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Many contemporary Israelis suffer from a strange condition. Despite the obvious successes of the Zionist enterprise and the State of Israel, tension persists, with a collective sense that something is wrong and should be better. This cognitive dissonance arises from the disjunction between ÒplaceÓ (defined as what Israel is really like) and ÒPlaceÓ (defined as the imaginary community comprised of history, myth, and dream). Through the lens of five major works in Hebrew by writers Abraham Mapu (1853), Theodor Herzl (1902), Yosef Luidor (1912), Moshe Shamir (1948), and Amos Oz (1963), Schwartz unearths the core of this paradox as it evolves over one hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1960s.
The Jewish American Paradox by Robert H Mnookin Pdf
Who should count as Jewish in America? What should be the relationship of American Jews to Israel? Can the American Jewish community collectively sustain and pass on to the next generation a sufficient sense of Jewish identity? The situation of American Jews today is deeply paradoxical. Jews have achieved unprecedented integration, influence, and esteem in virtually every facet of American life. But this extraordinarily diverse community now also faces four critical and often divisive challenges: rampant intermarriage, weak religious observance, diminished cohesion in the face of waning anti-Semitism, and deeply conflicting views about Israel. Can the American Jewish community collectively sustain and pass on to the next generation a sufficient sense of Jewish identity in light of these challenges? Who should count as Jewish in America? What should be the relationship of American Jews to Israel? In this thoughtful and perceptive book, Robert H. Mnookin argues that the answers of the past no longer serve American Jews today. The book boldly promotes a radically inclusive American-Jewish community -- one where being Jewish can depend on personal choice and public self-identification, not simply birth or formal religious conversion. Instead of preventing intermarriage or ostracizing those critical of Israel, he envisions a community that embraces diversity and debate, and in so doing, preserves and strengthens the Jewish identity into the next generation and beyond.
Many contemporary Israelis suffer from a strange condition. Despite the obvious successes of the Zionist enterprise and the State of Israel, tension persists, with a collective sense that something is wrong and should be better. This cognitive dissonance arises from the disjunction between ÒplaceÓ (defined as what Israel is really like) and ÒPlaceÓ (defined as the imaginary community comprised of history, myth, and dream). Through the lens of five major works in Hebrew by writers Abraham Mapu (1853), Theodor Herzl (1902), Yosef Luidor (1912), Moshe Shamir (1948), and Amos Oz (1963), Schwartz unearths the core of this paradox as it evolves over one hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1960s.
"This book confronts the paradox of Jewish politics: How is it that a nation that has generally proven to be exceptionally strong and adaptable " a successful people, all things considered " has such a dismal political track record? Why do the Jews, having reestablished their national home, contend there with hostility no less extreme than that which hounded them in the Diaspora, when they were scattered among the nations of the world? How can it be that our system of government is simultaneously among both the best and worst in the world, both the smartest and the stupidest, both the strongest and the most vulnerable?"
Grasshoppers in Zion takes the reader on a journey through the workings of modernity, Zionist history, the Hebrew Bible and everyday life in Israel. Evocative, lucid, at times poetic, the book is informed by the writer's sojourn in the Promised Land in the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2011 no less than by his unique sociological perspective. To clean up the mess the Middle East has been allowed to become, the author asserts, Israel will have to flex its political and military muscle. But will the Jews be able to overcome their millennial refusal to act as a sovereign nation? Will democracies overcome their blind spots to hold their enemies accountable?
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a masterful new biography of Theodor Herzl by an eminent historian of Zionism "An excellent, concise biography of Theodor Herzl, architect of modern Zionism. . . . An exceptionally good, highly readable volume."--Publishers Weekly, starred review "An engrossing account of a leader who, by converting despair into strength, gave an exiled people both political purpose and the means to attain it."--Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal The life of Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) was as puzzling as it was brief. How did this cosmopolitan and assimilated European Jew become the leader of the Zionist movement? How could he be both an artist and a statesman, a rationalist and an aesthete, a stern moralist yet possessed of deep, and at times dark, passions? And why did scores of thousands of Jews, many of them from traditional, observant backgrounds, embrace Herzl as their leader? Drawing on a vast body of Herzl's personal, literary, and political writings, historian Derek Penslar shows that Herzl's path to Zionism had as much to do with personal crises as it did with antisemitism. Once Herzl devoted himself to Zionism, Penslar shows, he distinguished himself as a consummate leader--possessed of indefatigable energy, organizational ability, and electrifying charisma. Herzl became a screen onto which Jews of his era could project their deepest needs and longings. About Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award. More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent." - New York times "Exemplary." - Wall St. Journal "Distinguished." - New Yorker "Superb." - The Guardian
Deconstructing Zionism by Gianni Vattimo,Michael Marder Pdf
This volume in the Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy series provides a political and philosophical critique of Zionism. While other nationalisms seem to have adapted to twenty-first century realities and shifting notions of state and nation, Zionism has largely remained tethered to a nineteenth century mentality, including the glorification of the state as the only means of expressing the spirit of the people. These essays, contributed by eminent international thinkers including Slavoj Zizek, Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Gianni Vattimo, Walter Mignolo, Marc Ellis, and others, deconstruct the political-metaphysical myths that are the framework for the existence of Israel.Collectively, they offer a multifaceted critique of the metaphysical, theological, and onto-political grounds of the Zionist project and the economic, geopolitical, and cultural outcomes of these foundations. A significant contribution to the debates surrounding the state of Israel today, this groundbreaking work will appeal to anyone interested in political theory, philosophy, Jewish thought, and the Middle East conflict.
