This story is one of the writings that are described as stories of “will” and “action.” If there were books or stories that changed a law, abolished an established custom, or established a new situation, then this story has the right to be described as a story that established a state.
The translation of “Journey to the Promised Land 2040” by Saeed Al-Akash and Badawi Muhammad Madi was published by the National Center for Translation in Cairo, and tells a story that began with an imaginary honeymoon and ended with the theft of a homeland and an attempt to exterminate its actual inhabitants.
The novel, which some critics of Hebrew literature considered the first utopia in modern Hebrew literature, attempted to crystallize the expected Hebrew state according to the ideal utopia whose author depicts a virtuous society, but in reality it is a colonial plan on a large scale, because it is a blueprint and guide for Zionist action, just like the book ” The Jewish State” by Theodor Herzl.
Although this book is not widely known among Arab readers, it is considered one of the most dangerous books and stories that called for the building of the Jewish state, and the Israelis celebrate it every year whenever the anniversary of the establishment of their state comes, for what it considers to be practical evidence. The Zionist movement believed in its content and followed in the footsteps of its ideas. What actually appeared in the book The Jewish State in 1896 AD was the spiritual father of the state, Theodor Herzl, until the Jewish state was built.
The book reminds us of a plundering process, considered the largest colonial plundering in history, which is the process of taking Palestine from its people at the hands of global Zionism, with the support, blessing, and support of contemporary colonial powers, which was ultimately represented in the establishment of the State of Israel.
The aim of translating the book from Hebrew, as the publisher says, “is to introduce the Zionist plans, the reasons for their success in achieving their goals, and the resort of its pioneers to organized thinking and conscious planning, and their desperation to transform ideas into practical reality.”
The author Elhanan Leib Levinsky was born in Russia to a religious Jewish family, to a rabbi father who enrolled him in religious education, so he mastered the Hebrew language. He moved between a large number of Russian cities and worked as a Hebrew language teacher and a journalist for a period. Following the assassination of the Russian Tsar in 1881, in which some Jews participated, the Jews were affected. Lots of killings and expulsions. In the meantime, the Zionist Jewish Youth Movement arose, and he joined it. In 1882, he visited Palestine. He found only very small numbers of Jews there, so he stayed there for only two months. He became attached to the idea of “returning to Zion,” and completed the study of Russian language and literature to the degree that qualified him to write. He wrote satirical articles in a Russian newspaper, and began his literary works in 1889 AD. Because of his interest in the issue of settlement in Palestine, he wrote in 1890 his story “A Journey to Eretz Yisrael in the year 2040 of the third millennium.”
Because the author Elhanan Leib Levinsky (1858 – 1910) believed in his novel or vision, he wrote it at a time when the Jews were not a people, but rather groups in diaspora, outcast fragments in most European countries, and minorities isolated in most states and countries, so this story came to end their isolation, They did not have a state, so the story told them about the imagined state, that is, it paved the way for them to accept the idea of “one people” and the possibility of establishing a state for themselves.
On the other hand, this story is the first of its kind in Hebrew literature that lays out a plan for establishing the Zionist state in Palestine, and the writer’s major mission was to work to motivate Jews to immigrate to Palestine, because immigration represents one of the basic pillars of the Zionist movement.
Functional state
If the story represented a practical guide for the Zionist movement, it defined the path for it, presented problems, and provided solutions. The author was the first to present the hypotheses necessary to establish a national home for the Jews, as he argued that there must be an incubator and foundation that would push and support the state throughout its existence, and the writer proposed The assumption of relying on Europe to support the establishment of the expected state, and this was from Britain, which enabled the Jews to immigrate to Palestine, and then gave the Jews a promise to establish their homeland through its Prime Minister Balfour, and when the sun of Britain receded, America took its place, supporting, supplying, and standing in the face of everyone who threatens The presence of the Jewish state in the region.
The story is not intellectual distractions or scattered ideas as much as it was a working mechanism and a road map on which the roles were distributed consciously, within a comprehensive, sequential plan, as Theodor Herzl came to confirm in his book “The Jewish State” the establishment of the so-called Jewish Company, and confirms that it will be under the protection of England. He does not feel embarrassed to mention that the Jewish state will be the spearhead of Europe in exchange for Europe guaranteeing its existence.
Herzl did not hesitate to show his racism in branding the countries of Asia and the Middle East with barbarism, as he mentioned in his book, “And from there it will form part of Europe’s fortifications in the face of Asia as an outpost of civilization in the face of barbarism.”
An imagined homeland
The story is one of the few works that paints a utopian picture of the State of Israel and the imagined national homeland for the Jews, as was promoted by the Jewish movement since the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its author, Elhanan Leib Levinsky, spoke about this state in his story as if it were a reality, and he did not content himself with presenting the foundations on which it exists. The state has to do with language, laws, education, an army, and the purchase of lands, but he mentions small details as if he is building the state with his own hands, brick by brick or brick by brick.
He touched on the features of the Hebrew personality, the model of the home and the form of the family, and that family life is characterized by integrity, and that the many occasions are an area of pride in the State of Israel, and that it gives a lot of attention to celebrations, holidays and happy days.
He drew a map of the Hebrew state as it appeared in the Torah, while emphasizing the necessity of the Jews owning the land with bonds proving their right to it, and that their acquisition of the land was achieved through peaceful means of buying and selling, and not by force, robbery, theft, or forgery. He gives many details that could have been left to be researched by the relevant Zionist agencies. But this writer’s conviction in the idea and his eagerness for its success led him to research all the minute details.
