Transcript [00:00] Welcome. My name is Josiah McGee and [00:02] this video is a part of a series on the [00:05] history of Christian Zionism [music] and [00:07] the US Israel relationship. This series [00:10] is a production of Passages, a nonprofit [00:13] that is dedicated to preparing and [00:15] empowering a new generation of Christian [00:17] leaders who love God, stand with the [00:20] Jewish people, and support Israel. [00:23] Christian Zionism is often surrounded by [00:25] many misconceptions and it begs some [00:28] important questions. What exactly is [00:31] Christian Zionism? Where did it [00:33] originate? Where did it come from? What [00:36] motivates Christian Zionists? What role [00:38] has it played in the US Israel [00:40] relationship? And today, perhaps the [00:43] most pressing question, why is Israel [00:46] such a divisive issue in American [00:48] politics? This three-part video series [00:50] attempts to answer those questions by [00:53] providing the historical context that is [00:55] [music] often missing from the [00:57] conversation. In order to give us that [01:00] history lesson, we are very [music] [01:01] pleased and honored to be joined by [01:04] Walter Russell me. Walter is one of [01:07] America's foremost [music] foreign [01:08] policy thinkers, a renowned scholar, [01:12] author, and writer for a weekly column [01:15] at the Wall Street Journal. He holds a [01:18] distinguished fellowship at the Hudson [01:20] Institute and he is also the Alexander [01:22] Hamilton [music] Professor for Strategy [01:24] and Statecraft at the University of [01:25] Florida's Hamilton Center. A Yale [01:27] graduate, he's also held senior [01:29] positions at the Council on Foreign [01:31] Relations and taught at both Bard [01:33] College and Yale. Finally, Walter is the [01:35] author of several acclaimed books, [01:38] including Special Providence, God and [01:40] Gold, and The Ark of a Covenant. I know [01:43] that you're going to enjoy very much [01:45] hearing what Walter has to say and his [01:47] many stories. This is part one of our [01:50] series on the history of Christian [01:51] Zionism and the USIsrael relationship. [01:54] Many of the controversies about [01:56] Christian Zionism are if not directly at [01:59] the very least indirectly a result of [02:01] misconceptions or confusion about where [02:04] [music] it comes from in the first [02:05] place. So in this initial conversation, [02:07] Walter is going to tell us the origin [02:09] story of Christian Zionism and tell us a [02:12] little bit about the people who made it [02:14] popular and what their motivations were. [02:16] Let's get started. [02:46] I'm not sure you can. Um, it's it's a [02:49] label that people throw around in [02:51] politics, but a lot of the labels that [02:54] people use are have become so vague and [02:58] so controversial that it's really hard [03:01] to get a meaning. You know, words like [03:04] liberal or conservative. You'll often [03:07] find people use these words in so many [03:09] different ways. two people having a huge [03:11] disagreement over what's the real [03:14] conservative or the real liberal or the [03:16] real progressive for that matter and [03:18] what's actually going on is they've each [03:20] got different definitions of these words [03:22] in their heads and they're just kind of [03:25] fighting about that without realizing [03:27] what they're doing. Christian Zionism is [03:30] one of these terms that sounds so [03:33] definite but is so vague that people [03:36] can't help but use it but then uh almost [03:38] always it leads to misunderstanding. So [03:42] when you talk about in a more general [03:44] sense Christians who support or in some [03:47] way sympathetic to the state of Israel [03:51] or to the Jewish movement of Zionism [03:54] which is sort of the national movement [03:56] of the Jewish people, uh you get all [03:59] kinds of different reasons why [04:00] Christians support it. Some of them do [04:03] it out of a very very specific [04:05] theological framework. um uh [04:09] dispensationalists [04:11] um do it out of a sense of uh God's [04:15] covenant to that by which the promised [04:18] land was given to the physical [04:20] descendants of Abraham is still valid [04:23] and also at the end of the world or the [04:26] at the in the last days some very [04:29] specific events will be happening on a [04:31] very specific timetable and Jews in [04:34] Israel in a state are part of that [04:37] process. us. Others are, you know, come [04:40] at it from a much more sort of vague [04:43] almost