“The General Assembly’s 1947 Resolution to create two states in Palestine—one Jewish and one Arab—was the most important achievement of the Zionist movement,” wrote Prof. Shlomo Avineri. “For the first time, the Zionist movement was granted the recognition of the Jewish people’s right to sovereignty and recognition of independence in its historic homeland. But the resolution was closely tied to the principle of partition, and the right of the Jewish people to self-determination was closely associated to the parallel right of the Arab residents to create a state of their own in the land.” This resolution, stressed Shlomo in an article published in the Haaretz daily on November 24, 2017, is the legitimate basis for the creation of a Jewish state. That sober analysis of history was one of the ways in which Shlomo reminded Israeli society—and especially the politicians—of the stark realities of Israel’s existence and endless conflict with the Palestinians: on the one hand, the ongoing Palestinian refusal to accept partition, and on the other, the changing political reality in Israel. “Whoever aspires to continue the Israeli control over millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza territories undermines the legitimacy of Zionism and of the State of Israel. Inasmuch as in 1947 it was not possible to obtain international recognition for a Jewish State in all the territory of the Land of Israel, so, too, today it is impossible to reach such an agreement; and whoever does not see that is denying reality and misleading the public.”
With Shlomo's death on the last day of November 2023, Israel lost one of its most brilliant political minds, and the world lost an outstanding scholar, prolific writer, publicist, and political scientist. His work on the origins of Zionism, which focused on Theodore Herzl and Moses Hess, provided us with a deeper understanding of the meaning and purpose of the movement for Jewish national rebirth and the ideology that stands behind it. His remarkable ability to analyze Israeli society and the Israeli political system was evident in the many articles he penned on those subjects. His research, profound insights, and numerous books on important nineteenth-century thinkers such as Karl Marx, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel broke new ground and made important contributions to international scholarship.
Born Jerzy Wiener in Bielsko (now the twin city of Bielsko-Biała), Poland, he and his parents managed to flee the looming specter of war and immigrate to Palestine. Shlomo studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the London School of Economics. At the age of twenty-six, he started teaching at his alma mater in Jerusalem. He completed his doctorate under the renowned historian Professor Jacob Talmon in 1964, which led to his first book, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx.
For many years, Shlomo was the legendary head of the Political Science Department, dean of the School of Social Sciences, and head of the university's Levi Eshkol Institute. He was also a respected member of Israel's National Academy of Sciences. For six decades, Shlomo was one of the most popular and inspiring professors at that institution, and his lectures attracted thousands of students. Equally in demand abroad, he enjoyed stints as a visiting professor at leading Universities such as Oxford, Yale, Cornell, the University of California, Northwestern University, The National University of Australia in Canberra, and the Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University in New York. At the beginning of this century, Shlomo was appointed permanent visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest and a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Shlomo never sequestered himself in the ivory tower of academia; he also engaged in an array of public intellectual pursuits. In 1962, he joined Min Hayessod, a political group within the ruling Mapai party, which was critical of then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s views and policies. As early as 1970, in an article in Commentary, he wrote: “What I have in mind is a discussion with the Palestinians now under Israeli rule concerning the possibility of establishing a Palestinian Arab state on the West Bank and in Gaza.”
He already had a distinguished academic career behind him when he was appointed by Foreign Minister Yigal Alon as director general of the ministry. He served in that capacity from 1975–77 and was instrumental in negotiations with Jordan. He resigned when the Labor Party lost the elections.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shlomo was called upon to help advance the process of democratization in some of the post-Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and served on teams supervising the elections held in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania, Lithuania, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Georgia. Shlomo was also a veteran board member of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, in which he played an active role.
Even though Shlomo was an advocate of partition, and hence of the two-state solution, over time he became skeptical that this goal could be achieved in the near future. He criticized the Israeli government for its policies with regard to the territories, yet at the same time did not refrain from reproaching the Israeli left for not holding the Palestinians equally responsible for the continuation of the conflict. On the various occasions on which he delivered talks or was interviewed, he admitted, not without humor, that he was “one of the few Israelis who [did] not know how to solve the conflict.” However, in some articles, he called for “alternatives not in order to solve the conflict, but to mitigate its severity and perhaps move both sides eventually to an agreed solution.” In the meantime, he called for confidence-building measures such as a halt to construction in the settlements or the promise of financial aid to settlers who agreed to relocate to areas that were within Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
Yet I believe that Shlomo’s most important contribution to Israeli society was his important research on the origins of Zionism and on its raison d'être. As opposed to the widely held view that what prompted Herzl to advocate for a Jewish homeland was the wave of rising antisemitism, Shlomo asserted that it was the changing conditions of Jewish life in an age of enlightenment and the openness that characterized it that compelled the Jews to find other solutions to their existence, as well as, of course, the fact that Herzl and the whole Zionist movement were inspired by the burgeoning national movements all over Europe. The Jews needed a national instrument of their own. Indeed, of equal importance was the fact that the aim of Zionism was not merely to provide the Jews with a place of refuge, but rather to restore to the Jewish people the conditions of a normal nation. Zionist theorists realized that the creation of a political framework for a Jewish national home in Palestine would require a radical restructuring of Jewish life. Therefore, nation-building involved the creation of a Jewish working class. Thus, for Shlomo, Zionism’s social vision went hand in hand with its national one.
During the last year of his life, after the 2022 elections that empowered parties of the extreme right, Shlomo chose to analyze that phenomenon within a broader, global context, highlighting the ongoing crises of many Western democracies. He emphasized the breakdown of traditional political parties and the rise of populist right-wing ones. Even though circumstances vary from country to country, according to Shlomo, the common denominator for their downfall was their failure to adapt to changing conditions, mass immigration, and social media, which enables populist politicians to reach the masses in a way they could not in the past.
Over the course of his long and prolific career he wrote ten books, which were translated into such diverse languages as Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Among those appearing in English are The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (1968); Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State (1972); The Making of Modern Zionism (1981); Moses Hess and Zionism (1985); Arlosoroff (1989); Herzl’s Vision and the Foundation of the Jewish State (2013); and Karl Marx’s Philosophy and Revolution (2019). In 1996, in recognition of his vast contributions to Israeli academia and public life, Shlomo won the coveted Israel Prize.
In the early 1960s, I had the privilege of being one of Shlomo’s numerous students and admirers. I attended his course on political philosophy and remember vividly his first lesson on Heraclitus’ theory of Panta Rhei that “no man ever steps twice in the waters from the same river.” That lesson and many others shaped my thinking to this day. That is one of my earliest and most vivid memories of Shlomo, but I remember fondly and with gratitude so many other encounters as well as his sagacious counsel. Indeed, our river continues flowing, and our world will not be the same without Shlomo Avineri's wisdom and guidance.
Shlomo was married to Dvora (née Nadler), an attorney, who passed away in 2022. They are survived by a daughter, Maayan Avineri-Rebhun, and several grandchildren. May his memory be a blessing.
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Colette Avital
Colette Avital is a veteran of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among her overseas postings, she served as ambassador to Portugal (1988–92) and consul general in New York (1992–97). She was a member of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Knessets and served as deputy speaker of the house. Ambassador Avital is currently the chairperson of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors.