The Chabad Rabbi Advocating a Jewish State in 1872

While looking at yet another stupid anti-Israel academic paper, I saw that the Romanian writer was upset over an anti-Romanian quote from a 19th century Jew who railed against Romanian persecution of Jews.  

When I checked out that quote, I saw that it came from an 1872 book by Rabbi Haim Zvi Sneersohn, a great grandson of the first Lubavitcher Rebbe and second cousin, three times removed from the most recent Lubavitcher Rebbe.

The book, "Palestine and Roumania, a description of the Holy Land, and the past and present state of Roumania, and the Roumanian Jews" is a collection of essays, letters and articles by Sneersohn advocating for the rights of Jews worldwide. He famously met with President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869 and asked him to replace the American consul to Jerusalem. (The consul was indeed replaced but not because of the rabbi.)

But perhaps more remarkable is that the book also calls for a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine, 24 years before Herzl. 

Rabbi Sneersohn writes that while some Jews wait for the Messiah to arrive and miraculously re-establish a Jewish kingdom, and he awaits the Messiah with no less eagerness, he suggests that a more practical solution be promoted for Jews in Palestine in the meanwhile. Addressing the Alliance Israelite of Paris to help foster unity among Jews, he uses strikingly Zionist-style arguments for his proposed Jewish commonwealth in Palestine:

Take up at once the great cause of establishing a Jewish independent commonwealth in the land of our forefathers. Hoist up the flag of Jehudah on Mount Zion, and return the scattered sheep of Jacob to their rightful pasture....

If such a political Jewish existence is once established all the misfortunes of our race throughout the world will cease. Russia and Roumania will have to honor the Jewish flag, and our famishing brethren of all parts of the world will flock together to their land to cultivate the soil and to live in prosperity under their own vine and figtree...

The time has arrived when Jerusalem shall awake from her ashes and the mount of Zion shall become once more, and forever, the centre of our glory. We do not want now to renew the institution's sacrifices, or to waste our time in casuistic controversies about an anointed high-priest. These things remain mysteries to be solved by the revealtion of the Lord. Our duty is to help ourselves in the way we best can and leave the other things to the will of the Lord our God, in whose power we trust and rely.

Do not object to my plan because some of our brethren believe that the restoration of our .glory ought to be established in a different manner. I am certainly not one of those who have no faith in the prophecies of our Bible, or who reject the wisdom of our wise. But for the present state of things I do believe (and hope that every right-minded brother will coincide with me) that it is better for us to learn how to handle the spear than to waste our time in mourning over our vanished glory. It is better that we study the science of politics, than to waste our brains with the sharp casuistic dialogues concerning sacrifices and feast-offerings. It is better for us to unite in one council and devise means of bringing new life into the dried bones of Israel than to make synods for the purpose of establishing new ceremonies and abolishing old ones in our synagogues. It is better that we should have to sing songs of victory in the streets of Jerusalem, than to hear strangers sing their songs in the place of our sanctuary. It is better for Israel to dwell in their own land, work their own soil and have their wants satisfied by the blessings of God, than to go astray in the world like birds that have not their nests. And who will tell me that we have not the means of establishing a government of our own ?

Sneersohn is not the first rabbi to advocate a political return to Zion. Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai (1857) suggested a Jewish territory governed as an Ottoman tributary state. Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1862) was more practical, urging Jewish immigration, land purchases, agriculture, settlement organizations, and security arrangements. But Sneersohn, who was influenced by Kalischer and others, seems to have had a more expansive vision in advocating a truly independent Zion, with a Jewish flag, international recognition, and becoming a new political power in the Middle East. 

Unfortunately, Sneersohn was spurned by the religious community in Israel, who treated him as a heretic and even physically assaulted him when he moved to Tiberias, almost killing him. 

I don't see any evidence that Herzl was influenced by Sneersohn, who died in 1884, But Herzl's vision was in many ways very similar to Sneersohn's.

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