Nation and History Israeli Historiography between Zionism and Post-Zionism

by Gelber, Yoav

• ISBN13: 9780853039334
• ISBN10: 085303933X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-15
• Publisher: Vallentine Mitchell

Summary

During the last twenty years Israel has reached unprecedented prosperity yet it is haunted by existential fears for its future, identity and survival. Israel's legitimacy is under assault from within and without by a coalition of left-wing radicals, Palestinians and their sympathizers, and Muslim fundamentalists. All these groups deny the existence of a Jewish nation and argue that Jews do not need a nation state. Hence, Israel should either disappear completely or become a state of all its citizens devoid of any Jewish symbol or identity. The origins of this campaign are twofold. One derives from the traditional opposition that has accompanied Zionism from its inception. The second is contemporary, articulating the post-ist fads that swamped the West since the 1980s. The past occupies a prominent place in this crusade that aims at the present and future. Traditional historiography, scientific and pseudo-scientific, and the new vogue of memory and narrative that claims to be the true

Author Biography

Yoav Gelber has been a career officer in the IDF and is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Haifa and head of the Jewish Peoplehood Section at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vi
Preface	p. vii
Introduction: The Past, its Study and Scholars	p. 1
The Impact of the Postmodern Gospel and its Apostles on the History Discipline	p. 29
Memory and History	p. 63
Jewish, Zionist and Israeli Historiography	p. 97
Post-Zionism and Jewish Nationalism	p. 129
The Controversy over the History of Zionism, the Yishuv and the State of Israel	p. l58
The Holocaust between History, Memory and Commemoration	p. 189
Memory and Construction of Identity in Israel	p. 217
History and Memory in a Divided Society	p. 245
Epilogue	p. 273
Notes	p. 279
Bibliography	p. 309
Index	p. 325
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