This volume engages diverse topics such as art, music, and radio broadcasting in the development of modern Jewish nationalism by leading scholars in their respective fields. It contains richly detailed studies that challenge existing historiography--from personal struggles with nationalism, to the lesser-known origins of the Balfour Declaration, from boisterous demonstrations on the streets of pre-World War I Galicia, to skirmishes between Jews in present-day Jerusalem. It examines how nationalism has worked in theory and practice for Jews and at times been fiercely resisted. Beginning with the memory of Theodor Herzl and his cohort at the London Zionist Congress of 1900, this book revisits the wider scene of Zionism's emergence, as we explore the imagination of, and the attempted national mobilization of Jewry throughout the twentieth century. Contributors include: Delphine Bechtel; Nachman Ben-Yehuda; Michael Berkowitz; Inka Bertz; Philip Bohlman; John M. Efron; Richard A. Freund; Francois Guesnet; Michael Löwy; Barbara Mann; Derek Penslar; James Renton; Aviel Roshwald; Joshua Shanes.

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.

Zionism combined dialogues with Jewish, Christian, and secular messianisms to create a politics based in redemptive visions of its own.

Explains the construction of the Jewish nation in Galicia, the process by which traditional Jews modernized and the variety of identities they adopted.

Comprehensive and critical analysis of the post-Zionist debates and their impact on various aspects of Israeli culture. Post-Zionism emerged as an intellectual and cultural movement in the late 1980s when a growing number of people inside and outside academia felt that Zionism, as a political ideology, had outlived its usefulness. The post-Zionist critique attempted to expose the core tenets of Zionist ideology and the way this ideology was used, to justify a series of violent or unjust actions by the Zionist movement, making the ideology of Zionism obsolete. In Beyond Post-Zionism Eran Kaplan explores how this critique emerged from the important social and economic changes Israel had undergone in previous decades, primarily the transition from collectivism to individualism and from socialism to the free market. Kaplan looks critically at some of the key post-Zionist arguments (the orientalist and colonial nature of Zionism) and analyzes the impact of post-Zionist thought on various aspects (literary, cinematic) of Israeli culture. He also explores what might emerge, after the political and social turmoil of the last decade, as an alternative to post-Zionism and as a definition of Israeli and Zionist political thought in the twenty-first century.

In the coming five to ten years, the highest number of key global security challenges is likely to be concentrated in the Middle East, or be related to it. And the traditional most significant challenge in the Middle East is the Arab-Israeli conflict and its core, the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a center of gravity around which the region has revolved, and remains of vast political and symbolic significance. Both in its own right and due to its (positive or negative) signaling effects, reinvigoration of the peace process is a key challenge for regional and international policy-makers in the coming years. So, what is the origin of this Israeli-Palestinian old conflict? Why did we reach this point in that region? Who to blame? How we can find a just solution? What will be the consequences if the conflict is not resolved? Can a viable state be made in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip? Gabriel Tabarani, who is a specialist on Middle East affairs, will try to find the answers in this book where he takes us back to that region through its history and facts, analyzes some turning points in it, which affected that region, discovers the causes and the important aspects of the conflict and the obstacles to peace. He presents all current events details and information from both sides of this conflict. Furthermore this book offers some recommendations on how we can solve this conflict, gives the light on all events and tries to answer all questions in a fair and balanced way.

Exodus in the Jewish Experience: Echoes and Reverberations investigates how the Exodus has been, and continues to be, a crucial source of identity for both Jews and Judaism. It explores how the Exodus has functioned as the primary model from which Jews have created theological meaning and historical self-understanding. It probes how and why the Exodus has continued to be vital to Jews throughout the unfolding of the Jewish experience. As an interdisciplinary work, it incorporates contributions from a range of Jewish Studies scholars in order to explore the Exodus from a variety of vantage points. It addresses such topics as: the Jewish reception of the biblical text of Exodus; the progressive unfolding of the Exodus in the Jewish interpretive tradition; the religious expression of the Exodus as ritual in Judaism; and the Exodus as an ongoing lens of self-understanding for both the State of Israel and contemporary Judaism. The essays are guided by a common goal: to render comprehensible how the re-envisioning of Exodus throughout the unfolding of the Jewish experience has enabled it to function for thousands of years as the central motif for the Jewish people.