Spinoza a Gerusalemme

The article deals, from a fresh perspective, with the centuries-old problem of the Jewishness of Baruch Spinoza, asking how Spinoza became a prophet of Zionism and which basis for this claim is to be found in his works. As it is well-known in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza affirms that a renascence of Jewish statuality (imperium) is not impossible, were it not for the elements of weakness (interpreted with the image of effemination) introduced by the principles of Jewish religion in the diaspora. The hypothetic clause was the object of many divergent interpretations, but the general tendency, in the early years of the Yishuv and in the first decades after the establishment of the State of Israel, was to adopt Spinoza as a precursor of the Zionist project. This view has been questioned more recently and the article suggests a way of interpreting the Zionist reading of Spinoza not only as an ideological appropriation, but also as a legitimate reflex of Spinoza's peculiar reticence, or of our lack of information, as to his appraisal of the Sabbatian messianic movement, which perturbated very deeply in his days the Jewish diaspora and elicited, understandably, the curiosity of the Christians. As a logical premiss to this question, also the problem of Spinoza's language and of his "natural" tongue, whether Dutch, Potoguese, Latin or, indeed, Hebrew, is briefly discussed on the background of the unsolved question of his Jewishness.