The connection between Hegelian thought and the emergence of modern Jewish nationalism – Zionism – appears, at first, to be far–fetched and slightly incongruous. Yet some aspects of Hegelian thought became attractive to many secularised, Jewish intellectuals in the 19th century in their quest for self-identity amidst the turmoil of enormous political and social upheavals. Some facets of this receptivity to Hegelian ideas, and especially their extension to the future dimension of history, bear striking similarity to the popularity of Hegelian notions among the Polish intelligentsia in roughly the same period (cf. Ryszard Panasiuk's ‘Hegel in Poland’, in the Spring-Summer 1982 issue of the Bulletin). The context is also similar: political impotence and the reinterpretation of a political historical tradition with overt religious connotations.

The main issue facing Jewish thinkers in the post–1789 period was two-fold: the claim for integration, on the basis of equality, into a society based on the ideas of the Enlightenment, and the redefinition of Jewish identity in a mostly secularised world. Zionism appeared historically as one of the answers to this doutfle quest: it claimed that integration into the modern world should be on a collective – i.e. national – and not individual base; that this integration had to be based on auto-emancipation and self-determination, not on emancipation by others; and finally – and most fundamentally – that Jewish identity should be defined in terms of nationhood, not merely religious affiliation.