humanitarian sense. The Jews are [04:46] persecuted people. Anti-semitism is a [04:49] real thing. Jews need to have a state [04:52] somewhere where they can be safe and [04:54] Israel is the place where it is. Some [04:57] Christians support Israel less out of [05:01] any theological or even humanitarian [05:03] reason, but because they think Israeli [05:06] interests and American interests and [05:08] foreign policy in the Middle East are [05:10] aligned. So people with all of these [05:13] different points of view can get called [05:15] Christian Zionists, but what have you [05:17] said when you've called someone a [05:19] Christian Zionist? [05:21] So, you know, it's a it's a term I try [05:25] to stay away from. honestly because I [05:28] think it confuses rather than clarifies [05:38] there. There's a process you know [05:39] England historically had actually been [05:42] one of the most anti-semitic [05:44] countries in Europe. Many people are [05:46] familiar with Merchant of Venice, a play [05:48] by William Shakespeare, which has just [05:52] about every anti-semitic [05:54] uh kind of uh you know, it's I mean [05:57] Tucker Carlson could read The Merchant [05:59] of Venice with great pleasure and he [06:01] probably has. Um and this was performed [06:04] before the king of England to great [06:06] applause. [06:07] You go back even further and the English [06:10] kicked the Jews out of England even [06:12] before the Spanish Inquisition [06:15] kicked Jews out of um modern Spain. So, [06:20] you know, but but England begins to [06:22] change and a lot of it has to do with [06:24] the impact of the Reformation in England [06:28] where theologically [06:30] people begin to take a different view of [06:34] the Jewish people and their relationship [06:36] to Christians and Christianity. [06:39] And also in some ways kind of economic [06:42] and cultural ideas change in ways that [06:46] create a a less unsympathetic approach [06:51] uh to Jews and Judaism. [07:01] traditional western Christianity and for [07:03] that matter eastern orthodoxy [07:06] um held to the idea of you call it [07:08] supersessionism [07:10] which is that um Israel in what [07:13] Christians call the old testament um you [07:16] know was was the promise pe was the [07:19] people of the promise the people of the [07:20] covenant but with the sacrifice of [07:23] Christ the old testament was ended and [07:26] the role of Jews in God's plan also came [07:31] to an end. From then on, the church was [07:34] the new Israel and the physical [07:36] descendants of Abraham who rejected [07:40] uh the message of Jesus kind of had no [07:43] they were sort of leftovers [07:45] and they had no real purpose. There was [07:48] kind of nothing there there. Uh some [07:51] people said, "Well, the fact that the [07:53] Jews were exiled from Israel following [07:57] their revolts against the Romans was [08:00] [snorts] God's punishment on Israel for [08:02] rejecting Jesus." And so the Jews by [08:06] their exile and their poverty and their [08:08] suffering testified to the truth of [08:10] Christianity. And that was that was kind [08:13] of the place that Jews had in the [08:16] western imagination uh u during much of [08:19] the middle ages late antiquity in the [08:21] middle ages. the uh some of the [08:24] Protestant reformers uh began to take a [08:28] different tack, especially people uh [08:30] kind of in the in the tradition of John [08:33] Calvin, the Calvinist reformers. [08:36] And for them, they said, well, look, the [08:38] promises of God are eternal. [08:42] And okay, the Jews may have been [08:44] unfaithful in their theological view to [08:48] by rejecting the message of Jesus, but [08:51] that does but because the Jews abandoned [08:53] God doesn't mean that God abandons the [08:55] Jews. And they can of course point to [08:57] all kinds of examples in the Old [08:59] Testament and in the New where God's [09:02] faithfulness to sinful people is kind of [09:05] the essence of God's relationship with [09:08] humanity. And so for these folks, [09:11] there's the idea that yeah, the church [09:13] is really the main action today. Uh and [09:16] that's that's where the heart of God's [09:19] revelation is. The core truth, the [09:21] salvation is all from the church, from [09:24] Jesus and not from the law of Moses. But [09:28] Jews, the the the descendants of Abraham [09:32] still have a place in God's plan. And as [09:35] they looked at various prophecies both [09:38] in the Old and the New Testament about [09:40] the end times, what they see is that the [09:44] Jews do return at some point to the [09:47] promised land. Jews are living in the [09:49] promised land uh as history as God rings [09:52] the curtain down on history and we move [09:55] toward the last judgment. [09:57] So they came to to see Jews as having a [10:01] continual place in God's purposes. the [10:05] Jewish nation as a nation still existed [10:09] and there was still a role for the [10:12] Jewish people in the history of in in [10:14] the sort of history of salvation. [10:17] U and that was you know that really led [10:20] to some different ideas. Um it it led to [10:24] a lessening of the prejudice that a lot [10:27] of people had of Jews. In a sense it it [10:29] turned Jews from being a sign that [10:32] Christianity might not be true which is [10:34] the way people often thought in the [10:36] Middle Ages is like well wait a minute [10:38] you know if Jesus is really true and [10:40] right and the scriptures really testify [10:43] to the truth of Jesus. the fact that all [10:46] of these Jewish scholars of the Old [10:48] Testament for hundreds of years have [10:50] been studying the scriptures and they [10:53] don't think he is the Messiah. Well, [10:56] that sort of cuts at the whole basis of [11:00] of who Jesus is and it raises doubts. [11:04] [snorts] [11:05] But then for the Calvinists and other uh [11:09] Christians as as time goes by, you get [11:12] more the idea. No, no, no. God said to [11:15] Abraham, the Jewish people will [11:18] continue. And look, thousands of years [11:21] later, they're still here. The ancient [11:23] Egyptians are gone. The Assyrians are [11:25] gone. The Babylonians are gone. All of [11:28] these great empires of e of ancient [11:30] times rose and fell. But this one people [11:34] is still here and God said in the Bible [11:38] they would be here. And so the fact that [11:40] we have Jews in the world today shows us [11:44] that God is faithful and that the Bible [11:47] is true. [11:48] So as the Jewish people move from being [11:52] a sign in the Christian imagination that [11:55] Christianity is false to being actually [11:58] a proof that pre people bring forward to [12:01] show that Christianity is true, you get [12:03] a a different kind of an attitude. [12:11] Oh no, dispensationalism [12:13] is comes very late in this process. [12:16] We're talking about this this new look [12:18] at the Jews and this new thinking about [12:22] maybe, you know, it's a good maybe the [12:24] Jews are going to go back to to the [12:27] promised land at some point and maybe [12:28] that's a good thing. That begins to [12:30] happen in the 1500s. [12:33] Dispensationalism doesn't come along [12:35] till sometime in the 1800s, almost 300 [12:39] years after this new development. And it [12:43] was always it it has always been a [12:46] minority perspective [12:49] among Americans even among American cons [12:52] theologically conservative Protestants [12:55] who are generally speaking pro-Israel. [12:57] Dispensationalism [12:59] has has always and and certainly remains [13:02] today a minority view. [13:11] In the again in the medieval world, um [13:15] Christian teaching was pretty hostile to [13:17] anything that we would call banking. Uh [13:20] interest was something that supposedly [13:23] good Christians weren't supposed to [13:24] charge. the laws of economics weren't [13:28] known and uh to the extent that they [13:30] were known, they weren't liked and [13:33] anything having to do with banking and [13:36] finance [13:38] um smelled suspicious to people and Jews [13:42] in part because in much of Europe they [13:43] were forbidden to um own land or make a [13:47] living in in normal ways, you know, were [13:50] actually traders and bankers and often [13:54] involved e uh in uh making loans to [13:57] kings and so on. And so the Jew was seen [14:00] as this userious [14:02] evil figure because because [14:06] the e economics ultimately capitalism [14:10] was seen with great suspicion [14:13] and as but but as Anglo-American society [14:16] in the 18th and 19th centuries in the [14:19] 17th and 1800s [14:22] uh begins to incorporate a lot more the [14:24] capitalist spirit and in fact the [14:26] Anglo-Americans become very successful [14:29] bankers and financeers and capitalism [14:32] enters the culture of the [14:35] English-speaking world in this new way. [14:37] Well, that, you know, it didn't bother [14:39] quite as many people quite as much that [14:42] Jews had some sort of historic [14:45] relationship with banking and [14:46] capitalism. [14:54] I think you could see [14:56] Christian support for the idea of a [14:59] Jewish return to the lands of the Bible [15:03] basically comes to America with the [15:05] Mayflower in the sense that the Puritans [15:08] in New England who who came here and [15:12] established the colonies in New England [15:14] were people who came out of a [15:16] theological an emerging theological [15:18] tradition in England. Puritanism, [15:21] England and Scotland, where the idea of [15:25] that the return of the Jews to the Holy [15:29] Land was an important part of future [15:31] history prophesied in the Bible and [15:35] something that Christians should be [15:37] supportive of and hopeful for that that [15:40] was already kind of embedded in their [15:42] culture and their theology. [15:48] Now in theological terms this would [15:50] amount to you know getting rid of the [15:52] impact of original sin curing original [15:56] sin and the misery pain and death and [15:59] suffering that it brought into the world [16:01] through human intellectual action [16:04] without any particular divine [16:07] intervention. And people began to think [16:10] that progress [16:13] the the progress they were seeing around [16:15] them was going to solve all the problems [16:18] of the world. And so for Americans you [16:22] know that they saw themselves in a [16:25] really special place in this [16:27] enlightenment. [16:29] uh the American vision of history, very [16:31] common American vision of history in the [16:34] 17 and 1800s [16:36] was that you know um you had first the [16:41] the birth of Christianity back in the [16:43] ancient world and great ancient [16:45] civilizations but the church was [16:47] corrupted. The barbarians came. There [16:50] was a fall, a second fall into the [16:52] darkness of the middle ages. But then [16:55] first the renaissance rediscovers the [16:59] learning of the old world. The [17:01] reformation rediscovers the religious [17:04] truths of the original gospel as [17:07] preached by Jesus and the apostles. And [17:10] with that we come back to the old spirit [17:13] of liberty. You know, we know a ancient [17:16] Athens was a democracy. [17:18] Ancient Rome had a free government of [17:21] its own before the republic collapsed in [17:24] the empire. We were rebuilding with the [17:26] true gospel. We rebuilt virtue. We were [17:29] now recovering the principles of free [17:33] government. And we were going to advance [17:35] beyond that into this new era of [17:38] unparalleled prosperity resting on the [17:42] liberty and true religion that the [17:45] Americans represented. [17:47] And Americans really saw their history [17:50] in this way whether they were religious [17:52] or not. By the way, um this notion of [17:56] America as the kind of spearip of global [18:00] progress toward a higher better world [18:03] was deeply deeply installed into [18:06] American culture. Why do I say was? It [18:09] still is today. These ideas are still [18:12] very much at the core of the way a lot [18:14] of Americans think about our country, [18:16] our its history, and our future. [18:24] Well, now American Christians and [18:27] non-religious Americans, many [18:28] non-religious Americans came to this [18:31] vision of history and progress. And what [18:34] they thought was, okay, now it's our job [18:37] to spread this vision. Okay? And they [18:41] went when Americans traveled overseas, [18:44] they went to Italy, they went to Greece, [18:46] beginning in about the 1830s and 40s, [18:49] actually started going to, you know, the [18:52] ancient the Holy Land. And what they saw [18:57] shocked them. In all of these cases, [19:00] Americans in those days, believe it or [19:01] not, educated Americans had something [19:04] that you may have heard of, but perhaps [19:06] few of you have had, a classical [19:08] education. that is they grew up reading [19:11] the ancient [snorts] Hebrew, Greek and [19:14] Roman texts. Not always in the original [19:16] of course, but you know, you read [19:19] ancient Greek poetry and you hear about [19:22] how rich and how beautiful Greece is. Oh [19:26] my goodness, the land is so beautiful, [19:28] so generous. Same thing, Italy, how [19:32] noble the people are, how beautiful the [19:34] land are. You went to these places in [19:36] the in the middle of the 19th century [19:39] and what you saw was kind of shocking. [19:41] Rome was a malarial hellhole in the [19:45] summer. The government was crooked. The [19:47] peasants were poor and oppressed. There [19:49] was no sense of freedom. You go to [19:51] Greece and it was just struggling