Israel Studies Review

I think highly of Uri Bar-Joseph’s scholarship on Israeli national security, which is why I was so dismayed to read his harsh review of my book, Defense and Diplomacy in Israel’s National Security Experience, and why I feel compelled to respond to his misplaced criticisms.

This article asks whether the Yom Kippur War was avoidable. The intense diplomatic efforts of the 1971-1973 years that are examined include plans and counterplans offered by special United Nations representative Gunnar Jarring, US Secretary of State William Rogers, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The article concludes that since settlement was the method of Israeli state-building and served as the basis of the Labor Movement's hegemony within the Israeli society, once Israel embarked on a settlement project in the Sinai it was unwilling to accept full territorial withdrawal to the borders on 5 June 1967 in return for an Egyptian promise of non-belligerence. At the same time, the US was deterred by its conflicting global and regional interests from exerting pressure on Israel to accept the Egyptian proposal.

This study is part of a wider research, which examines different strategies of exclusion and inclusion in public discourse and in the construction of collective memory in Israel. At the beginning of the 1930s, following the great economic crisis and the rise of National Socialism in Germany, a plan was conceived to send Jewish German youth to Palestine. Thus began the Project of Youth Aliyah, and with it the debate within the Zionist Movement and the Yishuv in Palestine on the proper station of immigrants in the emerging Israeli national identity. We characterize the discourse on the young refugees in the 1930s by highlighting two issues: first, the aims of the project for the emigration of Jewish German youth; and secondly, the national identity which should be inculcated in these young immigrants.

This article portrays the shaping of the Israeli nation and the shaping of the Israeli family at the early stages of statehood and nation-building, in times of economic strain, austerity, and massive emigration. Food supply, food consumption, and food distribution will be discussed. It is assumed that these aspects of daily life express, construct, produce, and reproduce social relation and hence have close affinity to both social and national order. Israeli legislators discussing the austerity policy, Israeli housewives struggling to feed their families, and food habits of immigrants under economic and cultural duress are some of the topics discussed. The study portrays the role of the state in building the nation's social net and constructing its character through food repertoire. The role played by the state will be compared to that of other social and cultural agents.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, educated feminist religious Jewish women who regard themselves as obligated to observe Halacha and to adhere to the framework of patriarchal institutions feel torn and frustrated. They want to continue to maintain uncompromising loyalty to their families, congregations, and communities, and at the same time make exhaustive efforts to modify the Jewish religious system from within and invest it with new, egalitarian content. This article describes the emergence of Kolech—Religious Women's Forum, an organization founded by Israeli religious feminist women in 1998. Kolech aims at producing new answers to these pressing dilemmas. The article discusses the possibility of combining feminist concepts with patriarchal traditions, analyzes Kolech's strategy and newly adopted proposals, and examines Israeli attitudes toward this organization.

Jacqueline Rose, The Question of Zion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).

Mira Sucharov, The International Self: Psychoanalysis and the Search for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005).

Jo-Ann Mort and Gary Brenner, Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can the Kibbutzim Survive in Today’s Israel? Review by James Armstrong

Rory Miller, Ireland and the Palestine Question 1948–2004 Review by Ian Black

Raz Yosef, Beyond Flesh: Queer Masculinities and Nationalism in Israeli Cinema Danny Kaplan, Brothers and Others in Arms: The Making of Love and War in Israeli Combat Units Reviews by Aeyal Gross

Allon Gal, ed., The Legal and Zionist Tradition of Louis D. Brandeis Review by Arnon Gutfeld

Ella Shohat, Zichronot Asurim [Forbidden Reminiscences: A Collection of Essays] Review by Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber

Nahum Karlinsky, California Dreaming: Ideology, Society and Technology in the Citrus Industry of Palestine, 1890–1939 Review by Zvi Raanan

Michael Berkowitz, ed., Nationalism, Zionism and Ethnic Mobilization of the Jews in 1900 and Beyond Review by Erica Simmons

Notes on contributors

Israel Studies Centers and Chairs

MA in Israel Studies at the University of Calgary