Daniel Polisar on Herzl’s “The Menorah”

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Falling out annually during the American holiday season, Hanukkah in the United States can feel like little more than a Jewish version of Christmas, subsumed by America’s cultural melting pot. But the story of Hanukkah couldn’t be more countercultural: it is an affirmation of Jewish particularism and pride that celebrates the triumph of Jewish nationalism and the reclamation of Jewish sovereignty. So it is not surprising that this holiday and its most prominent symbol, the menorah, took on a special importance to Zionism’s early visionaries, and especially to Theodor Herzl.

In his beautiful essay, “The Menorah,” published in the Zionist newspaper Die Welt in December of 1897, Herzl writes of an enlightened Jew’s rediscovery of Hanukkah and celebration of the holiday with his children. The piece—almost certainly autobiographical—is a profound meditation on Jewish tradition, Zionist renewal, and the connection between Jewish nationalism and Jewish faith.

In this podcast, Tikvah’s Alan Rubenstein is joined by Herzl expert Dr. Daniel Polisar of Shalem College for a discussion of this essay. Dr. Polisar—who recently taught an online course for the Tikvah Fund on “Theodor Herzl: The Birth of Political Zionism”—guides us through a close reading of the text of “The Menorah,” uncovering the political meaning and historical background behind the essay. In doing so, he helps us feel a renewed sense of Jewish pride ahead of the holiday.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble as well as “Engineered to Perfection” by Peter Nickalls.

If you enjoy this podcast and want to hear more from Dr. Polisar, we hope you will enroll in his online course on Theodor Herzl at Courses.TikvahFund.org.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Listeners of the Tikva podcast probably need no persuading that Theodore Herzl was one of the most impressive visionaries of the modern era.
0:16.0	He was a statesman for the Jews before there was a state.
0:20.0	And in fact, his visionary, one can almost say
0:23.2	prophetic statesmanship, is probably the single most important reason that the Jewish state came
0:28.6	into being. As with any historical figure of legendary stature, Hurtzl is more appreciated than he is
0:34.7	understood. To partially remedy this, the Tikva Fund has offered courses
0:38.5	on Herzl to students at various levels over the years, and the person we have frequently
0:43.6	invited to lead those courses is my guest today on the Tikva podcast, Dr. Daniel Polisar.
0:49.4	Dr. Polisar is one of the founders of Shalem College in Israel, and currently its executive vice president.
0:55.5	Welcome, Dan. Thanks.
0:57.1	Dr. Polisar's most ambitious course on Hurtzl for Tikva was one he taught in the summer of 2017
1:02.9	called Theodore Herzl, the birth of political Zionism. Our listeners will be happy to hear
1:08.3	that this course is now available digitally at
1:11.0	Courses.tikvafund.org with a carefully prepared study guide and other enhancements.
1:16.4	I sat in on that course when it was delivered live for a group of lucky college students
1:21.7	and young professionals, and I can say that it is a phenomenal education in the life and
1:26.5	legacy of this remarkable man.
1:28.3	Today on our podcast, we will dive into one facet of Herzl's contested legacy, his personal
1:34.9	relationship to the Jewish religion, and how this personal engagement affected his political
1:40.6	leadership. Political Zionism, of which he is rightly seen as the founder,
1:44.5	was a movement that at first most religious Jews opposed on principle,
1:49.3	believing that only a pious and scrupulously observant Jew could lead the Jewish people
	...

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