Jirado San Case

At the root of Zionism lies a crisis: ; and with it an urgent political need, on political grounds, to create a sovereign Jewish state and with it the myths, symbols and rituals which would support and sustain rapid mobilization, socialization and integration. From its inception, This strong impetus was, from its inception,this impetus has been driven by a conception of strongly tied to the Land of Israel - Eretz Yisrael - that was heavily based in and with it to nature.

TRADITIONAL PERRECEPTIONS OF HISTORY AND NATURE:

In traditional Jewish thought, prior to modernity, there were only two states of being in history: that of Exile (i.e being outside the land of Israel, without sovereignty, and somehow unworthy of returning) and that of Redemption.

Jews everywhere prayed every day, three times a day, asking God that he bless the land of Israel, in the following terms:

"Bless this year for us, Lord our God, and all its types of produce for good. Grant dew and rain as a blessing on the face of the earth, and from its goodness satisfy us, blessing our as the best of years" The Koren siddur pp. 216

They did this while being outside the land, in exile. Thus, the claim can be made, that for Jews across the diaspora, nature was not the phenomena just outside theirseen outside their window, that they were alienated from their surroundings -. rReal nature was mythical, far, and only reachable through God's own actions.

Zionism, while on the whole accepting the traditional perception that the Jewish people`s real place, their natural place, was in Eretz Yisrael - was blazingly critical of traditional Judaism. Because heit finds value only in faith and Torah (i.e Jewish canonical works), the Ddiasporic Jew lives apart from the land and outside of history in a state of helplessness and alienation. If the Jewish people want to end their dire circumstances, to stop wandering and return to their true stable home, to their natural place, they must actively return to history and to nature.

With this as a back drop, I will now attempt to compare and contrast the different American paradigms of nature with Israeli ones. For this I will compare use the divisions of the periods and ways of thinking suggested by Professor Purdy regarding the American conceptions in the American case and Professor Deshalit regarding in the Israeli caseones .

ROMANTIC RURALISM

"And it shall come to pass when you work at your labor, that the spacious expanse of the universe will be your workplace, and you and nature the workers. The two of you will be of one heart and of one spirit. ... On that day, the fruit of your labor, child of Adam, will be: Life. For there will be life within your labor. ... On that day, child of Adam, you will know Nature, for your eyes and all your senses will be sufficiently clear, your heart sufficiently open, your mind sufficiently deep. On that day, the light of your wisdom and your science will no longer be a cold and terrible light, but it will be a living light, flowing abundantly from all of the worlds. On that day, child of Adam, you will know how to live with Nature, for it will be your will to know." Aharon David Gordon

This quote, written by the quintessential romantic of the early Aliyot , exemplifies the basic tenant sharedcommon amongst by romantic perceptions of nature: encounters with nature can and should be transformative and redemptive experiences. Tilling the earth (in the right way) will enable one to overcome alienation - to join hands with nature in order to unite oneyourself and the land. The early Zionist pioneers saw farming and hiking in Israel as purifying: "hHere on this lovely land of our ancestors/ all our hopes will be fulfilled/ here we shall live and create/ life of virtue and purity/ life of liberty" (popular song, De-shalit 72). Though this romantic perception in Zionism coincides with land development and occupation, it is not its beating heart - that, instead, is found lies in the concept that by farming and settling, the Jew remakes himself as a new being. Like many romantic views, this novelty also took the form of a return to the past, a return to a pre-exilic age, to the days of the Bbible - thus, imitatingpersonating the Fforefathers, pioneers became shepherds and farmers, moved away from the cities and into the rural areas. Additionaly, But, this romanticist visionsation of Nature, "answered a psychological need, arising from a feeling of anxietry towards a completely strange, foreign, and hostile environment"(De-shalit:74). For these urban teenagers, usually arriving alone to the ports of Palestine, the arid harsh environment was unknown and scary; , their toils and anxiety waswere much eased by their romance with the land.

Ruralism represents a moral glorification of country life, and a rejection of the city as being a decadent place, representing an inferior moral condition. It sees nature and its cultivation as a way to achieve eudemonia. The aesthetic of the pioneers married both the love of cultivated fields, with the appreciation of wilderness. It is bBoth the Ssierra Cclub and pProvidential Rrepublicanism.

Though this romanticism shares its most basic tenant with the American `romantic epiphany movement` - it is also in stark contrast with it. Unlike Romantic Epiphany which arose in contrast to and on the basis of more developmental attitudes (Pprovidential Rrepublicanism with its massive reclaiming and cultivating of land and progressive management's move to administrate nature) and could therefore become a simpler form of romantic engagement -- one that attempts not to transform nature, but to only experience it and learn its wisdom. -- Zionist Romantic Ruralism, being the first on the ground, was a necessary mix of cultivation and settlement as the transformative engagement with nature. The Ssierra Cclub could only exist on the basis of former development and infrastructure, the pioneers in Israel had to also build their houses, create their infrastructure and find their personal and national redemption in those callings.

DEVELOPMENT

"From the slopes of the Lebanon to the Dead Sea,

We shall cultivate you with our plows,

We shall plant for you and build for you,

We shall beautify you greatly.

We shall clothe you in a robe of cement and concrete

And spread out carpeted gardens for you.

Upon the redeemed soil of your fields

The