Kenancılık: İsrail’de Siyonizme Alternatif Bir Kimlik Arayışı

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 21 Sayı: The Critique of Zionism, 7 - 24, 31.12.2024

Fahri Danış

https://doi.org/10.17131/milel.1564051

Öz

İsrail’in kurucu fikir hareketi olarak Siyonizm, seküler bir milliyetçilik biçimi olarak Yahudi dinî geleneği üzerinden ulusal bir kimlik inşa edilmesini hedeflemiştir. İsrail siyasetindeki temel “Gelenekselci-Laik” ikiliğini de şekillendiren bu paradoksal durum –seküler bir kimliğin özünü oluşturan dinî ögeler meselesi– tutarlı bir ulus-devlet kimliği oluşturulmasının önündeki en önemli engellerden biri olmuştur. İsrail’de iktidarın resmi kimlik tahayyülü her daim geleneksel ile modern arasındaki bu kırılmadan izler taşımış ve bu durum, henüz erken devirlerden itibaren muhalif siyasal pozisyonların oluşumunu beraberinde getirmiştir. Bunlardan biri de 1930’lu yıllarda, İsrail’de bir grup sanatçı-entelektüel tarafından geliştirilen Kenancılıktır. Kendilerini “Genç İbraniler” olarak adlandıran ve başlarını şair-gazeteci Yonatan Ratosh’un çektiği bu grup, İsrail’de kurucu Siyonizm’in kimlik tahayyülünü sert bir şekilde eleştirerek yeni bir milliyetçi söylem biçimi ortaya koymuştur. Yahudilik (Jewish) ile İbranîlik (Hebrew) arasındaki farka dikkat çeken Kenancılar, İsrail’in seküler bir ulus-devlet olarak kurumsallaşması gerekliliğini ifade etmiş ve ulusal kimliğin temelini de dinî bir aidiyet olan Yahudiğin değil, etnik ve coğrafî bir aidiyeti ifade eden İbraniliğin oluşturduğunu ileri sürmüşlerdir. Bu çalışmada, Siyonizm’in inşa ettiği ulusal kimlik anlayışının çelişkili karakteri vurgulanarak, buna eleştirel bir milliyetçi pozisyondan yanıt veren Kenancı hareketin bir incelemesi yapılacaktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Kenancılık, Siyonizm, Genç İbraniler

Etik Beyan

Bu çalışmanın hazırlanma sürecinde etik ilkelere uyulmuştur.

Canaanism: The Search for an Alternative Identity to Zionism in Israel

Öz

Zionism, as Israel's founding ideological movement, aimed to construct a national identity through the Jewish religious tradition while presenting itself as a form of secular nationalism. This paradox—the incorporation of religious elements into a secular identity—has shaped the core "Traditionalist-Secular" divide in Israeli politics and emerged as a significant obstacle to forming a coherent nation-state identity. The official conception of Israeli identity has consistently reflected tensions between tradition and modernity, fostering the development of dissenting political positions from the state's early years. One notable response was the Canaanite movement, developed by a group of artists and intellectuals in the 1930s. Led by poet-journalist Yonatan Ratosh, the movement, known as the "Young Hebrews," critiqued Zionism's vision of identity and proposed an alternative nationalist discourse. Highlighting the distinction between Jewishness and Hebrewness, the Canaanites argued for the institutionalization of Israel as a secular nation-state. They posited that national identity should be rooted not in the religious affiliation of Jewishness but in the ethnic and geographical identity of Hebrewness. This study examines the contradictory nature of Zionist national identity and the critical nationalist response articulated by the Canaanite movement.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Canaanism, Zionism, Young Hebrews

Etik Beyan

Ethical principles were followed during the preparation of this study.

