Zionism is a political movement to re-establish the sovereignty of the Jewish people in their ancient homeland. Modern Zionism arose in the mid-1800s, like other nationalist movements at that time. However, it has MUCH deeper roots.
Israel is where Jews were sovereign for some 1500 years before Christ, and Israel has always been central to Jewish prayer, poetry, music, dreaming and longing for two millennia of exile.
Since the Jewish people lost sovereignty in Israel, the region has only been ruled as a colony by foreign empires, never by its inhabitants (which always included Jews) … until the Jewish people reclaimed sovereign independence in 1948. Israel is the only place where Jews, as a collective, have sovereignty, self-determination and the ability to create an entire Jewish society: steeped in the language, values, calendar, history, art, music, poetry and wisdom of the Jewish people. To understand the profound Jewish love of Zion, I suggest reading two poems, which resonate with inexorable power in the heart of every Jew…
The first, a famous Zion poem, drawn from Psalm 48:3, is a poem of longing for Jerusalem from ‘far west’ Spain, a thousand years ago.
‘Beautiful heights’ by Yehuda HaLevi
Beautiful heights, joy of the world, city of the great King —
my soul longs for you from the ends of the west.
The multitude of my mercies stirs when I remember the ancient days,
your glory that went into exile, your dwelling that was destroyed.
Who will carry me on eagles’ wings
that I might drench your dust with my tears and mingle with it?
I have sought you — even though your king is gone from you, even though
where once was the balm of Gilead, now crawls the serpent, the viper and the scorpion.
Yet I will tenderly cherish your stones and kiss them,
and the taste of your clods of earth shall be sweeter to my mouth than honey.
A remarkable poem. HaLevi wrote it from Spain — the far western edge of the Jewish world — yearning for Jerusalem in ruins yet insisting he would kiss her very stones and find her dust sweeter than honey.
The eagle-wings image echoes Exodus, and the serpents and scorpions echo the wilderness wanderings.
The ‘balm of Gilead’ is a phrase from Jeremiah 8:22: ‘Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is the health of my people not recovered?’ Gilead was a mountainous, forested region east of the Jordan River, known in antiquity for producing an aromatic resin, oil, or spice, prized for its healing and soothing properties and used medicinally. In Jeremiah, the phrase is used metaphorically: the prophet laments that despite Judah having access to real healing (the famous balm), the nation has no spiritual remedy for its moral and political collapse. It’s a rhetorical question expressing despair over the people’s unhealed suffering. The phrase later became a broader idiom for something that provides comfort or spiritual healing.
Israel is where Jews were sovereign for some 1500 years before Christ, and Israel has always been central to Jewish prayer, poetry, music, dreaming and longing for two millennia of exile.
HaLevi’s poem compresses the whole of Jewish memory into ten lines….
The second poem, written in Yemen several hundred years later, continues in the same spirit of yearning for Zion.
‘Beautiful City’ by Rabbi Zecharia Al-Zahiri
Beautiful city, joy of your towns —
faithful are you to your king and your princes.
When I remember the splendour of your great hosts,
my soul pines to dwell in your courtyards.
Who will grant me wings to fly like doves,
that I might kiss your stones and cherish your dust?
My soul has not rested since the day the beloved wandered,
since the day the children were exiled from the home where they dwelled.
I cast my plea before the Master of the world —
may He raise up your gates, may He rebuild your inner chambers.
May we witness your joy as in the years of old,
when your salvation comes to rebuild your walls.
Then you shall rejoice forever and dwell in safety,
and peace shall multiply among your children from every side.
You can feel how Al-Zahiri is consciously writing in conversation with HaLevi — the dove wings answering HaLevi’s eagle wings, the kissing of stones echoing line for line. Writing from Yemen four centuries later, he’s not imitating so much as continuing the same unbroken lament and longing for Zion: a longing that has continued in the Jewish heart for two millennia, and which we are witnessing being fulfilled today.
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