From “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” through “Return to Zion” to “Conquest of the Land”: Paradigm shifts and sanctified reenactments in building the Jewish state

Abstract

Critical historical junctures sometimes cause religious or national groups to shift from one ontological and behavioral paradigm to qualitatively different ones. This paper describes a persuasive tool used to justify these shifts: The new policy is portrayed as a reenactment of an event from the group's sanctified past. Three such reenactments advocating three very different types of relations between Halachic Jews and the Land of Israel/Palestine, the nations of the world and the non-Jewish groups residing in the land are examined: The Diaspora “Do not arouse or awaken love” which warns Jews against antagonistic en-masse Jewish immigration to the land; “Shivat Zion,” the classical Zionistic approach, which is inspired by the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon under Emperor Cyrus (6th century BCE); and the Conquest of the Land reenactment, the post-1967 religious Zionism approach which is inspired by Joshua's mythical campaign against the idolatrous Canaanite nations and which advocates exclusive Jewish rights to the land and intolerance of non-Jews. The symbologies, group identities and policies deriving from these reenactment metaphors in the process of Israeli state building are described.