Academic literature on the topic 'New Zionist Organization'

The emergence of World Zionist Organization at the end of 19th century and the increasing sympathy of world Jewry for political Zionism have strengthened the sense of the need to obtain a Jewish national home in Palestine. In a positive way, the end of the First World War and the decision of the League of Nations to place Palestine under British mandate favored regional development, especially of the Jewish community living there. Under the foreign administration, the Jewish people borrowed the proper aspects of the British model of parliamentary democracy and adapted them to the needs of the Yishuv, at a time when Jewish ideal enjoyed support and admiration, due in particular to Zionist diplomacy in Western Europe and the United States. Trying to maintain a good relationship with the British administration in order to fulfill its interests, the Jewish community in Palestine has thrived in various areas such as: political-institutional organization, economy, defence and demography, rapidly reaching a high level of development. These factors contributed tremendously to the birth of a modern democratic Jewish state. The reality of the simultaneous operation in Palestine of the three sets of institutions, those of the Yishuv, those of the Zionist Organization and those of the British administration represented a unique and remarkable fact. After Israel gained independence, the attempt to provide continuity to pre-state institutions represented a reality that was reflected in the flawless formula of the permanent institutions, in order to meet the needs of the new state in a situation of internal and international crisis.

AbstractThe paper discusses historical lessons offered by the experience of two leftwing movements, the pre-1948 Palestinian Communist Party, and the post-1948 Israeli Socialist Organization (Matzpen). The focus of discussion is the relationship between class and nation as principles of organization.The Palestinian Communist Party was shaped by forces that shaped the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: British rule, Zionist ideology and settlement practices, and Arab nationalism. At intensified conflict periods it was torn apart by the pressures of competing nationalisms. By the end of the period, its factions agreed on one principle: the need to treat members of both national groups equally, whether as individuals or as groups entitled to self-determination. This position was rejected by both national movements as incompatible with their quest for control.In the post-1948 period, Matzpen epitomized the radical critique of Zionism. It was the clearest voice speaking against the 1967 occupation and for restoration of Palestinian rights. However, it never moved beyond the political margins, and its organization failed to provide members with a sustainable mode of activism. It was replaced by a new mode, mobilizing people around specific issues instead of presenting an overall program.The paper concludes with suggestions on how the Left may use these lessons to develop a strategy to focus on the quest for social justice and human rights.

The study sheds light on the German role in boosting immigration and building Zionist settlements in Palestine between (1860-1942). Since the acceleration of the German political, religious and cultural penetration in Palestine and the announcement of the emergence of a strict German religious fundamentalists in 1861, the first colonial settlement projects established in Palestine. In parallel with World War II, the political German perspective changed towards the Middle East region, and a new historical stage had begun in the German policy with Jewish issue. The study indicates the Christian-Zionist roots in Germany in which an ideological tendency of Jewish colonization in the Palestinian territories has appeared. German missionaries were sent to Palestinian territories, which supported and expanded the Jewish immigration and resettlement. Moreover, it detects the cooperation between the German government with the Zionist organization by providing the needed support and protection for settlers.

