Zionism and Judaism
by David Novak
Cambridge University Press, 2016

Introduction

“Why should anyone be a Zionist, a supporter of a Jewish state in the land of Israel?  Why should there be a Jewish state in the land of Israel?”  While Zionists have become increasingly adept at establishing as a political fact that a Jewish state in the land of Israel has been internationally recognized, Zionists have spent considerably less time reflecting philosophically on why anyone should support the existence of a Jewish state in the land of Israel in the first place.  In his book, Zionism and Judaism: A New Theory, Jewish theologian and Zionist, Rabbi Dr. David Novak, the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies Emeritus at the University of Toronto, aims to remedy this state of affairs by philosophically addressing these questions.

Impetus for Zionism and Judaism

Novak relates that his decision to author a book addressing the aforementioned questions was occasioned by “the fact that the legitimacy of the State of Israel, the object of the Zionist project, is under philosophical-theoretical attack, especially by those who argue that Zionism is antithetical to Judaism.”[1]  According to Novak, those arguing that Zionism and Judaism are incompatible “see Zionism making Jewishly unwarranted claims on them, and on all other Jews as well […] [T]heir anti-Zionism is not their rejection of Judaism; instead it is their mistaken notion that Zionism and Judaism are incompatible, even at odds with each other.”[2]  In the following passage, Novak describes how he believes Zionists should respond to this claim about the incompatibility of Zionism and Judaism:

Zionists, therefore, need to show why a people needs a purpose for its existence, and why the Jews need such a purpose especially.  Zionists need to show why their Zionist commitment to the State of Israel is rooted in the Jewish tradition, and then how Zionism furthers rather than hinders the great purpose for which Jews and Judaism exist and ought to continue to exist.  Accordingly, one has to show by means of rational arguments why Zionism is integral to Judaism, and why anti-Zionism is an aberration from Judaism.[3]

In short, Novak believes that Zionists must demonstrate how Zionism and Judaism are not mutually exclusive, but rather integrally linked.  The fact that “a significant number of rabbinical students and early career rabbis […] identify as non-Zionist or anti-Zionist, and […] lack the connection to Israel that has for decades been a key part of what it means to be Jewish in the diaspora”[4] underscores the urgency and importance of this pedagogical task.

Aim of Zionism and Judaism

In his book, Novak seeks to demonstrate precisely how Zionism and Judaism are integrally linked.  In doing so, Novak demonstrates that “Zionism is deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition, and that the celebration of the founding and continuation of the State of Israel (whether secular or religious) is a justified moral obligation.”[5]  Novak argues that “Zionism is a coherent political stance only when it is intelligently rooted in Judaism, especially in the classical Jewish doctrine of G[-]d’s election of the people of Israel and the commandment to them to settle the land of Israel.”[6]  Accordingly, Novak’s book is intended primarily for Jewish readers, but the author also aims to show non-Jews “how they can include themselves in this reflection on Zionism, even in the Zionist project, in a way that is consistent with their own traditions and ideologies.  They, too, need to see how integral Zionism is to the Jewish tradition: past, present, and future.”[7]

Different Audiences for Zionism and Judaism

Novak identifies four types of Jews and four types of non-Jews in relation to Zionism.

The four types of Jews Novak identifies are those

1. with no commitment to either Judaism or Zionism[8]

2. who have a commitment to Judaism, but who have no commitment to Zionism[9]

3. for whom Zionism has become a substitute for Judaism[10]

4. for whom their Zionism is a unique manifestation of their Judaism in and for the modern world[11]

The four types of non-Jews who Novak believes “might well be interested in this book, who might well understand its arguments in one way or another, or who might empathize or even sympathize with them”[12] are

1. Christians who see themselves to be part of G[-]d’s covenant with Israel/the Jewish people, who do not think the Church has supplanted the Jewish people as Israel[13]

2. Muslims who can appreciate why Jews need a state of their own, which is theologically legitimated by its being founded in its acceptance of a divine command to establish such a theopolitical entity[14]

3. Secular non-Jews, who see analogues in Zionism to their own nationalism, and who appreciate how many Zionists have tried to make the Jewish nation-state eschew the type of nationalism that degenerates into racism, chauvinism, and militarism[15]

4. Non-Jews who admire the determination of Israel to survive against great odds, and who want their own people to learn how the Jews have done that best when they have been faithful to the cultural resources of the Jewish tradition[16]

Given Novak’s stated intention to show how non-Jews could “include themselves in this reflection on Zionism […] in a way that is consistent with their own traditions and ideologies,” it is disappointing to see little attention paid in the book to addressing this subject.  Novak states, “In fact, it is sometimes embarrassing for Jewish Zionists to learn that there are Christian Zionists who have better biblically based theological arguments for their Zionism than many Jews have for their own Zionism.”[17]  Unfortunately, Novak does not elaborate here on the theological arguments employed by Christian Zionists, so readers are left to wonder what their actual arguments are.  Novak’s book includes the following passage about how Christians appreciate a Jewish theological claim on the land of Israel:

