Author : Michael Stanislawski
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 150 pages
File Size : 42,67 MB
Release : 2017
Category : HISTORY
ISBN : 0199766045
"This Very Short Introduction discloses a history of Zionism from the origins of modern Jewish nationalism in the 1870's to the present. Michael Stanislawski provides a lucid and detached analysis of Zionism, focusing on its internal intellectual and ideological developments and divides"--
Author : Shmuel Feiner
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 45,39 MB
Release : 2011-08-17
Category : History
ISBN : 0812200942
At the beginning of the eighteenth century most European Jews lived in restricted settlements and urban ghettos, isolated from the surrounding dominant Christian cultures not only by law but also by language, custom, and dress. By the end of the century urban, upwardly mobile Jews had shaved their beards and abandoned Yiddish in favor of the languages of the countries in which they lived. They began to participate in secular culture and they embraced rationalism and non-Jewish education as supplements to traditional Talmudic studies. The full participation of Jews in modern Europe and America would be unthinkable without the intellectual and social revolution that was the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. Unparalleled in scale and comprehensiveness, The Jewish Enlightenment reconstructs the intellectual and social revolution of the Haskalah as it gradually gathered momentum throughout the eighteenth century. Relying on a huge range of previously unexplored sources, Shmuel Feiner fully views the Haskalah as the Jewish version of the European Enlightenment and, as such, a movement that cannot be isolated from broader eighteenth-century European traditions. Critically, he views the Haskalah as a truly European phenomenon and not one simply centered in Germany. He also shows how the republic of letters in European Jewry provided an avenue of secularization for Jewish society and culture, sowing the seeds of Jewish liberalism and modern ideology and sparking the Orthodox counterreaction that culminated in a clash of cultures within the Jewish community. The Haskalah's confrontations with its opponents within Jewry constitute one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the dramatic and traumatic encounter between the Jews and modernity. The Haskalah is one of the central topics in modern Jewish historiography. With its scope, erudition, and new analysis, The Jewish Enlightenment now provides the most comprehensive treatment of this major cultural movement.
Author : Judith Butler
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 403 pages
File Size : 33,10 MB
Release : 2012-07-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0231517955
Judith Butler follows Edward Said's late suggestion that through a consideration of Palestinian dispossession in relation to Jewish diasporic traditions a new ethos can be forged for a one-state solution. Butler engages Jewish philosophical positions to articulate a critique of political Zionism and its practices of illegitimate state violence, nationalism, and state-sponsored racism. At the same time, she moves beyond communitarian frameworks, including Jewish ones, that fail to arrive at a radical democratic notion of political cohabitation. Butler engages thinkers such as Edward Said, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, and Mahmoud Darwish as she articulates a new political ethic. In her view, it is as important to dispute Israel's claim to represent the Jewish people as it is to show that a narrowly Jewish framework cannot suffice as a basis for an ultimate critique of Zionism. She promotes an ethical position in which the obligations of cohabitation do not derive from cultural sameness but from the unchosen character of social plurality. Recovering the arguments of Jewish thinkers who offered criticisms of Zionism or whose work could be used for such a purpose, Butler disputes the specific charge of anti-Semitic self-hatred often leveled against Jewish critiques of Israel. Her political ethic relies on a vision of cohabitation that thinks anew about binationalism and exposes the limits of a communitarian framework to overcome the colonial legacy of Zionism. Her own engagements with Edward Said and Mahmoud Darwish form an important point of departure and conclusion for her engagement with some key forms of thought derived in part from Jewish resources, but always in relation to the non-Jew. Butler considers the rights of the dispossessed, the necessity of plural cohabitation, and the dangers of arbitrary state violence, showing how they can be extended to a critique of Zionism, even when that is not their explicit aim. She revisits and affirms Edward Said's late proposals for a one-state solution within the ethos of binationalism. Butler's startling suggestion: Jewish ethics not only demand a critique of Zionism, but must transcend its exclusive Jewishness in order to realize the ethical and political ideals of living together in radical democracy.
Author : Peter Beinart
Publisher : Melbourne Univ. Publishing
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 35,92 MB
Release : 2012
Category : History
ISBN : 0522861768
A dramatic shift is taking place in Israel and America. In Israel, the deepening occupation of the West Bank is putting Israeli democracy at risk. In the United States, the refusal of major Jewish organisations to defend democracy in the Jewish state is alienating many young liberal Jews from Zionism itself. In the next generation, the liberal Zionist dream, the dream of a state that safeguards the Jewish people and cherishes democratic ideals, may die. In The Crisis of Zionism, Peter Beinart lays out in chilling detail the looming danger to Israeli democracy and the American Jewish establishment's refusal to confront it. And he offers a fascinating, groundbreaking portrait of the two leaders at the centre of the crisis: Barack Obama, America's first 'Jewish president', a man steeped in the liberalism he learned from his many Jewish friends and mentors in Chicago; and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who considers liberalism the Jewish people's special curse. These two men embody fundamentally different visions, not just of American and Israeli national interests, but of the mission of the Jewish people itself. Beinart concludes with provocative proposals for how the relationship between American Jews and Israel must change, and with an eloquent and moving appeal for American Jews to defend the dream of a democratic Jewish state before it is too late.