AbstractThis article analyses the intersection between cosmopolitanism and racist ideologies in the faith healing practices of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion. Originally from Illinois, USA, this organization was the period's most influential divine healing group. Black and white members, under the leadership of the charismatic John Alexander Dowie, eschewed medical assistance and proclaimed God's power to heal physical affliction. In affirming the deity's capacity to remake human bodies, church members also insisted that God could refashion biological race into a capacious spiritual ethnicity: a global human race they referred to as the “Adamic” race. Zionist universalist teachings were adopted by dispossessed and newly urbanized Boer ex-farmers in Johannesburg, Transvaal, before spreading to the soldiers of the British regiments recently arrived to fight the Boer states in the war of 1899–1902. Zionism equipped these estranged white “races” with a vocabulary to articulate political reconciliation and a precarious unity. But divine healing was most enthusiastically received among the Transvaal's rural Africans. Amidst the period's hardening segregation, Africans seized upon divine healing's innovative racial teachings, but both Boers and Africans found disappointment amid Zion's cosmopolitan promises. Boers were marginalized within the new racial regimes of the Edwardian empire in South Africa, and white South Africans had always been ambivalent about divine healing's incorporations of black Africans into a unitary race. This early history of Zionism in the Transvaal reveals the constriction of cosmopolitan aspirations amidst fast-narrowing horizons of race, nation, and empire in early twentieth-century South Africa.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not existed since the beginning of time. Hatem Bazian explores the roots of the conflict, locating the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project under the tutelage of British colonial efforts. Bazian’s text is a look at and beyond first-hand accounts, an investigation of and critical analysis of settler practice in relation to similar texts such as Sari Nusseibeh’s Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life, Alan Dowty’s Israel/Palestine, and Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land. Hatem Bazian’s Palestine…it is something colonial is not an introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Readers should possess a basic understanding of the conflict and history of the region over the last century. Nor does this text provide the reader with an unbiased look at the timeline of events since the inception of the Zionist movement. Palestine…it is something colonial instead is a rich critique of the Zionist movement and British colonialism. It investigates the way British colonialism influenced Zionism and how Zionism adopted colonial ideas and practices. Bazian locates Zionism as a settler colonialist movement still at work today, which historically planned and systematically executed the removal of Palestinians from their land, with the aid of the United Kingdom and (later) the United States. Bazian examines Ottoman collapse, the colonization of Palestine by the British, Israel’s biblical theology of dispossession, as well as British colonial incubation of Zionism, Zionism as a Eurocentric episteme, the building of Israel through ethnic cleansing, and the Nakba, all of these culminating in legalized dispossession. Throughout the text, Bazian is able to tie each chapter to the present state of affairs and remind the audience of the trauma of a people forcibly removed. Bazian opens with the straightforward assertion that “Palestine is the last settler-colonial project to be commissioned in the late 19th early 20th centuries and still unfolding in the 21st century with no end in sight” (17). In chapter one, “Dissecting the Ottomans and Colonizing Palestine,” Bazian navigates the biased historiography of the fall of the Ottoman empire, linking the collapse of the empire to the colonizing forces of Europe which sought to ensure access to the newly discovered oil in the region as well as to Asia and Africa. Bazian masterfully steers the reader through the history of European intervention, and in particular on behalf of Christians as ethnic minorities in the Middle East. Europe is historically anti-Jewish; at the turn of the century, Zionism was determined to solve Europe’s “Jewish Problem” and maintain a stronghold in the Middle East, he writes. In chapter two, “Israel’s Biblical Theology of Dispossession,” Bazian explores the biblical roots of Zionist ideology. The chapter opens with a discussion of a contemporary Bedouin tribe being expelled in the Negev. Bazian writes that “the biblical text gets transformed into policy by the Zionist state, by which it then normalizes or makes legal the wholesale theft of Palestinian lands and expulsion of the population”(57) using legal