Excellent article that goes far toward explaining reasons why many Jews have abandoned Judaism. Of course there are other reasons, especially the Atheist values of Marx and the historical fact that possibly 2/3rds of Jews in the USA through the mid 20th century were serious Leftists, but "Canaanism" makes it clear that there was a cultural movement under way that was unrelated to Marxism which also eroded Jewish faith / Judaism per se. The two paragraphs in BF ( emphasis added ) are most interesting since that scholarship has held up quite well and is now pretty much standard in Academia and, of course, comes close to my own views of the subject. Acceptance was anything but automatic, however, but the work of Raphael Patai in the late 1960s pushed things far along , such that the obvious ( maybe even overwhelming ) majority of relevant contemporary scholars trace their work to The Hebrew Goddess of 1967. Billy --------------------------------------------------------------
Canaanism >From Wikipedia Canaanism was a cultural and ideological movement founded in 1939 which reached its peak in the 1940s among the _Jews_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew) of _Palestine_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine) . It has significantly impacted the course of _Israeli art_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Israeli_art&action=edit&redlink=1) , _literature_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_literature) , and spiritual and political thought. Its adherents were called Canaanites. The movement's original name was the Council for the Coalition of Hebrew Youth (_Hebrew_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language) : הוועד לגיבוש הנוער העברי); "Canaanism" was originally a pejorative term. It grew out of _Revisionist Zionism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_Zionism) and had "its early roots in European extreme right-wing movements, notably Italian fascism."_[1]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-0) Most of its members were part of the _Irgun_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun) or _Lehi_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(group)) ._[2]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-Kuz ar_13-1) The movement never had more than around two dozen registered members, but most of these were influential intellectuals and artists, giving the movement an influence far beyond its size._[3]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-kuzar107-2) The Canaanites believed that much of the Middle East had been a Hebrew-speaking civilization in antiquity._[4]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-Kuzar_12-3) They hoped to revive this civilization, creating a "Hebrew" nation, disconnected from the Jewish past, which would embrace the Middle East's Arab population as well._[4]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-Kuzar_12-3) They saw both "world Jewry and world Islam" as backward and medieval; Kuzar writes that the movement "exhibited an interesting blend of militarism and power politics toward the Arabs as an organized community on the one hand and a welcoming acceptance of them as individuals to be redeemed from medieval darkness on the other."_[2]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-Kuzar_13-1) The Canaanites and Judaism The movement was founded in 1939. In 1943 the Jewish-Palestinian poet _Yonatan Ratosh_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonatan_Ratosh) published an "Epistle to the Hebrew Youth", the first manifesto of the Canaanites. In this tract, Ratosh called upon Hebrew youth to disaffiliate themselves from _Judaism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism) , and declared that no meaningful bond united Hebrew youth residing in Palestine and Judaism. Ratosh argued that Judaism was not a _nation_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation) but a _religion_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion) , and as such it was universal, without territorial claims; one could be Jewish anywhere. For a nation to genuinely arise in Palestine, he maintained, the youth must uncouple from Judaism and form a _Hebrew_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew) nation with its own unique identity. (The term "Hebrew" had been associated with the Zionist aspiration to create a strong, self-confident "new Jew" since the late nineteenth century)._[5]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-4) _[6]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-5) The birthplace and geographical coordinates of this nation is the _Fertile Crescent_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_Crescent) . The Council for the Coalition of Hebrew Youth calls upon you as a Hebrew, as one for whom the Hebrew homeland is a homeland in actuality: not as vision, nor as desire; and not as solution for the Jewish question, nor as solution to cosmic questions, and not as solution to the variegated neuroses of those stricken by the diaspora. As one for whom the Hebrew language is a language in actuality and practicality, a mother tongue, a language of culture and of the soul; the one and only language for emotion and thought. As one whose character and intellect were determined in the Hebrew reality, whose internal landscape is the landscape of the nation and whose past is the past of the nation alone. As one who, despite the best efforts of rootless parents, teachers, statesmen and religious leaders, could not be made to like and affiliate with the Shtetl and the history of the diaspora, the pogroms and expulsions and martyrs, and whose natural estrangement from all prophets of Zionism, the fathers of Jewish Literature in the Hebrew tongue, and the diaspora mentality and the diaspora problem, cannot be expunged. Whereas all these were conferred upon you by force, like a borrowed cloth, faded and tattered and too-tight._[7]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-epistle-6) Out of their estrangement from Judaism the Canaanites were also estranged from _Zionism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism) . The _State of Israel_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Israel) ought to be, they argued, a Hebrew state, not a solution to the _Jewish Question_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Question) . Following the first _Aliyot_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah) , a generation arose in Palestine that spoke Hebrew as a native language and did not always identify with Judaism. Designating the Israeli People as a "Jewish People", the Canaanites argued, was misleading. If it was possible to be a Jew anywhere, then the State of Israel was merely an anecdote in the _history of Judaism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Judaism) . A nation must be rooted in a territory and a language —things which Judaism, in its very nature, could not provide. Canaanites and History The movement promoted the idea that the _Land of Israel_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Israel) was that of ancient Canaan (or, according to others, the whole of the _Fertile Crescent_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_Crescent) ) in which ancient peoples and cultures had lived, and that the historical occasion of the reemergence of an Israeli people constituted a veritable revival of these selfsame ancient Hebrews and their civilization, and consequently a rejection of religious Judaism in favor of a native and rooted Hebrew identity. Because the Canaanites sought to create in Israel a new people, they mandated the dissociation of _Israelis_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelis) from Judaism and the history of Judaism. In their stead they placed the culture and history of the _Ancient Near East_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_East) , which they considered the true historical reference. They argued that the people of the Land of Israel in the days of the biblical monarchs had not been Jewish but Hebrew, and had shared a cultural context with other peoples of the region. Citing contemporary _biblical criticism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_criticism) , the Canaanites argued that the _Tanakh_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh) reflected this ancient history, but only partly, since it had been compiled in the period of the _Second Temple_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple) by Jewish scribes who had rewritten the history of the region to suit their world-view. Much of the Canaanite effort was dedicated to researching the history of the _Middle East_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East) and its peoples. The Canaanites cited approvingly the work of _Umberto Cassuto_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Cassuto) , who translated _Ugaritic_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugaritic_language) poetry into Hebrew. (_Ugarit_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit) was an ancient city located in modern-day northern _Syria_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria) , where in the early 20th century many important ancient texts, written in the _Ugaritic language_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugaritic_language) , were discovered.) Ugaritic verse bore an uncanny resemblance to the language of the _Tanakh_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh) . The Canaanites argued that these texts proved that the people of the _Land of Israel_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Israel) had been much closer socially and culturally to other peoples of the region than they had been to Judaism. Canaanites and Literature In his book, Sifrut Yehudit ba-lashon ha-ʻIvrit (Jewish Literature in the Hebrew Tongue), Yonatan Ratosh sought to differentiate between _Hebrew literature_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_literature) and _Jewish literature_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_literature) written in the _Hebrew language_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language) . Jewish literature, Ratosh claimed, could be and was written in any number of languages. The ideas and writing style that characterize Jewish literature in Hebrew were not substantially different from those of Jewish literature in other languages. Ratosh and his fellow Canaanites (especially _Aharon Amir_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aharon_Amir) ) thought that Hebrew literature should be rooted to its historical origins in the _Land of Israel_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Israel) and the _Hebrew language_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language) . As an example they noted American literature, which in their mind was newly created for the new American people. Canaanite verse is often obscure to those unfamiliar with ancient Ugaritic and _Canaanite mythology_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_mythology) . One of the principal techniques used by the Canaanites to produce Hebrew literature was to adopt words and phrases (especially _hapax legomena_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon) , which the Canaanites regarded as traces of the original unedited Hebraic Tanakh) from the Tanakh, and use them in a poetic that approximated _biblical_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_poetry) and Ugaritic verse, especially in their use of repetitive structures and _parallelism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallelism_(rhetoric)) . The Canaanites did not rule out the use of new Hebrew words, but many of them did avoid _Mishnaic_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishnah) Hebrew. However, these characteristics represent only the core of the Canaanite movement, and not its full breadth. The late literary scholar _Baruch Kurzweil_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Kurzweil) argued that the Canaanites were not _sui generis_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis) , but a direct continuation (albeit a radical one) of