Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Question
Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Question () is a book published by Moses Hess in 1862 in Leipzig. It gave impetus to the Labor Zionism movement. In his magnum opus, Hess argued for the Jews to return to Palestine, and proposed a socialist country in which the Jews would become agrarianised through a process of "redemption of the soil". Importance The book was the first Zionist writing to put the question of Jewish nationalism in the context of European nationalism. Hess blended secular as well as religious philosophy, Hegelian dialectics, Spinoza's pantheism and Marxism. It was written against the background of German Jewish assimilationism, German antisemitism and German antipathy to nationalism arising in other countries. Hess used terminology of the day, such as the term "race", but he was an egalitarian who believed in the principles of the French Revolution, and wanted to apply the progressive concepts of his day to the Jewish people. Major themes Written in the form of twelve letters addressed to a woman in her grief at the loss of a relative. In his work, Hess put forward the following ideas: The Jews will always remain strangers among the European peoples, who may emancipate them