Author : Michael Brenner
Publisher :
Page : 211 pages
File Size : 16,93 MB
Release : 2011
Category : Zionism
ISBN : 9781558765351
This book explores the origins of Zionism within Jewish tradition, the variety of Zionist ideologies, and the political circumstances that fostered this movement. This expanded and updated edition includes a chapter about the changes in Zionism since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.
Author : Milton Viorst
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 333 pages
File Size : 15,69 MB
Release : 2016-07-19
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1250078008
From serving as the Middle East correspondent for The New Yorker to penning articles for the New York Times, Milton Viorst has dedicated his career to studying the Middle East. Now, in this new book, Viorst examines the evolution of Zionism, from its roots by serving as a cultural refuge for Europe's Jews, to the cover it provides today for Israel's exercise of control over millions of Arabs in occupied territories. Beginning with the shattering of the traditional Jewish society during the Enlightenment, Viorst covers the recent history of the Jews, from the spread of Jewish Emancipation during the French Revolution Era to the rise of the exclusionary anti-Semitism that overwhelmed Europe in the late nineteenth century. Viorst examines how Zionism was born and follows its development through the lives and ideas of its dominant leaders, who all held only one tenet in common: that Jews, for the first time in two millennia, must determine their own destiny to save themselves. But, in regards to creating a Jewish state with a military that dominates the region, Viorst argues that Israel has squandered the goodwill it enjoyed at its founding, and thus the country has put its own future on very uncertain footing. With the expertise and knowledge garnered from decades of studying this contentious region, Milton Viorst deftly exposes the risks that Israel faces today.
Author : Gur Alroey
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 31,58 MB
Release : 2016-05-02
Category : History
ISBN : 0814342078
Examines an alternative ideology to Zionism that attempted to build a Jewish State outside of Palestine. While the ideologies of Territorialism and Zionism originated at the same time, the Territorialists foresaw a dire fate for Eastern European Jews, arguing that they could not wait for the Zionist Organization to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. This pessimistic worldview led Territorialists to favor a solution for the Jewish state "here and now"—and not only in the Land of Israel. In Zionism without Zion: The Jewish Territorial Organization and Its Conflict with the Zionist Organization, author Gur Alroey examines this group's unique perspective, its struggle with the Zionist movement, its Zionist rivals' response, and its diplomatic efforts to obtain a territory for the Jewish people in the first decades of the twentieth century. Alroey begins by examining the British government's Uganda Plan and the ensuing crisis it caused in the Zionist movement and Jewish society. He details the founding of the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO) in 1903 and explains the varied reactions that the Territorialist ideology received from Zionists and settlers in Palestine. Alroey also details the diplomatic efforts of Territorialists during their desperate search for a suitable territory, which ultimately never bore fruit. Finally, he attempts to understand the reasons for the ITO's dissolution after the Balfour Declaration, explores the revival of Territorialism with the New Territorialists in the 1930s and 1940s, and describes the similarities and differences between the movement then and its earlier version. Zionism without Zion sheds new light on the solutions Territorialism proposed to alleviate the hardship of Eastern European Jews at the start of the twentieth century and offers fresh insights into the challenges faced by Zionism in the same era. The thorough discussion of this under-studied ideology will be of considerable interested to scholars of Eastern European history, Jewish history, and Israel studies.
Author : John Rose
Publisher : Pluto Press (UK)
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 34,40 MB
Release : 2004-09-20
Category : History
ISBN :
This is a controversial book. It is a critical account of the historical, political and cultural roots of Zionism. John Rose shows how this powerful political force is based in mythology; ancient, medieval and modern. Many of these stories, as with other mythologies, have no basis in fact. However, because Zionism is a living political force, these myths have been used to justify very real and political ends -- namely, the expulsion and continuing persecution of the Palestinians. Chapter-by-chapter, John Rose scrutinises the roots of the myths of Zionism. Mobilising recent scholarship, he separates fact from fiction presenting a detailed analysis of their origins and development. This includes a challenge to Zionism's biblical claims using very recent and very startling Israeli archaeological conclusions. He provides a detailed exploration of Judaism's links to the Middle East. He shows clearly that Zionism makes many false claims on Jewish religion and history. He questions its rationale as a response to European anti-Semitism, and shows that, if there is ever to be peace and reconciliation in the land of Palestine, this intellectual dishonesty must be addressed.
Author : Chaim Gans
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 50,76 MB
Release : 2016
Category : History
ISBN : 0190237546
"The book presents several interpretations of Zionism and the post-Zionist alternatives currently proposed for it as political theories for the Jews. It explicates their historiographical, philosophical and moral foundations and their implications for the relationships between Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine and between Jews in Israel and world Jews"--
Author : Gianni Vattimo
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 44,24 MB
Release : 2013-11-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1441115560
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.