to get [19:53] out from under the uh Turkish [19:56] occupation. [19:57] Uh the Holy Land was basically a desert. [20:01] When Mark Twain went there, he said, [20:02] "Well, it's almost as bad as Arizona." [20:05] Uh, that you know, and yet you read the [20:07] Bible, it's a land of milk and honey, [20:09] and then you look at like barren stones. [20:13] For a lot of Americans, it was natural [20:15] to think that if we could if the peoples [20:19] of those lands, if the Italians, the [20:21] Greeks, and the Jews could recover the [20:26] ancient virtues of their ancestors, then [20:30] those lands would bloom again. [20:33] And Americans actually like went to [20:35] Greece to help the Greeks fight the [20:38] Ottoman Empire to regain independence. [20:42] Julia Ward How, who wrote the Battle [20:44] Hymn of the Republic, her husband was [20:46] actually a decorated hero of the Greek [20:49] Revolution, an American who'd gone over [20:52] there to help fight. And the um Gab [20:56] Baldi was a huge hero in America, the [20:59] big Italian unification hero. Actually, [21:02] there was a movement to name him a [21:04] general for the Union side in the in the [21:06] American Civil War. Um, and the [21:10] Americans also thought that if the Jews [21:13] went back to the Holy Land and they [21:17] started practicing democracy and farming [21:21] the land, which at the time of course [21:23] most Americans were farmers, virtuous [21:26] farmers living under free government, [21:29] and their land was blooming, the same [21:32] thing would happen and that the deserts [21:34] of Palestine would bloom a knew. [21:38] So actually Americans in the 1900s [21:42] didn't just try to help the Italians and [21:44] the Greeks. They actually tried to [21:47] persuade Jews to go back to the Holy [21:50] Land or to start farming. If you go to [21:53] Jerusalem today, there's a place there [21:56] called the American Colony Hotel, and it [21:59] goes back to the attempts of Americans [22:02] to buy land and persuade Jews living in [22:06] Jerusalem to start farming this land to [22:09] begin the regeneration of the Jewish [22:11] people and the the the Holy Land. [22:21] Not only did American Jews have nothing [22:24] to do with the creation of these ideas [22:27] in the minds of many Americans, most [22:30] American and indeed Western Jews totally [22:34] resisted the idea. In the 1890s, [22:39] uh, an American um, uh, preacher, [22:42] William Blackstone, [22:44] um, uh, decided that in order to [22:48] encourage the creation of a Jewish state [22:51] or support the return of Jews to the to [22:54] the Holy Land, he would get a petition, [22:57] get up a petition to the president of [22:58] the United States asking that the US use [23:01] its influence with the European powers [23:04] to get the get the European powers to [23:06] pressure the Ottoman Turks to give to [23:09] allow the Jews to return to the Holy [23:11] Land. This petition [23:15] almost immediately got signed by all the [23:18] leading and all a lot of the leading [23:20] American business and intellectual [23:21] figures of the day. John D. Rockefeller, [23:24] JP Morgan, these titans of industry, the [23:28] editors of leading newspapers, the [23:31] leading clergymen in the churches of the [23:33] great cities of the American Northeast [23:35] and Middle West signed this petition. [23:39] American Jews though didn't want to [23:42] sign. [23:49] for many western Jews, Jews living in, [23:53] you know, Germany, France, England, the [23:56] United States, um, in the 19th century [24:00] saw this history of progress in kind of [24:03] a different way. Um, beginning in some [24:06] ways with the French Revolution, [24:08] Western countries started to offer their [24:12] Jewish uh, inhabitants a deal that if [24:16] the Jews would give up the idea that [24:18] they were a separate nation, right, that [24:21] they were an ethnic group, a proto [24:24] nation, and say, "No, no, no. We're just [24:27] a religious group. Um, but our n I'm I'm [24:31] I'm not I'm not a Jew who lives in [24:35] France. I am a Frenchman with a Jewish [24:38] religious background. Right? Then France [24:42] and later other countries would offer [24:45] Jews legal and civil equality. In the [24:48] past, Jews weren't allowed to sit on [24:50] juries, weren't allowed to vote in many [24:52] places, limits on property holding, all [24:54] kinds of special restrictions and laws. [24:56] And so the deal was you give up Jewish [25:00] identity as anything except a kind of [25:02] private cultural marker and we will [25:05] accept you into Western society. [25:10] And that opening [25:13] uh led to what many called the [25:16] emancipation of the Jews across a lot of [25:18] Europe in the 19th century. [25:21] But the key to this was again the [25:24] abandonment of any idea of a Jewish [25:29] nation that might one day return to its [25:33] national home and set up a sovereign [25:37] state. You had to drop that idea if you [25:40] wanted to be a Frenchman, if you wanted [25:42] to be an Englishman, if you wanted to be [25:44] an American. [25:47] And a lot of Jews bought into that. And [25:50] in fact many still do. Um not every Jew [25:54] is a Zionist. [25:56] And uh you know this is you know one of [25:59] the interesting things. Many many [26:01] Western Jews um see themselves as [26:06] citizens first and foremost of their own [26:09] country of the country where they were [26:11] born or where they've immigrated and [26:14] don't see Israel as you know as their [26:17] country in a special way. America. [26:20] Most American Jews in the 19th century [26:25] had that view. And in fact, what was the [26:28] largest denomination [26:31] among American Jews, the the reformed [26:33] Jews actually specifically in their [26:37] founding documents renounced the idea of [26:40] a return to Jerusalem or return to the [26:44] promised land. And you can still see by [26:48] the way uh today in America by and large [26:52] if a if a house of worship for Jews is [26:54] called a temple right that implies that [26:58] the people who built it didn't think [27:00] that there was there was a temple back [27:02] in Jerusalem that they they were [27:05] thinking about or wanted to go to. It [27:07] meant that this that America was their [27:11] promised land. This is where they wanted [27:13] to live. And so many many Western Jews [27:18] saw the concept of Zionism or return to [27:22] the Holy Land as threatening the basis [27:25] of their integration into Western [27:28] society, their emancipation and [27:30] everything they hoped and dreamed. So [27:34] American Jews by and large were pretty [27:37] anti-Zionist and especially liberal [27:40] American Jews. The New York Times was a [27:43] pro-Zionist newspaper when it was owned [27:47] by Christians and late in I think it was [27:49] late in the 19th century might have been [27:51] early in the 20th it was bought by a [27:53] Jewish family and became anti-Zionist. [27:57] So the the history of this movement is [28:01] is really a very complicated. You know [28:03] the rise of Zionism among Jews is a very [28:07] different thing from the rise of support [28:10] for a for a Jewish return to the Holy [28:13] Land among Christians and non-Jewish [28:16] Americans more generally. [28:26] There was one guy in particular who's [28:28] interesting to look at uh had a real [28:31] impact on on the history of Zionism even [28:34] among Jews and that was William Heckler. [28:36] He his um uh he was of mixed German [28:41] English parentage [28:44] uh but was a clergyman in the church of [28:46] England and he was very he was a a [28:49] strong supporter intellectually of the [28:51] idea that biblical prophecy uh said that [28:55] the Jews would return to the promised [28:57] land and this would be part of the great [29:00] fulfillment of human history. [29:03] and he was living in Vienna at at the [29:06] time and he came across this odd [29:10] pamphlet written by an Austrian Jew [29:14] named Herzel, Teodor Herzel. And he read [29:17] it and he was stunned [29:20] because here finally was a Jew who was [29:24] saying all these things that the [29:25] Christians said sooner or later the Jews [29:28] are going to do this. to which their [29:30] opponents among Christians said, "Oh, [29:32] you're an idiot. There's no sign of a [29:34] Zionist movement among Jews. What kind [29:36] of a fool are you? The Bible doesn't, [29:39] you know, that's just horse crap. The [29:41] Bible just doesn't know what it's [29:42] talking about. You were delusional." And [29:45] so, here's a Jew who now wants to form a [29:49] movement of Jews to go back to the Holy [29:51] Land. Heckler went off to meet Herzel [29:54] and they met. And poor Heritzel had [29:56] published this pamphlet believing that [29:59] you know he had come to believe that ant [30:02] tide of anti-semitism was rising and if [30:06] the Jews did not get out of Europe they [30:09] were actually going to be murdered on [30:12] that was his the haunting fear of Teodor [30:15] Herzel [30:17] and but he publishes this pamphlet and [30:20] the [clears throat] Jews basically [30:22] almost without exception all of his [30:24] Jewish friends, all of his well-educated [30:27] friends, all of the Jewish newspapers [30:30] and everything wanted nothing to do with [30:32] that. This he was actually a famous [30:34] journalist. His own newspaper refused to [30:38] use the word Zionist until writing his [30:41] obituary. [30:43] Okay? And [30:46] um and now here was this like crazy [30:49] Americ [30:52] cleric who talks about oh these ideas [30:56] are so great. I've been thinking the [30:57] same thing. Heckler takes Herzel up to [31:00] his own apartment where he's got like [31:03] maps of the Holy Land on the floor. He [31:06] sings him a few songs that that Heckler [31:08] has written hymns. shows him where he [31:11] thinks the Jews should build their [31:12] capital. I mean, it's all crazy talk [31:16] from Herzel's point of view. Herzel is a [31:18] totally secular Jew. Didn't have his [31:20] kids circumcised. [31:22] Once the rabbi of Vienna, chief rabbi of [31:25] Vienna, came to see him and knocked on [31:28] the doors. Very embarrassing moment [31:30] because uh Herzel and his wife are [31:32] decorating their Christmas tree. All [31:34] right. So, we are not talking deeply [31:37] religious Jews here. And so now Heckler [31:40] is talking about prophecy, Bible, all of [31:43] this stuff. And Herel is thinking, "What [31:45] am I doing? I wrote this pamphlet and [31:47] the only person who's interested is a [31:49] madman." But then Heckler says something [31:52] very interesting. He says, "I know who [31:56] would be interested in this. [31:59] The Grand Duke of Baden." [32:02] He Heckler had been tutor to the son of [32:04] the Grand Duke of Boden. The Grand Duke [32:06] of Boden was also the great uncle of the [32:09] German Kaiser Wilhelm II. This [32:12] electrified Heritzel. He might actually [32:14] be able to get his idea into elite [32:17] German circles. [32:19] And I mean it's a very long story, [32:21] complicate, fascinating story by the [32:23] way, but in the end through Heckler [32:28] actually Herzel does meet the German [32:31] Kaiser Wilhelm II. [32:34] And Wilheham thinks, "Oh, that would be [32:36] a great idea." Partly because it would [32:38] get all these like communist and [32:40] socialist Jews out of Germany. William [32:42] II was an anti-semite. No doubt about [32:45] it. His son would join the Nazi party [32:48] and Wilhelm never said a word against [32:50] Hitler. But [32:53] um in any case, uh he thought this would [32:56] be a great idea for all kind of like [32:58] German foreign policy reasons and so on. [33:01] And he actually proposes to the Ottoman [33:03] Sultan that the Ottoman Sultan [33:08] had give a province to be used in [33:11] Palestine for the settlement of Jewish [33:14] refugees. [33:17] Ottoman Sultan wanted nothing to do with [33:19] the idea it died. But Herzel meets the [33:21] Kaiser twice, actually once in Jerusalem [33:26] as well as meeting him in Germany and uh [33:28] on the coastland of what is now Israel. [33:37] In the early in the late 1890s, [33:39] anti-semitism is rising everywhere in [33:41] Europe and all kinds of Jews are trying [33:43] to think man as we sort of see now where [33:46] you have many Jews looking at this crazy [33:49] rise of anti-semitism on the left on the [33:52] right among all kinds of different [33:54] people and saying like what should we [33:57] do? Why is this happening? What does it [34:00] mean? How do we stop it? How do we keep [34:02] our kids safe? What do we do? Um [34:06] you people are constantly well here's [34:08] Heritzel he writes his pamphlet about [34:10] what to do about the ger the Jewish [34:12] question and suddenly the emperor of [34:16] Germany is talking to the Ottoman sultan [34:18] about creating a Jewish state. This [34:21] makes Herzel a star, makes him [34:25] solidifies his position as the leader of [34:27] the Zionist movement and was an [34:29] indispensable step in the sort of [34:33] progress of the Zionist idea among Jews. [34:38] So a Christian Zionist, if we want to [34:40] use that term, like William Heckler, [34:43] actually plays a massive role, massive [34:47] historical role in enabling the victory [34:51] of Zionism among Jews. [34:55] Let's pause here. Thank you very much, [34:57] Walter, for this fantastic overview so [35:00] far. In the next video, we will fast [35:02] forward a little bit, go to the 20th [35:05] century, and talk about the founding of [35:07] the state of Israel and the early [35:09] history of the USIsrael relationship. [35:13] See you then. [35:15] [music]
