Background
Ahad Ha-Am was born in a small Ukranian town to a Hasidic family. (Hasidism is a Jewish pietistic sect begun in the 18th century. ) His father was Isaiah.
(excellent condition in the interior of the paperback book...)
excellent condition in the interior of the paperback book, pages are clean, binding is tight, however there is a heavy shelf wear, scuff spots and creases on the cover, 378 pages, third paperback edition 1973, published by B'Nai B'Rith Department of Adult Jewish Education (J-22)
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(First published in 1912. Ahad Ha-'Am's essays respond to...)
First published in 1912. Ahad Ha-'Am's essays respond to a variety of issues on Jewish cultural revival, history and religion. Translated into many languages, his collected essays were first published in 1904 in three volumes as 'Al Parashat Derachim' ('At the Crossroads'). Among his most important essays are 'The Spiritual Revivel,' 'Priest and Prophet' and 'Moses.'
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(Ahad Ha'am (the pen name of Asher Ginsberg) is mainly rem...)
Ahad Ha'am (the pen name of Asher Ginsberg) is mainly remembered as the 'father of cultural Zionism'. But there was much more to the man and his thought. These essays show him to have been a brilliant exponent of the art of the essayist. Moreover, as the introduction by Brian Klug explains, his ideas have a direct relevance today in confronting the future of Israel and Palestine and for thinking about cultural pluralism in aliberal democratic society. Ahad Ha'am has largely been consigned to history. These essays are selected with a view to making him available to us in the present, both as a major literary figure and as an original thinker.
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(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
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Ahad Ha-Am was born in a small Ukranian town to a Hasidic family. (Hasidism is a Jewish pietistic sect begun in the 18th century. ) His father was Isaiah.
At eight years old, he began to teach himself to read Russian.
His father sent him to heder until he was 12. When Isaiah became the administrator of a large estate in a village in the Kiev district, he moved the family there and took private tutors for his son, who excelled at his studies.
While joining the early Zionists (called "Hovvevi Zion" or "Lovers of Zion"), he looked beyond their political program to its cultural innovations. In Odessa, the center of Jewish life in the Ukraine, he found kindred souls whom he influenced even as they influenced him.
This early experience of moving from one world of thought to another taught him to look skeptically at "causes. " He wrote that Jewish intellectuals were advancing and retreating without any sense of order. At one moment they called upon the Jewish people to abandon the tradition; at another they summoned them to reaffirm national culture; at still other times they looked to modern educational systems. He suggested that Jewish intellectuals look to their past, find a continuity with the heart of Judaism, and become not a people "of the book" but a "literary people" whose intellectuals write as a reflection of a vivid cultural life rather than as a substitution for it.
Ahad Ha-Am became a mentor for an entire generation of Jewish intellectuals through his writings, which expressed these ideas. In 1889 he published his first essay, "Lo Zo Ha Derech" (This Is Not the Way). From then until his reflective "Sakh Ha-Kol" (Summing Up) he wrote on topical issues correcting and chastising the Jewish intellectual. His collection of essays At the Crossroads demonstrates his responsive creativity: he investigated the meaning of Jewish ethics as an answer to an English Reform rabbi's essay on Christianity. Essays on Jewish ritual, the Sabbath, and the meaning of tradition came in response to criticisms by Reform and Enlightened Jewish leaders. His view of Zion as a cultural center rather than as merely a political or practical reality was advanced in dialogue with Zionist congresses, speeches, and books.
In 1896 he founded a new type of Hebrew periodical— Hashiloah. The name is that of the river mentioned by Isaiah as one that flows slowly, a symbol of Ahad Ha-Am's Zionism. In that journal the leading Jewish intellectuals— Chaim Nahman Bialik, later Israel's poet laureate; Chaim Weizmann; and others—published their views. In 1899 Ahad Ha-Am founded a secret society, the B'nai Moshe (Sons of Moses). The name reflected his view of the prophetic role. Moses, unlike Aaron the priest, stood as a prophet to chastise and rebuke the people. Priests serve the people and give them what they need. Prophets are a creative opposition party. Although the secret society soon disbanded, Ahad Ha-Am's model of creative opposition was influential among Jewish leaders.
