Golus nationalism

Instead, he was inspired by the Jews of Eastern Europe who had retained Yiddish as a language, had a robust folk culture, and banded together in recognizably distinct communities.

[8] Around the 1880s, Birnbaum reportedly developed a resentment for Theodor Herzl's lack of interest in sustaining and reviving Jewish diasporic culture, and his favoring of political strategy towards sovereignty and territory.

[9] This caused Birnbaum to diverge from the territorial zionist ideologies of Herzl and others, and he joined the ranks of the Non-territorial autonomist theorists, who argued that physical boundaries are not necessary to define a people and maintain sovereignty.

His theories aligned with Simon Dubnow's concepts of Diaspora Nationalism, emphasizing a Jewish sense of unity, identity, and sovereignty across international countries and communities.

Birnbaum's ideas also countered Ahad Ha-am because he did not place as much significance on the Holy Land of Israel and Palestine as carrying the spirit of Judaism.

[citation needed] Another involved theorist is Chaim Zhitlovsky, who had similar concepts as the Bundists, and he pushed for agricultural lifestyles for the usually city-dwelling Jews of Europe and America.

[13] Yiddishist Abraham Golomb wrote frequently about maintaining a Jewish identity in the Diaspora, and the centrality of Yiddish and Hebrew in this pursuit.