ll of a dispersed nation to recover its ancestral land" (Segre, 1980, p. 4).
As founded by Herzl, however, Zionism did not rely on bib lical claims that Jews were chosen people as justification for the establishment of a territorial Israel (Segre, 1980). Rather, it was justified on the grounds that it was the best, and probably the only way of "ameliorating the lot of perse cuted Jews" (Segre, 1980, p. 6). This secular approach of Zionism drew angry rejections from many Jews, particularly reformed Jews, and the controversy has lasted to the present time in contemporary Israel (Segre, 1980).
Critics contend that Zionism "was a nationalist secular ideology upheld by men who were brainwashed by the Haskalah (Enlightment) and Western assimilation" (Livneh, 1964, p. 3). The secular Zionists of Herzl did not see a need for a revival of Jewish culture. Rather, they saw a need for a territorial Israel where Jews could be free of repression and anti semit ism (Fromm, 1944). The Zionism founded by Herzl "is no more and no less than the attempt to translate the ideal unity of 3the Jewish people into a real unity centered in the soil of the land of Israel" (Segr
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