Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Breaking the Sovereign Mold:Nation beyond State in Modern Jewish Thought -- 2. "Sovereignty Is International Anarchy": Jews, World War I, and the Future of Nationalism -- 3. Text, Not Territory: Simon Rawidowicz, Global Hebraism, and the Centering of Decentered National Life -- 4. Making American Democracy Safe for Judaism: Mordecai Kaplan, National Civilization, and the Morality of Zionism -- 5. From German Zionism to American Nationalism: Hans Kohn, Cultural Humanism, and the Realizationof "the Political Idea of Judaism" -- 6. Zionism, Jewish Peoplehood, and the Dilemmas of Nationality in a Global Era -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index.

Today, Zionism is understood as a national movement whose primary historical goal was the establishment of a Jewish state. However, Zionism's association with national sovereignty was not foreordained. Zionism and the Roads Not Taken uncovers the thought of three key interwar Jewish intellectuals who defined Zionism's central mission as challenging the model of a sovereign nation-state: historian Simon Rawidowicz, religious thinker Mordecai Kaplan, and political theorist Hans Kohn. Although their models differed, each of these three thinkers conceived of a more practical and ethical paradigm of national cohesion that was not tied to a sovereign state. Recovering these roads not taken helps us to reimagine Jewish identity and collectivity, past, present, and future.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.