A Great Zionist Thinker on the Jews’ Moral and Material Crisis

Born into a wealthy ḥasidic family, Asher Ginsberg (1856-1927)—better known by his pen name Aḥad Ha’am—rejected religious belief as a youth but remained deeply committed to preserving Jewish tradition and the Jewish nation. Thanks to his convictions and his profuse literary talent, he became the leader of the Russian Zionist movement and one of the era’s most compelling and profound Hebrew essayists. Allan Arkush discusses what Aḥad Ha’am saw as the twin problems confronting the Jews of his day: on the one hand, the material threats of poverty and persecution faced by East European Jews and, on the other hand, the threat of assimilation and deracination faced by those in the West. (Interview by Eric Cohen. Audio, 42 minutes.)