The Bourgeois Peasant and the Agrarian Myth: The Debate over the Ideal Peasant in Early Jewish Nationalism

In this article I present an untold story about the controversy over the ideal Jewish peasant in Palestine at the turn of the twentieth century. The controversy preceded the rise of the haluẓ (pioneer), a key component in Zionism’s classic ethos. I discuss the two camps in this controversy and the socio-political views they represented. While one camp advocated for the simple-minded peasant, the other promoted the ideal of the proud bourgeois Jewish farmer. I examine the controversy’s implications for the politics of class but also Jewish nationalism, and provide a new framework for understanding the Jewish national peasant’s emergence as a central figure in Jewish nationalism.