{"id":17,"date":"2009-04-12T02:52:52","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T02:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html"},"modified":"2009-04-12T02:52:52","modified_gmt":"2009-04-12T02:52:52","slug":"happy-easter-to-my-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html","title":{"rendered":"How Christians Invented Zionism: An Easter Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Happy Easter to my Christian friends! American Jews have lots to be grateful for to you. For one, there&#8217;s a historical argument to be made that American Christians invented modern Zionism.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>That thesis relates to Passover. Yesterday in synagogues around the world, as part of the intermediate Sabbath of the festival, Jews read the passage from Ezekiel (37:1-14) that describes the vision of the valley of dry bones that miraculously take on flesh and live again.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Traditionally, some Jews understood the prophecy as referring to the resurrection of the dead that will take place at some point following the Messianic redemption. The resurrection will take place at Passover, according to this view, hence the reading from Ezekiel. There are other opinions as well.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As my friend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rabbidaniellapin.com\/index.php\">Rabbi Daniel Lapin<\/a> reminded us at Shabbat lunch yesterday, an influential forebear of the two Presidents Bush, George Bush, a professor at New York University, also used the image as the title of his bestselling book of 1844, <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">Valley of Vision: The Dry Bones of Israel Revived<\/span>.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div>In his recent and excellent book\u00a0<span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Power-Faith-Fantasy-America-Present\/dp\/0393330303\/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1239523133&amp;sr=1-2\">Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present<\/a><\/span>, the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shalemcenter.org.il\/\"> Shalem Center<\/a>&#8216;s Michael Oren recounts:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\"><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: 27px\">Bush called for &#8220;elevating&#8221; the Jews &#8220;to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of the earth by re-creating their state in Palestine. Such restitution would benefit all of mankind, forming a &#8220;link of communication&#8221; between humanity and God. &#8220;It will blaze in notoriety,&#8221; Bush foretold. &#8220;It will flash a splendid demonstration upon all kindreds and tongues of the truth.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>But by that point American Christian proto-Zionism had been gathering steam for many years. In the colonial period, theologian Cotton Mather and Harvard president\u00a0Increase Mather\u00a0&#8220;called for the destruction of the Ottoman empire to make way for the Jews&#8217; return.&#8221; Writes Oren:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\"><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: 27px\">More ardently still, John Adams envisioned &#8220;a hundred thousand Israelites&#8230;[as] well disciplined as the French army&#8221; marching into Palestine and conquering it. &#8220;I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation,&#8221; the ex-president wrote&#8230;in 1819.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What were the Jews themeselvs thinking, meanwhile? The traditional theological view prevailed that the longed for return to Zion should only come as part of the train of events following the appearance of the Messiah. I have<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewcy.com\/feature\/2007-05-09\/beyond_zionism\"> some sympathy for this perspective<\/a>, well grounded as it is in the classical sources.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In\u00a0<span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/History-Israel-Rise-Zionism-Time\/dp\/0375711325\/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1239523315&amp;sr=8-1\">A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time<\/a><\/span>, Howard M. Sachar traces that &#8220;rise&#8221; back as early as 1839 and 1843 when two Orthodox rabbis Judah Alkalai and Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, of Belgrade and East Prussia respectively, broached the idea of a pre-Messianic movement of return. Sachar calls <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">them<\/span> the &#8220;forerunners of Zionism.&#8221; He says nothing of the earlier, Christian forerunners.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It&#8217;s ironic that in Jewish life today, at least in the United States, a given idea&#8217;s popular association with Christians &#8212; whatever the idea&#8217;s merits, whatever its genuine Jewish bona fides &#8212; has the general effect of rendering it\u00a0<span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">treif<\/span>, non-kosher, or at least highly suspicious in the view of many Jews. One thinks of intelligent design.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Yet the modern Jewish idea\u00a0<span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">par excellence<\/span>, Zionism, is one that Christians thought of before we did.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy Easter to my Christian friends! American Jews have lots to be grateful for to you. For one, there&#8217;s a historical argument to be made that American Christians invented modern Zionism. That thesis relates to Passover. Yesterday in synagogues around the world, as part of the intermediate Sabbath of the festival, Jews read the passage&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Christians Invented Zionism: An Easter Thought - Kingdom of Priests<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Christians Invented Zionism: An Easter Thought - Kingdom of Priests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Happy Easter to my Christian friends! American Jews have lots to be grateful for to you. For one, there&#8217;s a historical argument to be made that American Christians invented modern Zionism. That thesis relates to Passover. 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American Jews have lots to be grateful for to you. For one, there&#8217;s a historical argument to be made that American Christians invented modern Zionism. That thesis relates to Passover. Yesterday in synagogues around the world, as part of the intermediate Sabbath of the festival, Jews read the passage&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html","og_site_name":"Kingdom of Priests","article_published_time":"2009-04-12T02:52:52+00:00","author":"David Klinghoffer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html","name":"How Christians Invented Zionism: An Easter Thought - Kingdom of Priests","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-12T02:52:52+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-12T02:52:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/6e6734f7e172e24221264a565e8f4454"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/04\/happy-easter-to-my-christian.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How Christians Invented Zionism: An Easter Thought"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/","name":"Kingdom of Priests","description":"David Klinghoffer","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/6e6734f7e172e24221264a565e8f4454","name":"David Klinghoffer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/285\/28517f740f5d348f010a20178619ea6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/285\/28517f740f5d348f010a20178619ea6cx96.jpg","caption":"David Klinghoffer"},"description":"David Klinghoffer is an author and senior fellow in the Religious, Liberty & Public Life program at the Discovery Institute. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Jewish Forward. A California native, he currently lives on Mercer Island, Washington, with his wife and five children.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/author\/dklinghoffer"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}