the literature of _Micha Josef Berdyczewski_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha_Josef_Berdyczewski) and _Shaul Tchernichovsky_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaul_Tchernichovsky) . Scope and Influence The political influence of the Canaanites was limited, but their influence on literary and intellectual life in Israel was great. Among the avowed Canaanites were the poet _Yonatan Ratosh_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonatan_Ratosh) and thinkers such as _Edya Horon_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edya_Horon&action=edit&redlink=1) . A series of articles which Horon published in the journal "Keshet" in 1965 were compiled after his death into a book and published in 2000. These articles constituted political and cultural manifestos that sought to create a direct connection between _Semitic_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic) culture from the second millennium BCE and contemporary Israeli culture, relying on advancements in the fields of _archeology_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archeology) and research of _Semitic languages_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages) in _linguistics_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics) . Some of the artists who took after the movement were the sculptor _Yitzhak Danziger_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Danziger) (whose Nimrod became a visual emblem of the Canaanite idea), novelist _Benjamin Tammuz_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tammuz) , writer _Amos Kenan_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Kenan) , novelist and translator _Aharon Amir_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aharon_Amir) , thinker and linguist _Uzzi Ornan_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzzi_Ornan) and many others. The journalist _Uri Avnery_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Avnery) praised Horon's journal Shem in 1942 but did not subscribe to Ratosh's orthodoxy; in 1947 he derided the Canaanites as romantic, anachronistic, and divorced from reality._[8]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-7) However, the influence of Canaanism is still evident in some of his political thought, such as his 1947 proposal for a pan-Semitic union of Middle Eastern states._[9]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-8) Avnery, along with several former Canaanites (notably Kenan and _Boaz Evron_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaz_Evron) ) later changed positions drastically, becoming advocates for a Palestinian state._[10]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-9) Israeli leftists and secularists are sometimes accused of Canaanism or Canaanite influence by their opponents._[11]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-10) The idea of creating a new people in Palestine different from the Jewish life in the diaspora which preceded it never materialized in purist Canaanite conception, but nevertheless had a lasting affect on the self-understanding of many spheres of Israeli public life. Criticism The Canaanite movement, since soon after its inception, has met with heavy criticism. In 1945 _Nathan Alterman_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Alterman) published the poem Merivat Kayitz (later included in the collection Yr HaYona, published in 1958), which took issue with the central tenets of the Canaanite movement. Alterman and others claimed that so many years in the diaspora cannot be simply expunged. Alterman argued that no one should coerce the Jewish settlement to adopt an identity; its identity will be determined through its experience in time. Ratosh responded with an article in 1950 in which he claimed that Alterman was dodging important questions about Israeli identity. He argued that a return to ancient Hebrew traditions is not only feasible but necessary. Alterman was not the only person to speak out against the Canaanites. Among the important critics of the movement was _Baruch Kurzweil_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Kurzweil) , who published The Roots and Quintessence of the 'Young Hebrews' Movement in 1953, which analyzed and sharply criticized Canaanite ideas. Kurzweil argued that the Canaanite ambition to motivate the variegated ethnography of the region in a single direction was not as easy as the Canaanites believed. Kurzweil believed the Canaanites replaced _logos_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos) with _mythos_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythos) , producing a religious delusion: Since it itself neglects the historical continuity of its people, introduces obscure concepts into their political vision in its declarations of a 'Hebrew Land on the Euphrates', and relies on increasingly irrational argumentation, the movement is liable to find itself an escape into the realm of myth. The Young Hebrews are not the first to launch themselves into the task of mythic renewal. Their original contribution is rather stale. For over a hundred years, the world has pined for a return to the lap of myth. The escapes into various myths have hitherto inflicted disasters upon humanity. In the spirit of good faith, it is best to assume that the whole chapter of mythic renewal in European thought is unclear to them. For the moment, we shall content ourselves with this quotation from _Huizinga_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Huizinga) : "Barbarization sets in when, in an old culture… the vapors of the magic and fantastic rise up again from the seething brew of passions to cloud the understanding: when the mythos supplants the logos."_[12]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-huizinga-11) _[13]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canaanism&printable=yes#cite_note-kurzweil-12) In the same article Kurzweil argues that, if no viable alternative was found, the Canaanite movement might become the leading political ideology in Israel. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