documents such as the Levy Report. These policies create “facts on the ground” which lead to “legalized expulsions.” The Bible was central to the historical development of the European Christian supremacist idea of the Holy Land. The loss of the territory conquered during the Crusades ruptured this notion, a break “fixed” through Zionism. In chapter three, “British Colonialism and Incubation of Zionism,”Bazian begins to address British colonialism and Zionism as complementary. Bazian uses primary texts from British political actors of the time, such as Lord Robert Cecil and Lord Balfour, to establish the anti-Semiticinspiration for British actions of the time. Bazian also successfully uses the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence and the Sykes-Picot agreement to establish the double dealings of the British in the Middle East in the early twentieth century. Bazian uses many primary texts in this chapter effectively, though their organization could leave readers confused. Chapter four, “Zionism: Eurocentric Colonial Epistemic,” continues the themes of the prior chapter as the colonial influence is cemented. In this chapter, Bazian explores the subterfuge and the genius propaganda selling Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” along with “making the desert bloom”—as if the indigenous Arab people were not there. Bazian frames this chapter within the Zionist ideology of the peoples living in the land being only a barrier to a Jewish state in Palestine. Bazian uses primary sources (e.g., Herzl) to defend the assertion that the removal of the Palestinian people was always a piece of the Zionist plan. Bazian also includes Jewish critical voices (e.g., excerpts from the reporter Ella Shohat) to establish the European Jewish bias against the indigenous Arab peoples, including Sephardic Jews. Bazian that these biases and the effort to remove Palestinians from their land defined the early Zionist movement and the creation of the state of Israel in chapter five, “Building a State and Ethnic Cleansing.” This chapter draws extensively on primary sources: correspondence, reports, declarations, agreements, commissions, and maps. Bazian struggles to organize these rich resources in a clear fashion; however, his analysis matches the richness of the sources. These sources establish the “legalized” systematic removal of the Palestinians from the land by the Israelis in 1948. In chapter six, “The Nakba,” Bazian uses further legal documents and first-hand accounts to trace the forced removal of Palestinians. He pays homage to the trauma while critically dissecting the process of legalizing ethnic cleansing and peddling the innocence of the Israelis to the rest of the world. Bazian profoundly concludes his chapter with the story of a Palestinian boy who witnessed the mass executions of men and women of his village and marched away from his home. The boy, now a man, closed his story with poignant words that capture the horror of the Nakba: “The road to Ramallah had become an open cemetery” (241). After the land was emptied the new state of Israel needed to legally take possession of the Palestinian-owned property. Chapter seven, “Colonial Machination,” elaborates this process: “the State of Israel is structured to give maximum attention to fulfillment of the settler-colonial project and the state apparatus is directed toward achieving this criminal enterprise” (243). The name “Palestine” is erased as a name for the land and the peoples; former colonial and Ottoman laws were twisted to support a systematic theft of the land. Bazian concludes his book with a look to the future: “What is the way forward and Palestine’s de-colonial horizon?” (276). He lays out the options available for true and lasting peace, discounting out of hand the twostate solution as impossible due to the extent of the settlements in the West Bank. He also dismisses both the options of the removal of Palestinians and the removal of the Jewish people. He instead posits a way forward through a one-state solution, leaving how this is to be done to the reader and the people of Israel/Palestine to determine. Bazian has contributed a full-bodied analysis of primary sources to defend his assertion that Zionism has always been a settler colonial movement with its goal being a land devoid of the indigenous people. The organization of the text, the lack of sectioning in the chapters, and the technical insertion and citation of primary sources could be improved for clearer reading. Bazian thoroughly defends his thesis with tangible evidence that Zionism is something colonial, and has been something colonial from the start. This is a text that complicates the narrative of what colonialism is, what the State of Israel is, and who and what Palestine is, together establishing the book as required reading for understanding nuances of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shelby Perez Master’s Divinity Candidate Chicago Theological Seminary

