Cave/Jews, 8. Is there a Future for Jews and Judaism Outside of Israel?

When Zionism emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, secular Zionists argued that Jews would never be secure in the countries where they resided. In 1897, at the first Zionist Congress, Max Nordau, a co-founder of the World Zionist Organization, spoke about the condition of Jewry. Wherever Jews lived in large numbers, he declared, they were subject to misery. Proponents of Jewish emancipation argued that if legal restrictions against Jews were lifted, this would result in the amelioration of Jewish deprivation. This happened in the West, yet human beings do not live by bread alone. The old forms of misery, he stressed, have been replaced by new ones. Antisemitism exists even in the most enlightened countries. In The Jewish State, published prior to the Congress, Theodor Herzl argued that his campaign for a Jewish homeland was not utopian theory: rather, the enterprise was a realistic proposal arising from Jewish oppression and persecution.