Homaranismo

Homaranismo (English: Humanitism)[1] is a philosophy developed by L. L. Zamenhof, the founder of the Esperanto language. Based largely on the teachings of Hillel the Elder, Zamenhof originally called it Hillelism. He sought to reform Judaism because he hoped that without the strange dress code and purity requirements, it would no longer be the victim of antisemitic propaganda. The basis of Homaranismo is the sentence known as the Golden Rule: One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

Zamenhof said about Homaranismo:

With Hillelism we don't mean a new denomination; we mean a new corporate-religious order inside the old Jewish religion, which has existed for a long time. Everybody who lives ethically could take part in this religion with a clear conscience, no matter what the religious views he had before looked like.

Based on this idea, he came to the conclusion that this philosophy could be a bridge between religions, not just a subset of Judaism. Zamenhof subsequently renamed his philosophy Homaranismo.

While many different motivations drew early Esperantists to that movement, for Zamenhof Esperanto was always a means by which to facilitate improved human relations, especially beyond boundaries of race, language and culture. Zamenhof's daughter Lidia embraced this philosophy and taught it alongside Esperanto and her adopted religion, the Baháʼí Faith.

Despite his Esperanto language project, Zamenhof described Homaranismo as "It is indeed the object of my whole life. I would give up everything for it."[2]

Zamenhof developed his ideas on Homaranismo in two works: Hilelismo (1901) and Homaranismo (1913).

See also

References
  1. Meaning in the Age of Modernism: C. K. Ogden and his contemporaries, Thesis of James McElvenny, 2013
  2. Edmond Privat, "The Life of Zamenhof", p 117.
  • Welger, Helmut: Kosmopoliti human (Homaranismo). Version 1999. ISBN 3-933417-02-3
  • W. A. Macdonald, Humanitism: The Scientific Solution of the Social Problem, Trubner & Co., London, 1890
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