Home and Homeland: Isaiah Berlin's Zionism

In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 57, Heft 3, S. 66-72

Abstract

Explores Berlin's thinking on Zionism, which, it is argued, is influenced by the idea of nation as extended family & its territory as home, & his notion of psychological freedom, which is tied to the idea of homeland as home. It is noted that Berlin shifted away from "sense-centered" to "sensibility-centered" philosophy. Attention is then given to the impact of the term "national home" on the Zionist movement (& Berlin); Berlin's interpretation of Johann Gottfried Herder's notion of "feeling at home"; the meaning of home in terms of the kind of freedom to be found there; the idea of the uncanny, particularly Leo Pinsker's view; a kind of self-consciousness that is bad for human freedom; & social anxiety as a plight of Jews in exile. D. Edelman