundation for the State of Israel. This is also what it says in the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which legitimizes the state based on biblical history. So this connection to religion has always been there.
SPIEGEL:
What is the Orthodox problem with Israel?
Brenner:
To put it simply: There can be no state of Israel as long as the Messiah has not come.
SPIEGEL:
The secular state anticipates divine events, which is why it is rejected?
Brenner:
Yes. And the state that would then come would of course not be founded by a secular person like Herzl - but would have to follow divine commandments.
SPIEGEL:
Do the Orthodox still believe that?
Brenner:
The so-called national-religious people, including many settlers, have long since become carriers of their own version of Zionism. Among the ultra-Orthodox, on the other hand, there is a small minority who radically reject the state to this day and burn the Israeli flag on Independence Day. But the vast majority, I would say, have come to terms with the state today. They know that he will guarantee them the religious education that is most important to them. And provides them - especially the right-wing governments - with all kinds of money.
SPIEGEL:
Israeli society is very diverse today. Does Zionism hold them together?
Brenner:
In addition to the Jewish immigrants from Europe, Arab countries, Ethiopia and the Soviet Union and their descendants, around 20 percent are Arab Israelis. There are religious and secular Jews, Muslims and Christians. What holds them all together? Probably not an ideology, but the desire to live in peace. What would be the minimum consensus in Germany?
SPIEGEL:
Once upon a time there was a national soccer team.
Brenner:
It works in Israel, where Jewish and Arab players play together.
SPIEGEL:
You just mentioned the settlers. Could you outline what their relationship to Zionism looks like?
Brenner:
In their self-image they see themselves as pioneers, as a Zionist avant-garde, just like the kibbutzim were in the past. If you look closely, there are of course differences. The kibbutz movement - even if it should not be idealized - was always about living together with the Arab population. At least in theory. It's different with the settlers. The state is less important to them than the country. For some Israelis, the settlers are a cancer, for others they embody the Zionist ideal - even though I think Ben-Gurion would turn in his grave if he heard that.
SPIEGEL:
Would you say that Zionism today is primarily at home on the right?
Brenner:
You have to be very careful. Before the October 7 massacre, there were huge demonstrations against the right-wing government every week. What was the symbol with which hundreds of thousands took to the streets? The Israel flag.
SPIEGEL:
Does that mean that there is still liberal Zionism alongside right-wing Zionism?
Brenner:
Absolutely. He may not be in the majority right now, but the minority is big and loud. These people don't want to let the right take Zionism away from them. But the discussion going on is not about old ideas. It is the discussion about the future: which state do we want?
SPIEGEL:
Today, outside of Israel, "Zionism" is primarily a swear word.
Brenner:
It was always like that in the Arab world. On the left it is more complicated: the Soviet Union initially supported Israel - and only turned away when it became clear that the country was leaning towards the West.
SPIEGEL:
The West German left was largely pro-Israel until 1967.
Brenner:
But that changed very quickly. After the defeat, the Arabs suddenly became David fighting Goliath. And this applies not only to the radical left - some RAF terrorists were trained in Palestinian camps - but also to the moderate left. One of the most important supporters of the Palestinians in Europe at the time was Bruno Kreisky in Austria, a Jewish social democrat. In retrospect, I would say that this anti-Zionist wave was at its peak then - in 1975 there was even a UN resolution that branded Zionism as racism and that was withdrawn in 1991, which doesn't happen often.
SPIEGEL:
What is it like today?
Brenner:
Since the failure of the peace process in the 1990s and the shift to the right that followed, we have seen a rise in anti-Zionism again.
SPIEGEL:
The sharpest objection raised against Zionism on the left today is that of so-called settler colonialism. Israel is a colonial project, it is said, a latecomer to the European conquests. And therefore illegitimate.
Brenner:
Of course the early Zionists were children of their time - that was the era of the colonies. They believed that Europe was superior. But of course they were not colonialists if you compare them with the British, French or German colonial rulers. It would be ahistorical to claim that they had no relationship with the land. There have been continuous Jewish communities in this country for thousands of years. That's a much closer connection than the people who emigrated to America on the "Mayflower" had. There would be more good arguments for giving New York back to the Native Americans than giving Israel back to the Arabs. There's a lot of hypocrisy involved. The tragedy is that two groups of people lay claim to the same land - and both rightly so. This is what makes the conflict so difficult.
SPIEGEL:
Do you mean that terms are being transferred from a Western context that don't fit?
Brenner:
That applies to all of Jewish history. What are the Jews? For some they are one people. For others, a religion. Still others believe that Jewishness is a culture. Or maybe a persecuted minority? Jews do not fit into these terms. Anyone who talks about the Israelis as “White Colonial Settlers” is actually asking: Why don’t they go back to Europe?
SPIEGEL:
Your answer?
Brenner:
That was tried for a few centuries, and after the Holocaust at the latest one has to say that it didn't really go well. In addition, half of Israelis cannot return to Europe. They come from Egypt or Iraq or Syria, countries from which they were expelled.
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Brenner, we thank you for the interview.