Background
Ahad, ha-Am was born on August 18, 1856 in Skwira, Kiev Province.
Ahad, ha-Am was born on August 18, 1856 in Skwira, Kiev Province.
Ahad ha-Am' means ‘one of the people’. He argued that Judaism’s cultural identity should not be lost in the contemporary political Zionist debate. He oscillated between positivism and idealism, whilst emphasising the importance of nationhood: the nation has the ‘will to live’; i.e. a love for the Jewish nation must be rekindled in European Jewry by equating Judaism with absolute justice and pure morality, as revealed by the Biblical prophets. He held that the essence of Judaism is absolute monotheism. Although not systematic, Ahad ha-Am’s philosophy has influenced modern Jewish and Zionist thought, stimulating critical debate.