He settled in Tel Aviv in early 1922, where he served as a member of the Executive Committee of the city council until 1926. Plagued by ill health, Ginsberg died there in 1927.
Asher Ginzberg was an intellectual leader whose impression on the writers, politicians, and culture of modern Judaism was profound. His view of cultural Zionism was the inspiration for a rebirth of Hebrew literature and for a renewed interest in the history of Jewish philosophy and ethics.
When Ahad Ha-Am died he was honored by Jews around the world. He was a force that moderated the practical elements of Zionism so that the spiritual and cultural concerns could be given primacy. His revival of Jewish literature and a study of Jewish ethics made him a leader in Jewish thought, and his work for Zionism won him recognition.
Many cities in Israel have streets named after Ahad Ha'am. In Petah Tikva there is a high school named after him, Ahad Ha'am High School. There is also a room named after him at the Beit Ariela Library, The Ahad Ha'am Room.
(excellent condition in the interior of the paperback book...)
(Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)
(Ahad Ha'am (the pen name of Asher Ginsberg) is mainly rem...)
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
(First published in 1912. Ahad Ha-'Am's essays respond to...)
Ginsberg was critical of the dogmatic nature of Orthodox Judaism but remained loyal to his cultural heritage, especially the ethical ideals of Judaism.
He became disillusioned with Hasidism at the age of 13 (the age of Bar Mitzvah, Jewish maturity). For a time he was attracted to the Jewish Enlightenment that advocated integrating Judaism and modern thought. He rejected this thinking because it scorned the traditional forms of Judaism and its cultural tradition, which he considered important.
Not only did Ahad Ha-Am act as a spiritual mentor to Jewish thinkers and writers, but he was also an involved activist. He visited the land of Israel (then Palestine) four times—in 1891, 1896, 1899, and 1911—and finally settled there in 1921 until his death on January 2, 1927. Each of these visits occasioned a critical essay. He became more convinced of the possibility of a Jewish cultural revival in the land, but he clearly saw problems others neglected. He recognized the ethical question raised by the Muslim population, but few listened to him. He was also active in the Zionist congresses, although he counted himself as a "mourner at the wedding" at the first congress in 1897. He was an influential force acting against Theodor Herzl's territorialism in the famous Sixth (or Uganda) Congress in 1903, holding out for Israel as the only land in which the Jews could have a homeland. From 1903 to 1921 he lived in London. He was active working against the rabid anti-Zionist faction among assimilated British Jews. He had close ties with Chaim Weizmann and was involved in the negotiations that led to the Balfour Declaration in November 1917, although he was cautious about its real importance.
Quotations:
"More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews. "
"What is national freedom if not a people’s inner freedom to cultivate its abilities along the beaten path of its history?"
"We are used to thinking of the Arabs as primitive men of the desert, as a donkey-like nation that neither sees nor understands what is going around it. But this is a GREAT ERROR. The Arab, like all sons of Sham, has sharp and crafty mind . . . Should time come when life of our people in Palestine imposes to a smaller or greater extent on the natives, they WILL NOT easily step aside. "
"More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel. "
"If this be the Messiah, then I do not wish to see his coming. "
"The less their ability, the more their conceit. "
"This Moses, I say, this man of old time, whose existence and character you are trying to elucidate, matters to nobody but scholars like you. "
"We can't ignore the fact that ahead of us is a great war and this war is going to need significant preparation. "
"Historical truth is that, and that alone, which reveals the forces that go to mould the social life of mankind. "
"The right place for the League of Nations is not Geneva or the Hague, Ascher Ginsberg has dreamed of a Temple on Mount Zion where the representatives of all nations should dedicate a Temple of Eternal Peace. Only when all peoples of the earth shall go to THIS temple as pilgrims is eternal peace to become a fact. "
In 1873 не married Rivka Schneerson.
His daughter Leia Ginzberg was married to Shmuel Pevzner. Another daughter Rachel (Rose) was the second wife of publicist Mikhail Osorgin.
