[rmlew]

Herzl was not the first Zionist or even modern Zionist. Rabbi Zevi Hirsch Kalischer published his Derishat Tziyon ve­Hevrat Erez Noshevet calling for the colonization of Palestine, the admissibility of sacrifices in Palestine, and self-help as a the means of hastening redemption in 1862, when Herzl was still nursing. Kalischer set up a agricultural school in 1870. Herzl popularized Zionism and got great press from the left, but he created no new idea.

[Eleutheria5]

The great Hasidic and anti-Hasidic sages were already colonizing Israel long before either Rabbi Kalischer or Theodore Hertzel were even born. Long before there was a Hasidic movement, the great Hebrew poet Judah Halevi wrote that “My heart is in the East, but I am in the utmost West.” The return to Zion is a basic tenet of Judaism, mentioned repeatedly in daily prayers and prophesied in the Bible and Talmud.

The reestablishment of a Jewish state was inevitable once the ball of history started rolling towards freedom and human rights. Islamofascists want to roll the ball back towards a Caliphate and the masses trembling in ignorant fear before its absolute ruler, so naturally they can’t abide a Jewish state.