The Hegelian Roots of Moses Hess: Architect of Jewish National Consciousness and Socialist Zionism

Peshraw Mohammed – Berlin

Moses Hess (1812–1875) was a German-Jewish philosopher, journalist, and political thinker whose life traced a remarkable intellectual journey from early socialism to the foundational ideas of modern Zionism. Born in Bonn to a Jewish merchant family, Hess was largely self-educated and became deeply immersed in the philosophical traditions of German Idealism, especially Hegelian dialectics. In the 1840s, he emerged as a key figure among the Young Hegelians and was instrumental in introducing Karl Marx to socialist ideas, contributing to early socialist theory while writing for radical publications like the Rheinische Zeitung. Although initially committed to proletarian internationalism, Hess grew increasingly disillusioned with the indifference of the socialist movement toward Jewish suffering and antisemitism. This prompted a dramatic return to his Jewish roots, culminating in his 1862 work Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Question, in which he called for the establishment of a Jewish socialist commonwealth in Palestine—a visionary synthesis of Jewish national identity, ethical socialism, and Hegelian state theory. For Hess, the Jewish people, like all nations, required their own sovereign state to achieve true freedom and spiritual renewal, and he interpreted Jewish history through a dialectical lens, seeing exile and redemption as opposing poles in a historical process. Though largely overlooked in his lifetime, Hess’s thought deeply influenced later Zionist leaders, including Theodor Herzl, and positioned him as a pioneering figure who sought to integrate the universalist ideals of socialism with the particularist longing for Jewish national rebirth. He died in Paris in 1875, and decades later, his remains were reburied in Kibbutz Kinneret, Israel—honoring the very vision he once outlined of a Jewish homeland rooted in justice, dignity, and collective renewal.

Hegelian Foundations: The Dialectic of History and Freedom

Hess’s intellectual formation was deeply rooted in the radical ferment of pre-1848 Germany, where he joined the Left Hegelians, a group that included luminaries like Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, and Karl Marx. The Left Hegelians, as Engels noted in 1843, sought to prove that German philosophy from Kant to Hegel culminated in communism, viewing a social revolution based on common property as the logical outcome of Hegelian principles. For Hess, Hegel’s dialectical method—where history unfolds through the resolution of contradictions between thesis and antithesis—provided a framework for understanding human progress toward freedom.

Hegel’s philosophy posits the state as the embodiment of ethical life (Sittlichkeit), where individual freedom is realized through participation in a rational, collective order. In Philosophy of Right, Hegel argues that “the state is the actuality of the ethical Idea,” a realm where freedom is not merely individual liberty but the harmonization of individual and universal wills. This concept profoundly influenced Hess, who saw the state as a vehicle for overcoming alienation and achieving social harmony. However, Hess diverged from Hegel’s conservative statism, aligning with the Left Hegelian emphasis on revolutionary praxis, inspired by August von Cieszkowski’s focus on the future as a domain of activist transformation. As Hess wrote in his early work, The Holy History of Mankind (1837), history is characterized by alternating periods of unity and alienation, with the modern industrial age marking a new phase of Zerrissenheit (disruption, torn-ness, or disunity within oneself). He envisioned a future where “contradictions between the individual and society will have been resolved,” a socialist humanism grounded in the abolition of private property.

Early Universalism and ‘the Jewish Question’

In his early writings, Hess grappled with the Jewish question through a Hegelian lens, viewing Judaism’s historical contribution as the introduction of monotheism and spiritual consciousness. In The Holy History of Mankind, he argued that Judaism’s role culminated in Jesus, after which the Jews became “a spirit without a body,” lacking a collective future. He advocated assimilation, citing Spinoza as the archetype of the modern Jew who transcended Jewish exclusivity to become a “world citizen.” As he stated, “here, in the heart of Europe, that New Jerusalem will be built,” rejecting Palestine as the site of Jewish renewal.

This universalist phase was not devoid of Jewish concerns. Even in his 1840 manuscript Poles and Jews, Hess evaluated Judaism in national, not merely religious, terms, lamenting the Jews’ “absolute lack of national consciousness.” His harsh critique in On Capital (1843), where he equated Judaism with a “money cult” and called the Jewish God “Moloch-Jehova,” reflected the radical anti-religious sentiment of his Left Hegelian milieu. Yet, these writings reveal a persistent engagement with Jewish identity, albeit through a lens of negation, underscoring the dialectical tension in his thought.