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not existed since the beginning of time. Hatem Bazian explores the roots of the conflict, locating the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project under the tutelage of British colonial efforts. Bazian’s text is a look at and beyond first-hand accounts, an investigation of and critical analysis of settler practice in relation to similar texts such as Sari Nusseibeh’s Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life, Alan Dowty’s Israel/Palestine, and Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land. Hatem Bazian’s Palestine…it is something colonial is not an introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Readers should possess a basic understanding of the conflict and history of the region over the last century. Nor does this text provide the reader with an unbiased look at the timeline of events since the inception of the Zionist movement. Palestine…it is something colonial instead is a rich critique of the Zionist movement and British colonialism. It investigates the way British colonialism influenced Zionism and how Zionism adopted colonial ideas and practices. Bazian locates Zionism as a settler colonialist movement still at work today, which historically planned and systematically executed the removal of Palestinians from their land, with the aid of the United Kingdom and (later) the United States. Bazian examines Ottoman collapse, the colonization of Palestine by the British, Israel’s biblical theology of dispossession, as well as British colonial incubation of Zionism, Zionism as a Eurocentric episteme, the building of Israel through ethnic cleansing, and the Nakba, all of these culminating in legalized dispossession. Throughout the text, Bazian is able to tie each chapter to the present state of affairs and remind the audience of the trauma of a people forcibly removed. Bazian opens with the straightforward assertion that “Palestine is the last settler-colonial project to be commissioned in the late 19th early 20th centuries and still unfolding in the 21st century with no end in sight” (17). In chapter one, “Dissecting the Ottomans and Colonizing Palestine,” Bazian navigates the biased historiography of the fall of the Ottoman empire, linking the collapse of the empire to the colonizing forces of Europe which sought to ensure access to the newly discovered oil in the region as well as to Asia and Africa. Bazian masterfully steers the reader through the history of European intervention, and in particular on behalf of Christians as ethnic minorities in the Middle East. Europe is historically anti-Jewish; at the turn of the century, Zionism was determined to solve Europe’s “Jewish Problem” and maintain a stronghold in the Middle East, he writes. In chapter two, “Israel’s Biblical Theology of Dispossession,” Bazian explores the biblical roots of Zionist ideology. The chapter opens with a discussion of a contemporary Bedouin tribe being expelled in the Negev. Bazian writes that “the biblical text gets transformed into policy by the Zionist state, by which it then normalizes or makes legal the wholesale theft of Palestinian lands and expulsion of the population”(57) using legal documents such as the Levy Report. These policies create “facts on the ground” which lead to “legalized expulsions.” The Bible was central to the historical development of the European Christian supremacist idea of the Holy Land. The loss of the territory conquered during the Crusades ruptured this notion, a break “fixed” through Zionism. In chapter three, “British Colonialism and Incubation of Zionism,”Bazian begins to address British colonialism and Zionism as complementary. Bazian uses primary texts from British political actors of the time, such as Lord Robert Cecil and Lord Balfour, to establish the anti-Semiticinspiration for British actions of the time. Bazian also successfully uses the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence and the Sykes-Picot agreement to establish the double dealings of the British in the Middle East in the early twentieth century. Bazian uses many primary texts in this chapter effectively, though their organization could leave readers confused. Chapter four, “Zionism: Eurocentric Colonial Epistemic,” continues the themes of the prior chapter as the colonial influence is cemented. In this chapter, Bazian explores the subterfuge and the genius propaganda selling Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” along with “making the desert bloom”—as if the indigenous Arab people were not there. Bazian frames this chapter within the Zionist ideology of the peoples living in the land being only a barrier to a Jewish state in Palestine. Bazian uses primary sources (e.g., Herzl) to defend the assertion that the removal of the Palestinian people was always a piece of the Zionist plan. Bazian also includes Jewish critical voices (e.g., excerpts from the reporter Ella Shohat) to establish the European Jewish bias against the indigenous Arab peoples, including Sephardic Jews. Bazian that these biases and the effort to remove Palestinians from their land defined the early Zionist movement and the creation of the state of Israel in chapter five, “Building a State and Ethnic Cleansing.” This chapter draws extensively on primary sources: correspondence, reports, declarations, agreements, commissions, and maps. Bazian struggles to organize these rich resources in a clear fashion; however, his analysis matches the richness of the sources. These sources establish the “legalized” systematic removal of the Palestinians from the land by the Israelis in 1948. In chapter six, “The Nakba,” Bazian uses further legal documents and first-hand accounts to trace the forced removal of Palestinians. He pays homage to the trauma while critically dissecting the process of legalizing ethnic cleansing and peddling the innocence of the Israelis to the rest of the world. Bazian profoundly concludes his chapter with the story of a Palestinian boy who witnessed the mass executions of men and women of his village and marched away from his home. The boy, now a man, closed his story with poignant words that capture the horror of the Nakba: “The road to Ramallah had become an open cemetery” (241). After the land was emptied the new state of Israel needed to legally take possession of the Palestinian-owned property. Chapter seven, “Colonial Machination,” elaborates this process: “the State of Israel is structured to give maximum attention to fulfillment of the settler-colonial project and the state apparatus is directed toward achieving this criminal enterprise” (243). The name “Palestine” is erased as a name for the land and the peoples; former colonial and Ottoman laws were twisted to support a systematic theft of the land. Bazian concludes his book with a look to the future: “What is the way forward and Palestine’s de-colonial horizon?” (276). He lays out the options available for true and lasting peace, discounting out of hand the twostate solution as impossible due to the extent of the settlements in the West Bank. He also dismisses both the options of the removal of Palestinians and the removal of the Jewish people. He instead posits a way forward through a one-state solution, leaving how this is to be done to the reader and the people of Israel/Palestine to determine. Bazian has contributed a full-bodied analysis of primary sources to defend his assertion that Zionism has always been a settler colonial movement with its goal being a land devoid of the indigenous people. The organization of the text, the lack of sectioning in the chapters, and the technical insertion and citation of primary sources could be improved for clearer reading. Bazian thoroughly defends his thesis with tangible evidence that Zionism is something colonial, and has been something colonial from the start. This is a text that complicates the narrative of what colonialism is, what the State of Israel is, and who and what Palestine is, together establishing the book as required reading for understanding nuances of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shelby Perez Master’s Divinity Candidate Chicago Theological Seminary

