Chapter 3 Oppenheimer’s Path to Zionism

Abstract

There are some other paths to Zionism, bypaths so to speak. The most typical among them is maybe the path of the social theoretician who wants to implement his ideas on us. Zionism appears to him as the possibility for a huge social experiment. Men who come to us like that, usually without a proper understanding of the whole beauty of our national idea and incapable of penetrating it, are nevertheless a powerful stimulus. They bring new elements into our discussion that force us to find a positive stance towards the biggest movements of our time.²