This book traces the evolution of the demand for a Jewish state into a central and specific aim of Zionist policy and the interrelated process by which Ben-Gurion became increasingly oriented toward the United States and American Jewry at the expense of Zionism's historical connection with Great Britain. Based on new documentary evidence, Allon Gal's study charts Ben-Gurion's ascent from the leadership of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) to prominence in world Zionist and international diplomacy.
First published in 2004. It may well be that genius begins where fear ends: not to be afraid to question what is known, not to be afraid to be original. David Ben-Gurion did not try to imitate anyone...He was endowed with a mind that sought out whats was new and was capable of penetrating the deepest recesses. First and foremost, he challenged every Jew who believed it was the fate of Jews to live in the Diaspora, and he believed that the Jews could be a nation of farmers, industrialists, soldiers, pioneers, and not only scientists and intellectuals. He decided that the time had come to establish a Jewish state, yet once it had been founded, he was not satisfied- it must be an exemplary state, a chosen state.
An examination of the ways in which the American experience influenced some of the major Jewish leaders during and between the world wars. The Israeli-American Connection examines the ways in which the American experience influenced some of the major leaders of the yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Palestine, during and between the world wars. In six biographical chapters, Michael Brown studies Vladimir Jabotinsky, Chaim Nahman Bialik, Berl Katznelson, Henrietta Szold, Golda Meir, and David Ben-Gurian, focusing on each leader's involvement with and image of America, as well as the impact of America on their lives and careers.
In what may be the most controversial book on Zionism and Israel published in the last twenty years, Yoram Hazony graphically portrays the cultural and political revolt against Israel's status as the Jewish state. Examining ideological trends in academia, literature, media, law, the armed forces, and the foreign policy establishment, Hazony contends that Israelis are preparing themselves for the final break with the Jewish past and the Jewish future. In a dramatic new reading of Israeli history, Hazony uncovers the story of how Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, and other German-Jewish intellectuals bitterly fought against the establishment of Israel, and later used the Hebrew University as a base for deposing David Ben-Gurion and discrediting Labor Zionism. The Jewish State is a must-read for anyone concerned with Israel's present and future.
This is the first anthology in more than half a century to offer fresh insight into the history of Jews and Judaism in America. Beginning with six chronological survey essays, the collection builds with twelve topical essays focusing on a variety of important themes in the American Jewish and Judaic experience. The volume opens with early Jewish settlers (1654-1820), the expansion of Jewish life in America (1820-1901), the great wave of eastern European Jewish immigrants (1880-1924), the character of American Judaism between the two world wars, American Jewish life from the end of World War II to the Six-Day War, and the growth of Jews' influence and affluence. The second half of the book includes essays on the community of Orthodox Jews, the history of Jewish education in America, the rise of Jewish social clubs at the turn of the century, the history of southern and western Jewry, Jewish responses to Nazism and the Holocaust; feminism's confrontation with Judaism, and the eternal question of what defines American Jewish culture. The contributions of distinguished scholars seamlessly integrate recent scholarship. Endnotes provide the reader with access to the authors' research and sources. Comprehensive, original, and elegantly crafted, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America not only introduces the student to this thrilling history but also provides new perspectives for the scholar. Contributors: Dianne Ashton (Rowan University), Mark K. Bauman (Atlanta Metropolitan College), Kimmy Caplan (Bar-Ilan University, Israel), Eli Faber (City University of New York), Eric L. Goldstein (University of Michigan), Jeffrey S. Gurock (Yeshiva University), Jenna Weissman Joselit (Princeton University), Melissa Klapper (Rowan University), Alan T. Levenson (Siegal College of Judaic Studies), Rafael Medoff (David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies), Pamela S. Nadell (American University), Riv-Ellen Prell (University of Minnesota), Linda S. Raphael (George Washington University), Jeffrey Shandler (Rutgers University), Michael E. Staub (City University of New York), William Toll (University of Oregon), Beth S. Wenger (University of Pennsylvania), Stephen J. Whitfield (Brandeis University)
National Jewish Book Awards Finalist for the Barbara Dobkin Award for Women’s Studies, 2012. In February 1912 thirty-eight American Jewish women met at Temple Emanuel in New York and founded Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. This has become the largest Zionist organization in the Diaspora and the largest and most active Jewish women's organization ever. Its history is an inseparable part of the history of American Jewry and of the State of Israel, and the relationship between them. Hadassah is also part of the history of Jewish women in the United States and in the modern world more broadly. Its achievements are not only those of Zionism but, crucially, of women, and throughout this study Mira Katzburg-Yungman pays particular attention to the life stories of the individual women who played a role in them. Based on historical documentation collected in the United States and Israel and on broad research, the book covers many aspects of the history of Hadassah and analyses significant aspects of the fascinating story of the organization. A wide-ranging introductory section describes the contexts and challenges of Hadassah's history from its founding to the birth of the State of Israel. Subsequent sections explore in turn the organization's ideology and its activity on the American scene after Israeli statehood; its political and ideological role in the World Zionist Organization; and its involvement in the new State of Israel in the twin fields of activity: in medicine and health care and in its work with children and young people. The final part of the book deals with topics that enrich our understanding of Hadassah in additional dimensions, such as gender issues, comparisons of Hadassah with other Zionist organizations, and the importance of people of the Yishuv and later of Israelis in Hadassah's activities. The study concludes with an Epilogue that considers developments up to 2005, assessing whether the conclusions reached with regard to Hadassah as an organization remain valid. It considers developments within Hadassah in the 1980s and 1990s, years in which the organization was affected by the significant changes within the wider American Jewish community, specifically the enormous increase in intermarriage with non-Jews and the impact of the so-called 'second wave' of feminism. This extensive, diverse, and balanced study offers a picture of Hadassah in both arenas of its activity: in the land that is now the State of Israel, and in the United States. In doing so it makes a contribution not only to Zionist history but also to the history of American Jewish women and of Jewish women more widely.
Upheavals of the modern period have dramatically changed the traditional pattern of the rescue of Jews by Jews. Whereas until the mid-nineteenth century rescue was carried out by community leaders in accordance with the religiously rooted injunction for the redemption of captives, in the modern period largely secular international Jewish organizations and the State of Israel have emerged as the primary instruments of expressing Jewish national solidarity. The campaigns to restore the exodus from the Soviet Union and to rescue Ethiopian Jews through Operation Moses are the most recent expressions of the imperative to save threatened Jewish communities and reconstitute them elsewhere. The dynamics and achievements of organized rescue in the modern period are critically assessed in this volume, which includes 18 interpretive essays and case studies by leading European, American and Israeli scholars. Organizing Rescue is divided into four sections. The introductory essays examine the roots of Jewish solidarity in Jewish law, and trace the transformation of rescue activity from a religious to a largely secular undertaking. The three sections that follow group selected case studies chronologically. Part I, from the Damascus Affair to the First World War (1840-1914), deals with new patterns of response to the persecution of Jews in Europe, Asia and Africa under the impact of emancipation, nationalism and antisemitism. Part II, World Wars and the Shadow of the Holocaust (1914-1948), deals with the transitional period that brought hope and bitter disillusion to Jews in Europe and the Middle East. Part III, The Contemporary Period (1948 to the present), examines the different manifestations of Jewish national solidarity that developed in response to the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel. These studies illuminate and evaluate the efforts of Jews to defend and preserve communities separated by vast distances and diverse cultural and political systems. By placing these studies in an integrated historical and comparative framework, Organizing Rescue provides a timely and unique perspective for understanding national Jewish solidarity in the modern period.