AbstractThe ninetieth anniversary of the World Union enables us to highlight our achievements. In 1973 we moved the international headquarters from New York to Jerusalem and built a magnificent cultural/educational centre there. We pioneered the development of a dynamic Reform/Progressive movement in Israel consisting of congregations, kibbutzim, an Israel religious action centre and educational, cultural and youth programmes. We became active leaders in the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization. We established synagogues and educational programmes in the Former Soviet Union, Europe, Latin America and the Far East, thus fulfilling our mandate to perpetuate Jewish life wherever Jews live. We formulated an ideology of Reform Zionism as an antidote to the contracting Jewish identity induced by contemporary diaspora conditions. Whereas we encourage aliyah for Jews who want to live in Israel, we are adamantly opposed to those who advocate aliyah as a positive response to anti-Semitism. Instead, we demand that European democracies guarantee equal rights and full security to Jews as well as to all other groups in society.

In his new bestseller, Black Earth, Thimoty Snyder spotlights the covert relationship at the end 1930s between the Polish Government and the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Jewish underground formation in Palestine affiliated with Vladimir Jabotinsky’s New Zionist Organization. One of the most important figures in that affair was the Irgun representative in Poland, Henryk Strasman, a Warsaw assistant public prosecutor who was later murdered by the NKVD in Kharkov in April 1940, together with other Polish officers in Soviet captivity. Ably aided by his wife, Alicja Strasman (née Friedberg), and in close cooperation with the shadowy Abraham Stern, he sought to acquire arms and ammunition and to secure the training of the Irgun cadres by the Polish army. Strasman was also involved in the establishment of a militant Polish- -language bi-weekly (Jerozolima Wyzwolone) and another paper (Di Tat) in Yiddish to popularize the cause of the insurgency in Palestine among the Jewish public in Poland. In December 1938, Strasman briefed the American ambassador to Poland, A.J. Biddle, on his undertakings. Biddle’s report to Secretary of State Cordell Hull about that meeting adds to our knowledge of clandestine Zionist activity in Poland and illuminates Strasman’s tragic and little-known story.

L. L. Zamenhof saw the creation of his proposed international language, Esperanto, as a process of construction, rather like the building of a city. This new city of words would replace the walls of language difference that had previously separated the nations. His poems imagined a new “foundation” replacing the Tower of Babel and destroying the walls of Jericho. Unlike most other projectors of international languages, Zamenhof saw the creation of a community of Esperanto speakers, who could claim ownership of the language, as crucially important. The language began as text, but soon, as a result of its growing community of users, became a spoken language. The language owed its popularity to the emergence of an urban European middle class, eager to travel and learn about the world — at a time when the modern city was also emerging, its sense of identity defined above all by shared text and a common narrative. A common narrative and a shared text were also generated among the speakers of Esperanto, who were imbued with faith in technological progress and a corresponding belief in the achievement of common values. They developed common symbols and common modes of organization reflecting those that they found around them, notably the holding of annual international congresses in European cities, and other city-based activities. Zamenhof’s own beliefs were driven above all by his experience as a Central European Jew and by his exposure to early manifestations of the Zionist movement, which led him to dream of a kind of post-Zionist universalism embracing all creeds and races. Sadly, this was not to be: he could not put an end to anti-Semitism, nor bring about the kind of ecumenism of which he dreamed. That vision was lost in the rise of nationalism in World War I and beyond.