He stresses the importance of education and culture, as every city, whether small or large, has Hebrew magazines and books, including the new edition of the Hebrew Encyclopedia.
This confirms the importance that the Zionist colonial plans devoted to mobilizing the efforts of Jewish and non-Jewish European thinkers, in order to direct Jewish and European public opinion towards supporting the idea of establishing a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine. Theodor Herzl (1860 – 1904), the spiritual father of the Zionist movement and the state, baptized Hebrew with the leaders of the movement to strive at all intellectual, cultural, literary, political and scientific levels in order to establish a Zionist colonial state.
Employing literature
Literary Zionism has produced Hebrew short stories and novels that directly call for the establishment of a Jewish state on the land of Palestine, and has used literary techniques that help it avoid criticism and objection from the political authorities in Palestine, so as not to arouse the anger of the Arab owners of the land and those in power, including the Ottomans and the British.
A clear example of this is the story “Journey to the Promised Land 2040” written by Elhanan Leib Levinsky, using utopian techniques and science fiction techniques. This story is considered one of the most prominent Hebrew works of fiction that called for the settlement of Palestine, and it represents the first political science fiction stories in Hebrew literature. Hadith at the end of the 19th century, and the story was published for the first time in 1892 AD.
The intellectual and literary orientation was not separate from the political and practical orientation of Zionism. It called for Zionism through the poetic and prose literary works of writers such as Ahad Haam, Micha Yosef Berdych Vasky, Haim Nachman Bialik, Elhanan Leib Levinsky, Theodor Herzl and other writers. To immigrate to Palestine, which was called “Eretz Yisrael”.
The works of poetry, short stories, and novels painted an imaginative, utopian picture of the land of Palestine, the land flowing with milk and honey. Hebrew writers produced narrative works that described the miserable condition of the Jew outside the “Land of Israel,” and believed that the Jewish solution to their suffering was immigration to the “Land of the Fathers.”
Bitter Honey novel
The story takes place within the framework of imaginative travel literature, recounting a honeymoon trip beginning in the year 2040 for a Jewish couple coming from Syria, heading to what the author called “Eretz Yisrael.” Where the state was built in Palestine 150 years ago, meaning that the Jewish state was established in 1890 AD.
Through the journey, using the first person pronoun, the writer describes the cities of that country, its orchards, fields, farms and villages, its houses and streets, its mountains and hills, its plains and valleys, its seas and its skies. It is an image of the modern, developed state that relies on science and technology, and takes them into all areas of scientific, industrial, agricultural and commercial life. .
The writer also describes, through the narration of the hero-narrator, the social aspects of the imagined Israeli society, whose reference will be a biblical Jew committed to the provisions of the Torah in his daily life and his commercial and family dealings.
The story narrates the stages of building the state, starting with the first settlements and the role of political movements in building them, the most prominent of which are the “Lovers of Zion” group and the “Zionist Movement,” to which the writer himself belongs.
The writer also tried to emphasize that Jerusalem in 2040 will be the center of the entire world, as it was in previous eras. It will also be a spiritual center around which Jews and all people of other religions will gather. He also describes the political form of the state, its army, its numbers, and even the form of the wars that the army fights.
Fabricated allegations
The building of the Zionist state was preceded by the establishment of a number of fabricated claims, and this is what appears clear in this story, as Levinsky used many of those familiar Zionist claims, such as: “gathering the diaspora” or what is called in Hebrew “Kibbutz Goliath,” which is a religious term adopted by Zionism that refers to the idea of The return of all members of exiled Jewish groups around the world to Palestine and their gathering there, and the term “Jews in all the countries of their diaspora.” He also used the phrase “sons of exile” and others. He also called his Jewish people the word “common” to distinguish them from the peoples of other non-Jewish nations. Non-Jews are called “goyim” in Hebrew.
The author established his imagined state in Palestine and adhered to the concepts and claims of Zionism, including: the claim of owning the land of Palestine through buying and selling, and this is a basic pillar of the claims of the Zionist movement, which was strongly focused on from the beginning. On the other hand, it is claimed that the Palestinians were the ones who sold their land, and that no one usurped them, assaulted them, or expelled them from their homeland.
The novel also included the claim of the right of the Jews in Palestine to the so-called historical homeland, the consideration of the Hebrew language as the national language of the Jews in their state, and that it is a universal language, the claim of the distinction of the Jews in the imagined state and their superiority over other peoples of the region, the claim of the ethnic purity of the Jews, the privacy of the Jews and the unity of the Jewish groups.
The claims made by the book about the Zionist movement are complemented by the claim of the civilizational mission of the Jews in Palestine, the claim of the Jewishness of the Arab countries and the centrality of Jerusalem in the imagined state, the claim of the idea of extended roots in the Palestinian soil by calling for the practice of agriculture and connection to the land, the claim of the spread of peace and tranquility in the imagined state, and the drawing of its borders. And naming its cities.
An analytical study of the story clearly shows that it falls within the framework of literature that has been called “recruited literature,” and this feature was dominant in modern Hebrew literature before 1948 AD, through a commitment to refraining from highlighting any kind of contradiction between the Zionist ideology and the individual’s experience in reality. life.