Kaynakça

• Avnery, Uri. “Benjamin's Inn: A tribute to artist, writer and editor Benjamin Tammuz, the 'Canaanite,' on the occasion of the publication of a new edition of his writings in Hebrew”. Haaretz, 27 December 2007.
• Barzilay, Isaac E. “Yishaq (Fritz) Baer and Shalom (Salo Wittmayer) Baron: Two Contemporary Interpreters of Jewish History”. Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Researchs 60 (1994): 7-69.
• Batuk, Cengiz. “Nemrud.” TDV Encyclopedia of Islam. 32/555-556. Ankara: TDV Publishing, 2006.
• Brenner, Michael. The Prophets of the Past: Interpreters of Jewish History. tr. Steven Rendall. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
• Cohen, Shaye J.D. “Iudaios, Iudaeus, Judean, Jew”. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, 69-106. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
• Diamond, James S. Homeland or Holy Land? The‘Canaanite’ Critique of Israel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
• Efron, Jon. Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de-Siecle Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
• Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. London: Wiley & Blackwell, 2000.
• Eliade, Mircea. Cosmos and History: The Myth of Eternal Return. tr. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959.
• Feiner, Samuel. Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002.
• Feiner, Samuel. “Towards a Historical Definition of Haskalah”. New Perspectives on the Haskalah. ed. Samuel Feiner, David Sorkin. 184-221. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004.
• Feraro, Shai. “The Return of Baal to the Holy Land: Canaanite Reconstructionism among Contemporary Israeli Pagans”. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 20/2 (2016): 59-81.
• Fiedler, Lutz. Matzpen: A History of Israeli Dissidance. tr. Jake Schneider. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
• Freud-Kandel, Miri. “Modernist Movements”. Modern Judaism: An Oxford Guide. ed. Nicholas de Lange, Miri Freud-Kandel. 81-93. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Furas, Yoni. “We the Semites: Reading Ancient History in Mandate Palestine”. Contemporary Levant 5/1 (2020): 33-43.
• Gans, Chaim. A Political Theory for the Jewish People. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
• Gat, Azar. Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Gelber, Yoav. Nation and History: Israeli Historiography between Zionism and Post-Zionism. London: Valentine Mitchell, 2011.
• Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publisher, 1983.
• Giladi, Amotz. “Yonatan Ratosh’s ‘Cultural Entrepreneurship’ and the Invention of ‘Hebrew’ Nationalism”. Historical Reflections 45/3 (2019): 79-99.
• Ginsburg, Shai. Rhetoric and Nation: The Formation of Hebrew National Culture, 1880-1990. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2014.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. “Introduction: Inventing Traditions”. The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm, Terence Ranger. 1-15. London: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nation since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. London: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Hofmann, Klaus. “Canaanism”. Middle Eastern Studies 47/2 (2011): 273-294.
• Hroch, Miroslav. European Nations: Explaining Their Formations. New York: Verso, 2015.
• Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook Press, 2006.
• Kaplan, Steven. The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century. New York: New York University Press, 1995.
• Kılınç, Taha. Dil ve İşgal: Eliezer ben-Yehuda ve Modern İbranicenin Doğuşu. İstanbul: Ketebe Yayınları, 2024.
• Koltun-Fromm, Ken. Moses Hess and Modern Jewish Identity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
• Kuzar, Ron. Hebrew and Zionism: A Discourse Analytic Cultural Study. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2001.
• Levenson, Alan. “David Ben-Gurion, the Bible and the Case for Jewish Studies and Israel Studies”. Jewish Studies and Israel Studies in the Twenty-First Century. ed. Carsten Schapkow, Klaus Hödl. 15-31. London: Lexington Books, 2019.
• Liberles, Robert. Salo Wittmayer Baron: Architect of Jewish History. New York: New York University Press, 1995.
• Meyer, Michael A. The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749-1824. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967.
• _______. “The Emergence of the Jewish Historiography: Motives and Motifs”. History and Theory 27/4 (1988): 160-175.
• Ohana, David. Modernism and Zionism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
• Pappe, Ilan. “The Square Circle: The Struggle for Survival of Traditional Zionism”. The Challenge of Post-Zionism. ed. Ephraim Nimni, 42-63. London: Zed Books, 2003.
• Piterberg, Gabriel. The Returns of Zionism: Myths, Politics and Scholarship in Israel. London: Verso, 2008.
• Poliakov, Leon. The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalistic Ideas in Europe. tr. Edmund Howard. Heinemann: Sussex University Press, 1974.
• Ram, Uri. Israeli Nationalism: Social Conflicts and the Politics of Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 1993.
• _______. “Zionist Historiography and the Invention of Modern Jewish Nationhood: The Case of Ben Zion Dinur”, History and Memory 7/1 (1995): 91-124.
• Sand, Shlomo. The Invention of the Jewish People. New York: Verso, 2009.
• Schayegh, Cyrus. The Middle East and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017.
• Shavit, Yaacov. The New Hebrew Nation: A Study on Israeli Heresy and Fantasy. New York: Routledge, 1987.
• _______. “The Mediterranean World and ‘Mediterraneanism’: The Origins, Meaning and Application of a Geo-Cultural Notion in Israel”. Mediterranean Historical Review 3/2 (1988): 96-117.
• _______. Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 1925-1948. New York: Franck Cass, 2005.
• Schweid, Eliezer. “The Political Philosophy of the National Haskalah Movement in Eastern Europe”. A History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy, v. II. tr. Leonard Levin. 107-139. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
• Smith, Anthony D. “Ethnic and Territorial Nationalism”. Encyclopedia of Nationalism. ed. Athena Leoussi. 62-64. London: Transaction Publishers, 2001.
• Vater, Roman. “Beyond bi-nationalism? The Young Hebrews versus the ‘Palestinian Issue’”. Journal of Political Ideologies 21/1 (2016): 45-60.
• Weber, Max. The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations, R. I. Frank (London: Verso, 1998)
• Woolf, Daniel .“Of Nations, Nationalism and National Identity: Reflections on the Historiographical Organization of the Past”. The Many Faces of Clio: Cross-Cultural Approaches to Historiography. ed. Q. Edward Wang, Franz L. Fillafer. 71-104. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006.
• Yuval, Israel Jacob. “Yitzhak Baer and the Search for Authentic Judaism”. The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians. ed. D.N. Meyers, D.B. Ruderman. 77-87. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.