Because Jews and Christians share the Hebrew Bible as divine revelation, the Jewish theological claim on the land of Israel is one that is theologically valid for them as well.  Christians who are faithful to their own tradition, therefore, believe or should believe that G[-]d’s covenant with the Jewish people and with the land of Israel as their inheritance is everlasting and forever valid.[18]

However, a case for the continuing positive theological significance of the land of Israel for Christians could arguably be strengthened by showing Christian readers where this belief might be found not only in the Hebrew Bible, but also in the New Testament, as other scholars, like Gerald McDermott and Mark Kinzer, have aimed to show.  The urgency of this task for Zionists would seem to be all the more apparent given data indicating declining support for Israel among young US evangelicals and attempts to delegitimize Evangelical support for Israel, a phenomenon discussed in CAMERA’s monograph, The Assault on Evangelical Support for Israel, and addressed by the Director of CAMERA’s Partnership of Christians and Jews, Tricia Miller, PhD, as well as former CAMERA Christian Media Analyst Dexter Van Zile.

Similarly, Novak seems to suggest that Muslims might appreciate a Jewish theological legitimation of the land of Israel rooted in a divine command to establish a theopolitical entity, but fails to explain why he believes Muslims would find this belief compelling.  The absence of such an explanation is all the more puzzling given Novak’s claim that it is “questionable”[19] whether Muslims could accept a “theological claim”[20] about the land of Israel considered acceptable to Christians.  Novak’s suggestion that Muslims might appreciate his theological defense of Zionism is also striking given his understanding of the experience of applying Islamic law in Muslim-majority states as a cautionary tale in discussing the prospect of a halakhic state of Israel (“Think of those Muslims who want the states in which they are the overwhelming majority to be governed according to shari’ah law and the political havoc that has wreaked”[21]).  Nevertheless, some Islamic leaders have mounted a theological defense of Zionism rooted in the Quran and acceptable to faithful Muslims.

Chapters of Zionism and Judaism

Each chapter of Novak’s book seeks to address a question relevant to the general subject of his book:

Chapter 1: Why Zionism?

Chapter 2: Was Spinoza the First Zionist?

Chapter 3: Secular Zionism: Political or Cultural?

Chapter 4: Should Israel Be a Theocracy?

Chapter 5: Why the Jews and Why the Land of Israel?

Chapter 6: Can the State of Israel Be Both Jewish and Democratic?

Chapter 7: What Could Be the Status of Non-Jews in a Jewish State?

Chapter 8: What is the Connection Between the Holocaust and the State of Israel?

In his book, Novak discusses how important secular and religious figures approached Zionism, including Theodor Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, Ahad Ha’Am, Chaim Hirschensohn, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Abraham Isaac Kook, and Tzvi Yehudah Kook.  Novak’s command of the Jewish literary tradition is evident throughout his book as he expertly guides readers through a wide array of relevant Jewish texts, including the biblical canon, medieval rabbinic commentaries, halakhic responsa, and modern Jewish philosophical works.

In Chapter 3, Novak’s critical assessment of cultural Zionism seems to be influenced by his negative view of Ahad Ha’Am’s secularism, but this assessment does not grapple with the fact that cultural Zionist intellectuals whom Ahad Ha’Am influenced, like Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem, “reincorporated the theistic component in their cultural Zionist vision, albeit in non-halakhic form.”[22]  In the same chapter, Novak argues that “the Torah teaches that the Jews were not indigenous to the land of Israel, but that they were sent there by G[-]d at a certain time, and that they will be returned there at a certain time.”[23]

In Chapter 5, Novak, further, claims that “the ‘historic connection’ of the Jewish people seems rather tenuous in the face of the Palestinian Arabs who make the same historical claim on the land, and it seems with much more history of living in the land on their side.”[24]  While one may agree or disagree with Novak’s understanding of biblical teaching regarding Jewish indigeneity in connection with the land of Israel, and reasonable minds can disagree about the wisdom of adjudicating between competing indigenous narratives, the historical evidence for Jewish indigenous origins in the land of Israel is overwhelming.  As the distinguished biblical scholar, Richard Elliott Friedman, states,

He [the distinguished archaeologist William Dever] wrote that there is “overwhelming archaeological evidence today of largely indigenous origins for early Israel.”  Israel was indigenous […] They were just there as far back as we can trace them […] The Israelite tribes had “largely indigenous origins.”  Most of them were in Israel all along.[25]

