Page 24 - Issue 20

to reject reading altogether. There have been
numerous socialist experiments, past and present,
which have been reasonably successful and can be
applied elsewhere.

Jewish and Socialist Values

What has all this to do with
Zionism? One of the most striking
things about Jewish culture is the
fact that it shares many values with
socialism. Jewish life and tradition has
always emphasised communality,
mutual obligations, communal
responsibility for all members of the
society, solidarity, individual fulfilment through the
community, caring, social justice, a sense of
history, a concept of mission and an 'identity of
fate'. These values and perceptions are as integral
to socialism as they are to Jewish culture.

It follows that if the Jews have created a state in
order to express fully their national culture, then
the social structure adopted must be concomitant
with Jewish values; and these, as it happens,
coincide with socialist values. Indeed it is no
coincidence that Jewish settlement in Palestine so
easily adopted the socialistic practices it did. The
rapid development of the Histadrut, not just as a
trades union but as an educational force, a health
service and an industrial producer, is one example.
Similarly, the development of the kibbutzim and
moshavim was not only a response to necessity,