Secular Zionism reworked Jewish messianic theology rather than replacing it.

Evidence

Secular Zionism was thus not separate from Jewish-Christian theology, but rather an interpretation of it based on the biblical promise and the Jewish prayer book. Not only was a theological dimension attached to the idea of the nation, but national secular consciousness itself was a kind of reinterpretation of the theological myth and the messianic principle. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 641

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Inverts the standard secularization narrative: nationalism as a re-mythologizing of theology, not a departure from it. Dense enough to sit with.
• XREF: connects to: Zionism’s professed secularism carried hidden messianic theology — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 300; Suppressing messianism produced a secular national theology that erased the land’s non-Jewish history; Zionist secularization nationalized messianic myth rather than replacing it — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 315