Israel Studies Review

This issue of Israel Studies Review examines a variety of issues and topics using some new lenses that we hope will provide novel perspectives. We begin with Mitchell Cohen’s essay on Labor Zionism, looking back on its 30-year hegemony another 30 years on. Cohen identifies some of the decisions and trends that were undermining the democratic socialist underpinnings of Labor well before it lost power, and how historians and others have understood them.

This article surveys changes and arguments in the historiography and politics of Israel especially in the post-1977 period, ranging from the New Historians through recent discussions of Mamlakhtiyut (statism), an ideological term for the policies pursued in the early years of statehood by David Ben-Gurion. The article is especially concerned with social democratic or socialist questions, as Mamlakhtiyut subordinated institutions of the Labor movement to those of the state. The article suggests that there were alternatives to Mamlakhtiyut in the 1950s that ought to be reconsidered today. This is especially so given the contemporary political dominance of Labor's traditional foes and new realities faced by states in a “globalizing” world. The article suggests that aspects of recent historiography can be seen as descending from the mental universe of Rafi, the breakaway party Ben-Gurion formed in 1965 after splitting from Mapai. Parallels to other political developments and alternative historiography are suggested. This article revises and expands the “Postface” (Afterword) for the new second French edition (2014) of the author's Zion and State (originally published in 1987), which presented a critique of Mamlakhtiyut.

Ernest Gellner notes that the quarrel between himself and Anthony Smith could be summarized by the question: do nations have navels? According to his modernist outlook, while some nations might have navels, others do not, and in any case it is not important; while in Smith's conception, navels constitute an 'ethnic core', essential for nation-building. Yet in the pre–independence nation-building process, what Smith considers Israel's ethnic core—mainly the concepts of the 'Chosen People' and 'Holy Land'—either did not have the same meaning or did not play the important role that Smith attributes to them. Indeed, Smith's account of Zionism is a post–independence invention and in this respect a further corroboration of modernism.

The Women of the Wall wish to participate in communal prayer in the women's section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Their practice is to pray as a group, wrap themselves in a tallit, and read from the Torah scroll. They represent Jewish pluralism in that their group includes Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular women. They represent openness to change in that they base their claims on Halakhic interpretation, thereby embracing the capacity of Jewish law to evolve. This article reviews the resistance of the religious and political establishment in Israel to their claim and their struggle, unsuccessful so far, to get recognition.

“Between the Olive Trees” by Yosl Birshteyn (born in Poland in 1920, died in Israel in 2003) is a Yiddish short story about an old Palestinian farmer named Khasan Abu who walks out with his donkey one early morning and has an unexpected interaction with Israeli soldiers. Critics mostly read Birshteyn's works as 'non-ideological' and tend to label him as an 'apolitical' writer, for the most part ignoring the political themes in his works. However, this article argues that in this story Birshteyn takes a clear stance against the Zionist practices of the time.

This article analyzes different images of Judaism presented in dystopic (anti-utopian) Israeli novels written in two different decades. In the earlier novels, written during the 1980s, Judaism was portrayed as an ancient religion revived by zealots who terrorize Israeli society, Taliban-style. Then I look at the thorough changes that Israeli dystopias have gone through in the last decade: for the first time in this genre, Judaism is imagined in new ways. It is presented as a religion that is not 'frozen' or 'radical'. Its followers are not stereotypical Diaspora Jews, but, rather, representatives of new Jewish identities that are taking shape in current Israeli society. This is emblematic of the deep changes now taking place in Israeli Judaism, particularly the weakening of the traditionally sharp secular-religious dichotomy.

Emotion is an extremely valuable, yet underdeveloped, topic of study particularly in the world of International Relations. This article seeks to rectify this discrepancy by reconceptualizing the issue of emotion in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For the last century, Israelis and Palestinians have been waging war over the same territory in which religions, cultures, and values are constantly clashing. Passionate emotions are a cause, and also a consequence, of the constant physical and ideological battles faced by both sides. The question of how to reconcile differences between the two will not be easy to answer. Considering how peace can viably be implemented requires a deeper comprehension of what emotions entail as well as their role in prolonging conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Shai Ginsburg, Rhetoric and Nation: The Formation of Hebrew National Culture, 1880–1990 Review by Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi

Anat Helman, Becoming Israeli: National Ideals & Everyday Life in the 1950s Review by Dafna Hirsch

Madelaine Adelman and Miriam Fendius Elman, eds., Jerusalem: Conflict and Cooperation in a Contested City Review by Shlomo Hasson

Adam Rovner, In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel Review by Michael Brenner

Fran Markowitz, Stephen Sharot, and Moshe Shokeid, eds., Towards an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel Review by Russell Stone

Guy Ziv, Why Hawks Become Doves: Shimon Peres and Foreign Policy Change in Israel Review by Oded Haklai

R. Amy Elman, The European Union, Antisemitism, and the Politics of Denial Review by Alona Fisher

Rachel S. Harris, An Ideological Death: Suicide in Israeli Literature Review by Adia Mendelson-Maoz

David Ohana, The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites Nor Crusaders Review by Ian S. Lustick