It is unclear why Novak thinks Palestinian Arabs have “much more history of living in the land on their side.”  The Jewish claim to the land goes back three millennia, while the Palestinian claim to the territory dates to the 1800s.[26]  Many Jewish residents in the land have roots in the territory that go back further in the past than local Arabs.[27]  It is likely that most of the people known today as Palestinians arrived in the land as recently as Zionists.[28]

Novak helpfully informs readers when they can skip a particular section, like the latter part of Chapter 4, “without losing the train of thought of the overall argument of the book.”[29]

Contemporary followers of Israeli domestic politics might find Chapter 6 particularly relevant given the book’s theological and philosophical appraisal of the State of Israel’s Declaration of Independence and lack of a constitution in comparative perspective with a theological and philosophical appraisal of similar American and Canadian documents.  In this same chapter, Novak, in the context of discussing the status of non-Jews in a Jewish state, argues that

living according to these basic norms [called the “Noahide Commandments” in Jewish tradition] is the way G[-]d wants all human persons to live as the image of G[-]d in the world.  Arguably, to be sure, this can be seen as the Jewish version of natural law, that is, moral law that applies to every human being, and that is knowable to every rational human person.[30]

The claim that “Noahide Commandments” could be considered “the Jewish version of natural law” has come under criticism by other scholars.  For example, Christine Hayes, the Robert F. and Patricia R. Weis Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University, critically responds to Novak’s claim in the following passage:

Novak’s assertion—that the general (nonprescriptive) and speculative nature of the Noahide laws supports the claim that they are a kind of Jewish natural law—is not convincing.  First, much of rabbinic law in the same period was speculative and inoperable owing to the lack of Jewish autonomy and changed historical circumstances (e.g., the loss of the sacrificial cult), but Novak would certainly not characterize it as natural law on those grounds.  Second, the derivation of these laws from Scriptural texts, sometimes against the dictates of reason […], cannot be dismissed out of hand as purely allusive rather than genuinely generative—it says something about the rabbinic conception of these laws that they are linked to an authoritative text even on the view that these links are not genuinely exegetical.  Third, the Noahide laws as articulated by the rabbis are in fact prescriptive rules.  The prohibition against theft, even though somewhat general in character, is not a mere statement of principle regarding natural rights to property but a concrete prescriptive rule, no less than the prohibition against eating a limb torn from a living animal, which is also among the seven Noahide commandments.[31]

Conclusion

Novak is to be commended for the intellectual rigor and clarity of thought evident in his theological and philosophical investigation into the questions of why anyone should be a Zionist and why there should be a Jewish state in the land of Israel.  In the course of this investigation, Novak creatively argues for a “new theory” of Zionism that is “theistic, halakhic, democratic, and non-Messianic.”[32] Even if one disagrees with one or another point in Novak’s book, the Zionist reader interested in gaining a better understanding of how Zionism and Judaism relate to one another and interested in combating the anti-Zionist claim about the incompatibility of Zionism and Judaism will find in Zionism and Judaism intellectually stimulating material from which much can be learned.

–Reviewed by David Orenstein/July 6, 2025

[1] Novak, David. Zionism and Judaism: A New Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. xiii.

[2] Ibid. p. 16.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Gabby Deutch, “At Conservative and Reform Rabbinical Schools, a Debate Over Red Lines on Anti-Zionism,” Jewish Insider, 13 February 2024, https://jewishinsider.com/2024/02/jewish-rabbinical-schools-conservative-reform-synagogues-israel-anti-zionism/.

[5] Novak, Zionism and Judaism, pp. xiii-xiv.

[6] Ibid. p. I.

[7] Ibid. p. 21.

[8] Ibid. p. 18.

[9] Ibid. p. 19.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid. p. 20.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid. p. 21.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid. p. 143.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid. p. 158.

[22] Kinzer, Mark. Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen: The Resurrected Messiah, the Jewish People, and the Land of Promise. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2018, pp. 247-248.

[23] Novak, Zionism and Judaism, p. 71.

[24] Ibid. p. 141.

[25] Friedman, Richard Elliott. The Exodus: How It Happened and Why It Matters. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2017, p. 50.

[26] Nelson, Cary. Israel Denial. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019, p. 123.

[27] Dershowitz, Alan M. Defending Israel: The Story of My Relationship with My Most Challenging Client. New York: St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2019, p. 23.

[28] Pipes, Daniel, “A Muslim Aliyah Paralleled the Jewish Aliyah: Part I, to 1948,” Middle East Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3, Summer 2024 https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/muslim-aliyah.

[29] Novak, Zionism and Judaism, p. xv.

[30] Ibid. p. 172.

[31] Hayes, Christine. What’s Divine about Divine Law?: Early Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015, p. 355.

[32] Kinzer, Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen, p. 249.