In February 1912, thirty-eight American Jewish women 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. 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 this book pays particular attention to the life stories of the women who played a role in them. The book analyses many aspects of the history of Hadassah. The 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 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 medicine and health care, and in its work with children and young people. The final part deals with topics 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. It concludes with an epilogue that considers developments up to 2005, assessing whether the conclusions reached with regard to Hadassah as an organization remain valid.

Abstract Israel is one of those modern societies whose early institutions were clearly shaped by an ideological movement. Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 was an immediate expression of the fundamental Zionist idea: it gave effect to a plan advocated by organized Zionists since the 1880s for solving the Jewish problem. Major Israeli political institutions, such as the party structure, embody principles and practices that were followed in the World Zionist Organization.

Abstract Early Zionism had a history of continual frustration. Yet oppressive conditions in Russia and Rumania, together with the corrupt inefficiency of the Ottoman administration, kept the philZionist movement alive, and traditional sentiments, together with the responsibility for a common project of social and economic reform, bolstered the uneasy union of its disparate elements. Theodor Herzl’s World Zionist Organization, committed as it was to a strategy of open politics, was hampered by the same legal difficulties as the Hovevei Zion in Russia. Special circumstances induced the government to sanction a national convention of Russian Zionists in Minsk in 1902. Thenew minister of the interior, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve, was visited by Herzl in the following year and gave him the impression that public Zionist activity would be permitted, on condition that it be confined to removing Jews from Russia (which the government considered desirable) and refrain from nationalist activity within the country (which the government considered dangerous). In spite of Herzl’s hopes, however, legal sanction was then ordered withdrawn from the Zionists. They were unable to function freely until the 1905 uprisings, which for a time brought broader political liberties to all Russian parties.

This chapter details the founding of Hadassah within the context of its American setting as well as the growing need for organizations dedicated to providing health services. It shows how Szold and six other women published a flyer calling upon the Jewish women of America to found a large Zionist organization, with the twin aims of disseminating Zionism in the United States and setting up health and welfare services for women and children in Palestine. In response to this appeal, thirty-eight women gathered at Temple Emanuel in New York in 1912. The new organization adopted the name Hadassah Chapter of the Daughters of Zion, after the study group that formed its core; and the women agreed, following Szold, that it should be devoted to meeting the pressing need for better health services in Palestine. The main field of activity that Hadassah chose to enter was one already considered suitable for women in the United States, professionals and volunteers alike.

Abstract Like a lot of new beginnings, the turbulent transition to state-to-state relations was an anthology of loose ends. Though Israel’s juridical status might still be openended, its borders indeterminate, and its survival itself a matter of touch and go, there was now, at least, a Jewish state in Palestine with its own currency, flag, and postage stamps, and recognized missions in all the world capitals that mattered. It was hardly a coincidence that Jews were particularly sensitive to the gravitational pull of the new state. Born of circumstance and sustained by desperation, relations between American Jews and the Jewish community in Palestine had thitherto reflected the improvisation, contentiousness, and urgency of the Zionist movement. With Israel’s creation, the Zionist organizations and even the movement itself were suddenly redundant and even potentially disruptive. Concerned alike to demonstrate Israel’s sovereignty with respect to foreign Zionist funding, and to insulate its political system from targeted cascades of foreign Zionist votes, BenGurion himself took care to put the American organization virtually out of business within a year or two of independence. Henceforth, the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was to be the vehicle of Jewish community support, assisted by a wide variety of autonomous civic and philanthropic groups. Distribution of American Jewish funds, in turn, was to be determined by a formula that was eventually to reserve to Israel two-thirds and more of the money it collected.

Abstract How labor rose to dominance in the Yishuv (Palestine Jewish community), in the Zionist movement, and finally in Israel is a subject that has been thoroughly studied. The growth of the working population and the more effective political organization of labor compared with other parts of the Yishuv after World War I have been noted. But these were no more than relative advantages. The workers long remained a minority and, however well organized in comparison with others, they too were divided by numerous, bitterly factional differences.

