Zionism was an extreme desire to assimilate into the West

Evidence

Despite the Zionist rejection of “assimilationist trends,” it can be read as an extreme expression of the desire to assimilate the Jews into the Western narrative of enlightenment and redemption. The condemnation of assimilation was, in fact, the rejection of the ambiguity and “in betweenness.” Generally, Zionist thought, in spite of very important differences from assimilationist ideologies, did not challenge the dichotomy between Europe and the Orient; rather, it was based on the desire to assimilate into the West. The process of Jewish colonization embodied the perspective of both the colonized and the colonizer, by transforming the colonized and assimilating the perspective of the colonizer. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 638 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Many Jews found a personal solution to their problem by emigrating, above all to the United States. Between 1870 and 1900 more than half a million East European Jews migrated to the West. Between 1900 and 1914 the figure ex­ ceeded a million and a half. All in all, about one-third of the Jews of Eastern Europe are estimated to have left their homes in search of a new life in the West. Of the remainder, the overwhelming majority stayed where they were, most of them engaged exclusively in the personal struggle for survival, some—few but not unimportant—seeking a political end to their troubles, through participation in Russian revolutionary movements. Another group, insignificant in numbers but far-reaching in effect, found another way. In 1882 some young Jews, most of them students, met in Kharkov and formed an organization called Lovers of Zion. Their aim was emigration—not to the broad lands of the West, but to a remote and largely derelict Ottoman province known in Christendom but not to its inhabitants as Palestine. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 955 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Zionism rose on Holocaust sympathy to become a leading Western ideology — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 144; Zionist return to the East functioned as identification with the West against Arabs — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 344; Zionism is an extreme form of Western assimilation despite rejecting assimilationism — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 638 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Zionism is an extreme form of Western assimilation despite rejecting assimilationism #corroborates (0.95) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 638
• Zionism sought assimilation into the West, not departure from its dichotomy #corroborates (0.92)
• Zionist emigration to Palestine was minuscule next to mass Jewish migration westward #complicates (0.76) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 955