Nationalism, Zionism and ethnic mobilization of the Jews in 1900 and beyond [electronic resource] by Michael Berkowitz Pdf
European, US, and Israeli historians and social scientists try to skirt the political controversies involved in the origin of Israel to offer academic perspectives on Jewish nationalism, of which Zionism comprised a prominent alternative beginning in the late 19th century. They look in particular at aspects that have been undervalued in examining J.
Many of the successful campaigns for national liberation in the years following World War II were initially based on democratic and secular ideals. Once established, however, the newly independent nations had to deal with entirely unexpected religious fierceness. Michael Walzer, one of America’s foremost political thinkers, examines this perplexing trend by studying India, Israel, and Algeria, three nations whose founding principles and institutions have been sharply attacked by three completely different groups of religious revivalists: Hindu militants, ultra-Orthodox Jews and messianic Zionists, and Islamic radicals. In his provocative, well-reasoned discussion, Walzer asks why these secular democratic movements have failed to sustain their hegemony: Why have they been unable to reproduce their political culture beyond one or two generations? In a postscript, he compares the difficulties of contemporary secularism to the successful establishment of secular politics in the early American republic—thereby making an argument for American exceptionalism but gravely noting that we may be less exceptional today.
" The Purse and the Sword presents a critical analysis of Israel's legal system in the context of its politics, history, and the forces that shape its society. This book examines the extensive powers that Israel's Supreme Court arrogated to itself since the 1980s and traces the history of the transformation of its legal system and the shifts in the balance of power between the branches of government. Centrally, this shift has put unprecedented power in the hands of both the Court and Israel's attorney general and state prosecution at the expense of Israel's cabinet, constituting its executive branch, and the Knesset--its parliament. The expansion of judicial power followed the weakening of the political leadership in the wake of the Yom Kippur war of 1973, and the election results in the following years. These developments are detailed in the context of major issues faced by modern Israel, including the war against terror, the conflict with the Palestinians, the Arab minority, settlements in the West Bank, state and religion, immigration, military service, censorship and freedom of expression, appointments to the government and to public office, and government policies. The aggrandizement of power by the legal system led to a backlash against the Supreme Court in the early part of the current century, and to the partial rebalancing of power towards the political branches. "--
2019 National Jewish Book Award Finalist "[A] fascinating biography . . . a masterly portrait of a titanic yet unfulfilled man . . . this is a gripping study of power, and the loneliness of power." —The Economist As the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion long ago secured his reputation as a leading figure of the twentieth century. Determined from an early age to create a Jewish state, he thereupon took control of the Zionist movement, declared Israel’s independence, and navigated his country through wars, controversies and remarkable achievements. And yet Ben-Gurion remains an enigma—he could be driven and imperious, or quizzical and confounding. In this definitive biography, Israel’s leading journalist-historian Tom Segev uses large amounts of previously unreleased archival material to give an original, nuanced account, transcending the myths and legends that have accreted around the man. Segev’s probing biography ranges from the villages of Poland to Manhattan libraries, London hotels, and the hills of Palestine, and shows us Ben-Gurion’s relentless activity across six decades. Along the way, Segev reveals for the first time Ben-Gurion’s secret negotiations with the British on the eve of Israel’s independence, his willingness to countenance the forced transfer of Arab neighbors, his relative indifference to Jerusalem, and his occasional “nutty moments”—from UFO sightings to plans for Israel to acquire territory in South America. Segev also reveals that Ben-Gurion first heard about the Holocaust from a Palestinian Arab acquaintance, and explores his tempestuous private life, including the testimony of four former lovers. The result is a full and startling portrait of a man who sought a state “at any cost”—at times through risk-taking, violence, and unpredictability, and at other times through compromise, moderation, and reason. Segev’s Ben-Gurion is neither a saint nor a villain but rather a historical actor who belongs in the company of Lenin or Churchill—a twentieth-century leader whose iron will and complex temperament left a complex and contentious legacy that we still reckon with today.
The Controversy of Zion by Geoffrey Wheatcroft Pdf
After centuries of persecution and contempt, European Jews were slowly emancipated in the nineteenth century. This gave them a chance to become what they were never allowed to be before; loyal citizens of the countries where they lived. As the nineteenth century wore on, however, this emancipation proved to be an illusion. The hatred once based on religion made way for a new and more insidious form of anti-Semitism based on race and culture. The Jew was still a stranger, his position the more false and humiliating for his attempt to assimilate. This was the Jewish Question, to which, at the end of the nineteenth century, a drastic solution was proposed. In 1896, Viennese journalist Theodore Herzl first coined the term "Zionism," for a movement to found a homeland where Jews could live free from his persecution. In The Controversy of Zion, Wheatcroft shows how Zionism, proposed as an answer, has instead raised many questions. He examines in detail the debates over Jewish nationalism, from the time of Herzl through Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in 1995, introducing a host of extraordinary characters: Disraeli and Marx; the early Zionists Hess and Herzl; Jewish writers such as Karl Kraus; anti-Semites such as Belloc; military Zionists such as Jabotinsky; and noble-spirited teachers such as Judah Magnes. Today there is a Jewish state which is a source of healing pride for millions of Jews, but also a source of anxiety. Should they defend the religious zealots and right-wing settlers who play an ever larger part in Israeli life? Or is Israel increasingly irrelevant to the fabulous success story of the Jews of America? This engaging and original book illuminates the current conflicts in the Middle East, and the continuing Jewish dilemma.