The third chapter looks at the imposition of European colonial rule via the mandates system in the former Arab provinces. It focuses particularly on the League of Nations’ formal legitimization of European colonial rule across the region and Zionist settlement in Palestine, and the subsequent creation and enforcement of new communal and ethnic identities through new colonial legal and political systems across the mandate territories. Though many varieties of nationalist resistance to colonial occupation and mandate authority emerged during this period, the successes of the Zionist movement in Palestine and the ethno-communal legal and political structures of all the mandate states served to encourage the emergence of communally based political organization as a primary mode of anti-colonial resistance.

The 1967 war shed new light onto the Palestinian problem, leading to the creation of a new group in 1973. Called Breira: A Project of Concern in Diaspora-Israel Relations, it became the first national American Jewish organization to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The chapter shows how political currents emanating from Israel brought about Breira’s rise, and later, its fall. Breira’s young American Jewish founders had spent time in Israel, where encounters with occupied Palestinians and inspiration from Israeli peace activists led them to conclude that Palestinian self-determination served Israel’s long-term interests. Once founded, Breira championed the pro-peace Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, led by Israeli General Matti Peled, who in 1976 negotiated with moderate members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Following Peled’s lead, two Breira members met with those same PLO moderates. Israeli officials leaked a report from that meeting, forcing Breira to defend itself and the PLO meeting and eliciting a crisis from which the organization would never recover. American Jewish communal leaders now took a clear stand on even self-identified Zionist support for Palestinian rights, seeing it as counter to Jewish safety and Jewish life in Israel and across the world.

This chapter examines the persistence of the Jewish Question or Problem in the state that aimed to liberate Jews. For example, many people expected the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim, to “assimilate” to Israeli culture and become the “new Jews” of the Zionist project. In other places such “progress” that undermines local cultural groups often results in liberal expressions of outrage. But the case of ultra-Orthodox Jews has not produced the same reaction. The ultra-Orthodox are seen as part of the Israeli hegemon in opposition to Palestinian Arabs who are the indigenous under threat of elimination. This chapter again suggests that the definition of indigeneity be expanded beyond geographical ties to include forms of social organization and ways of life that might be threatened. Thus, both Palestinian Arabs and Haredi (and other) Jews are at risk—one facing elimination through Zionist territorial expansion, the other through the forces of Zionist assimilation.

This chapter looks at 29 book reviews. The first set of books discusses hasidism in Poland; the history of the Jewish population in lower Silesia after the Second World War; the Jewish communities in eastern Poland and the USSR; Jewish emancipation in Poland; and the memoirs of Holocaust survivors. The second set of books examine the Holocaust experience and its consequences; the ethical challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima; the history of the Jews of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the eleventh to eighteenth centuries; and Russia's first modern Jews. The third set of books assesses the Kishinev pogrom of 1903; the history of feldshers in general and Jewish feldshers in particular; the diplomacy of Lucien Wolf; the Berlin Jewish community; the aspects of Jewish art; magic, mysticism, and hasidism; and the Jewish presence in Polish literature. The fourth set of books explores the depictions of Jews by Polish artists, both Christian and Jewish; the history of co-operation between the Polish government and the New Zionist Organization; and the origins of Zionism.

With the collapse of the old imperial order in 1918, Zionists anticipated that nationhood would be the defining paradigm for the political reorganization of the region. Chapter 5 shows how Zionists fought to establish the Jewish nation as an equal participant in this process, and to attain recognition of its nationhood and national rights by both their non-Jewish neighbours and the Great Powers. It analyses one of the most important forms of Zionist organization and political practice after the end of the First World War: the Jewish national councils. The chapter focuses on three sites where those institutions evolved out of different forms of wartime activism and gained significant influence in Jewish society for a time—East Galicia, Vienna, and Prague—as well as on similar efforts in Poland, Lithuania, and at an international level. It examines the day-to-day work of the Jewish national councils, their political aims, how they corresponded and related to other nationalist movements, and how they attempted to turn their claim to represent the Jewish nation into a reality. In this process, Zionists built on their wartime experiences, their standing in society, and their relations with the new rulers, demonstrating how previous engagements determined the viability of national claims and projects in the postwar era. The chapter connects the ‘big’ story of the Paris Peace Conference to local events and activists by analysing the role nationalist representatives played in the context of the peace negotiations and the struggle for national and minority rights.