Rome and Jerusalem: The Synthesis of Socialism and Jewish Nationalism

The publication of Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Problem in 1862 marked a transformative shift in Hess’s thought, integrating his socialist commitments with a Zionist vision. This work, subtitled to reflect its engagement with national liberation movements, was inspired by Giuseppe Mazzini’s Italian nationalism and the Roma terza (Third Rome) ideal. Hess declared, “With the liberation of the Eternal City on the Tiber begins the liberation of the Eternal City on Mount Moriah; with the resurrection of Italy begins the resurrection of Judea.” This statement encapsulates his Hegelian belief in history’s dialectical progression, where the resurgence of one nation catalyzes others.

Hess’s return to Jewish nationalism was deeply personal, as he reflected: “Here do I stand once more, after twenty years of estrangement, in the midst of my own people, sharing their festivities and their days of sorrow, their memories and their hopes.” This “return” was triggered by events like the Damascus Blood Libel of 1840 and encounters with Jewish suffering, which reawakened his national consciousness. Far from abandoning socialism, Hess saw the Jewish state as a socialist commonwealth, rooted in public ownership and cooperative principles. He envisioned it as a solution for the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe and the Muslim world, not the bourgeois Jews of Western Europe, aligning with Hegelian notions of collective freedom over individualistic emancipation.

Hess’s critique of Jewish Emancipation was quintessentially Hegelian. He argued that Emancipation, rooted in the French Revolution’s universalism, treated Jews as individuals, ignoring their collective Gattungswesen (species-being). As he noted, “Judaism does not separate the individual from the family, the family from the nation, the nation from humanity.” This organic view of nationhood, influenced by Herder and Mazzini, echoed Hegel’s idea of the state as a unity of individual and universal. Emancipation’s failure lay in its inability to resolve the contradiction between Jewish collective identity and the nationalist societies surrounding them, a contradiction Hess saw exacerbated by rising racial antisemitism in Germany.

Hegelian Freedom and the Jewish State

Hess’s vision of a Jewish socialist commonwealth in Palestine aligns with Hegel’s concept of the state as the realization of freedom. For Hegel, freedom is not mere absence of constraint but the positive participation in a rational community. Hess applied this to the Jewish context, arguing that only a national home could resolve the alienation of Jewish existence. He rejected assimilationist socialism, which demanded the dissolution of Jewish identity, as inherently contradictory: “In the name of what principle of liberty or socialism would the Jews then be asked to forgo their own collective identity in a world where all other similar entities would be able to maintain their national existence?”

The socialist structure of Hess’s proposed state—based on collective ownership and cooperative labor—reflected his Hegelian critique of bourgeois individualism. He saw in Jewish tradition a proto-socialist ethos, interpreting biblical laws like the Jubilee and Sabbath as “social democratic.” As he wrote, “He who says, what is mine is mine and what is thine is thine, is a mediocre character: some say, this is a character like that of Sodom.” This ethos, rooted in communal solidarity, contrasted with the individualistic capitalism of Christian societies, which Hess had critiqued in his earlier works.

Theodor Herzl’s Recognition and Legacy

Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, acknowledged Hess’s pioneering role, reportedly stating that Rome and Jerusalem contained “all that we need” for the Zionist project. Herzl’s admiration underscores Hess’s prescience, as Rome and Jerusalem predated Herzl’s Der Judenstaat (1896) by over three decades. Herzl recognized in Hess a thinker who articulated the national dimension of the Jewish problem, moving beyond religious or individualistic frameworks. While Herzl’s Zionism was more pragmatic and less socialist, Hess’s integration of Jewish nationalism with universalist ideals prefigured the ideological diversity of the Zionist movement.

Hess’s influence extended to the Zionist Labor movement, evident in the reinterment of his remains in Israel in 1948 near Lake Tiberias, among socialist Zionist pioneers like Syrkin and Borochov. His dual legacy as a founder of German Social Democracy and a proto-Zionist reflects the Hegelian dialectic of particular and universal, where Jewish national revival complements global human emancipation.

Conclusion: Hess’s Enduring Hegelian Vision

Moses Hess’s intellectual odyssey—from Left Hegelian universalist to socialist Zionist—embodies the dialectical unfolding of history he so admired in Hegel. His Rome and Jerusalem synthesized Jewish nationalism with socialist ideals, viewing the Jewish state as a realization of Hegelian freedom: a rational community where individual and collective identities harmonize. By framing the Jewish problem in national terms, critiquing the contradictions of Emancipation, and envisioning a socialist commonwealth in Palestine, Hess laid the philosophical groundwork for Zionism. Herzl’s endorsement and the Zionist movement’s embrace of his legacy affirm his role as the “communist rabbi” who bridged Hegel’s state-centric freedom with the Jewish quest for self-determination.

Hess’s thought remains a testament to the power of Hegelian dialectics to address particularist and universalist aspirations. His vision of a Jewish state, grounded in socialist principles and mutual recognition with Arab neighbors, continues to resonate as a call for a world where freedom is realized through the ethical life of nations.