Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People - Rafapal

262 THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
riography, the Zionist right did not have a monopoly on the essentialist concept
of the nation. Even the well-known Marxist Ber Borochov was not free from
"biology." Zionist socialism shared the same conceptual mechanisms, and it,
too, padded them with universalist rhetoric, though of a different sort.
As we saw in the third chapter, Borochov regarded the Palestinian fellahin
as an integral part of the Jewish race, a population that could easily be welded
into the steel structure of socialist Zionism. So did his disciples and the future
founders of the State of Israel, Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi—until the
Arab uprising of 1929. Initially Borochov contended that, since the locals were
as much descendants of the ancient people of Judea as were all the world's
Jews, they should be taken back into the body of the nation, while becoming
acculturated in a secular manner. The Zionist left would never have considered
admitting into the warm bosom of the Jewish people Muslim peasants of a
different biological origin. But after the 1929 "pogroms" Borochov reversed
this opinion with astonishing speed.
Arthur Ruppin was another leftist Zionist whose political outlook was
profoundly shaken by the fateful events of 1929. That was when he began to
distance himself from the pacifist Brith Shalom ("Peace Alliance") group, a
movement of intellectuals who strove to reach an accommodation with the
Arab population by renouncing the demand for a sovereign Jewish majority
in Palestine. Ruppin became convinced—correctly, as it happens—that a
national-colonialist clash was inescapable, and became a committed Zionist.
Ruppin is a unique and fascinating figure in the history of Zionism. His
career in the Jewish national movement began, like Kohn's, in the new little
"blood community" group of the Bar Kokhba circle in Prague. But earlier still, in
1900, he took part in an essay competition in Germany on the question, "What
may be learned from the theory of evolution about internal political developments
and political legislation?" The first prize went to Wilhelm Schallmayer,
a pioneer of eugenics, whom the Nazis would greatly admire after his death.
The second prize went to Ruppin for a paper that discussed Darwinism and the
social sciences, and that two years later became his doctoral dissertation.
Ruppin was a confirmed Darwinist throughout his life. He believed that
the Jewish nation was primarily a biological entity. He was aware that the Jews
were not a "pure race," since in the course of their wanderings in the world
they had absorbed alien elements. Nevertheless, they constituted a hereditary
unit, which alone gave substance to their national demands.
[T]his very likeness to the Asiatic peoples, from whom they have been
separated for 2,000 years, shows that the Jews have remained unchanged, and