Sublime

Born in 1856 in Ukraine (four years before Herzl’s birth), Asher Zvi Ginzberg took on the pen name Ahad Ha’am (“One of the People”), by which he is

After the publication of Herzl’s Altneuland in 1902, the battle between Herzl and Ahad Ha’am (who was by then Herzl’s most vociferous critic) grew even uglier. But just a year later, the pogrom in Kishinev led even the apolitical Ahad Ha’am to back off—everyone understood that the Jewish people needed to set aside differences and to prepare a way t

the years of 2000 to 2004 turned Israelis into centrists. They agreed with the Left that creating a Palestinian state was critical for Israel, so that Israel would not continue to rule over millions of Palestinians. Yet they also agreed with the Right that creating a Palestinian state would put Israel in grave danger.21 They were stuck. ON NOVEMBER

But suicide bombings in the cities stopped. And this is what is so frustrating about being a liberal in that neighborhood. We hate that this is happening to Palestinian families, but what are our options? What are we supposed to do? The violence had to stop.

After his father fell upon difficult times (another biographical detail common to many of the early Zionist leaders), Ahad Ha’am decided to move to Odessa, the hub of the intellectual Jewish renaissance to which he was so drawn. The sole Russian city in which Jews were permitted to live, Odessa was home to a thriving Jewish intellectual milieu; man

Instead of thanks,” said Peres, “we got bombs.”4 He moved Israel’s elections up by six months, confident that Israelis, repulsed by the Right’s assassination of Rabin, would elect him to lead the country. Indeed, polls showed him with a significant lead over his rival, Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party.