Animality and Animal Figures in Zionism

A Case Study of Zionist Debates on Modernization and the Sho’ah

Abstract

This article explores the historical background of this and other related occurrences and examines how animality and animal figures have been represented in Zionism. In antisemitic Europe, Jewish people were represented as such “subhuman animals” as ugly pigs, cunning snakes or filthy vermin. Max Nordau recognized that Jews in the modern world were viewed as morally degenerate, savage animal and advocated Zionism as a means of combating, eliminating and transcending these toxic, negative, antisemitic stereotypes. During and after Sho’ah, Jewish people were compared to “sheep” cementing a motif of weakness and passive sacrifice, typified by the phrase, “Like sheep to the slaughter.” Since the creation of an Israeli state, this Jewish “passivity” during Sho’ah and the necessity of never again allowing Jewish people to be so weak and docile has become a recurring motif frequently mobilized when Zionists want to emphasize the necessity of forging a strong nation of robust Zionist subjects. In Zionism, animality is assigned such abject features as “moral degeneration,” “dependency” or “weakness,” traits having no place in Jewishness given that, Zionism is a rehabilitative discourse in which the affirmation of humanity is achieved through the negation of animality.