On Political Tradition and Ideology: Russian Dimensions of Practical Zionism and Israeli Politics

This article concerns the endurance of political traditions brought to Palestine at the turn of the 20th century from the revolutionary milieu in Imperial Russia. The Russian Empire and its neighbors, which form most of today’s Eastern Europe and large swaths of Central Europe, was the homeland of most early Zionist settlers. They had acquired experience in a range of clandestine political organizations in the Russian Empire. It is this revolutionary experience that constitutes the bedrock of Russian Zionists’ influence on the political culture of the pre-state Palestine and Israel. Later, those who found themselves in Poland after Versailles became familiar with parliamentary rituals, even though the Polish state did not enjoy democracy for long. We suggest that this seemingly distant history continues to manifest itself in the political culture of contemporary Israel. We consider epistemology, tradition, ideology, and political action while looking at Israeli politics through the lens of its Russian roots.