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The purpose of this article is to assess the way annual highschool field trips in Israel's State educational system is used to inculcate national narratives. Based on copious data, it shows that knowing and loving the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) are significant motifs that recur with high intensity in all school field trip programmememes. Concurrently, however, in view of the high frequency of national motives in these trips, integrating the national aspect has apparently become a codeword for the 'right way' to plan out and carry out field trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adaptation to modernity generated among the Jews different amalgamations between European and Jewish concepts and brought about diverse and often opposed ideological trends and movements. One was Zionism, built on a concoction between Jewish tenets such as Shivat-Zion (Return-to-Zion) and European nationalism and secularisation. The result, Jewish statehood, failed to eradicate or diminish the tensions between non-Jews and Jews with the old Jew-hatred now transferred to Israel. This article examines the ideological background of the Zionist idea and the interaction among its components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reexamines Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook's (1865–1935) approach to Zionism, by proposing a reading of Kook's Zionism through the lens of the Lebensphilosophie (The Philosophy of Life) of the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941). I show that we can clarify Kook's view of freedom, the self and creativity and its essential connection to Zionism, therefore, proposing a new understanding of the meaning that Jewish nationalism assumes in Kook's thought, thanks to the application of the model of freedom and creativity developed by Bergson to Kook's writings. Especially for Kook, I show that Jewish nationalism is seen as a means for the Jewish People to return to their true self and through this connection attain true freedom. Only when a nation realizes its freedom by a return to its own original self, it can be creative. This is how I explain the connection that Kook draws between a return to the Land of Israel and the ability of Israel as a people to finally be able to be creative. Finally, I argue that this understanding of nationalism adds a new layer to the essential place that the territory assumes in Kook's thought. A State of Israel outside its original land can attain the goal of autonomous self-governance but lacks the ability to inspire the reconnection of the nation to its own original self. The Jewish People as a collective cannot connect to their authentic self away from the Land of Israel, consequently, the Land of Israel is the only place in which they can be truly free. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shaul Magid's Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (2021) has the potential to urge American and Israeli Jews to "own" Meir Kahane and hold him up as a mirror reflecting the toxic and tragic dimensions of modern Jewish history. Such a look in the mirror can only happen once Jews see Palestinian suffering as central to the building of the state of Israel and also how they are complicit and implicated in such suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, the Knesset of Israel, led by its right-wing coalition, adopted the Nation-State Law, which affirmed that the State of Israel is the "nation-state of the Jewish people" and only the Jewish people. Many have contrasted this law with Israel's 1948 Declaration of Independence, which promised "complete equality of social and political rights" to all citizens, "irrespective of religion, race, or sex," and expressed a commitment to the moral teachings of the biblical prophets. The Declaration was written by socialists and rabbis, while the Nation-State Law was written by right-wing nationalists. The Declaration focused on three prophetic values: freedom, justice, and peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there have been numerous warnings in the press and in the social networks that Israel is about to convert its liberal democracy into a fascist regime. This Article argues that the occupation of the West Bank stands at the root of the most important processes that have been taking place in Israel in the past five decades. One of those processes is the erosion of Israel's liberalism. I claim that the prolongation of the occupation is the central, lasting threat to Israel's liberalism. In essence, the occupation breeds denunciations of and protests against the government and the Israel Defense Forces, and these, in turn, bring about measures on the part of the government and right-wing civil society organizations that undermine or threaten Israel's liberalism. In addition, the full-scale wars between Israel and Gaza, and the continuation of violence between the parties in the periods between the wars, undermine or threaten Israel's liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Croatian Journal of Education / Hrvatski Časopis za Odgoj i Obrazovanje is the property of Uciteljski Fakultet u Zagrebu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper argues that during the Mandate period the Labor Zionist movement was able to successfully create a Sabra identity based on its ideology that was constructed in opposition to the presumed characteristics of the "exile Jew" and how such an identity played a central role in the formation of a security oriented foreign policy. Labor's creation of the Sabra through the "Hebrew Revolution" can be considered as one of the most successful episodes of the twentieth century in which a new identity was created in order to serve ideological goals. Labor's Zionist ideology, which sought to create a "new Jew" that would form the basis of the Jewish national movement, was translated into an identity that in contrast to the diaspora Jew relied on collectivism, agriculture, secularism, and most important of all physical strength and sacrifice in defence of the Jewish nation. This translated into a security-oriented foreign policy that heavily relied on military force and emphasized internal power and strength, which Labor elites argued could only be achieved through self-reliance and independence particularly in regards to defence issues. Such an orientation would form the basis of Israeli foreign policy for years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the growth of Israeli religious nationalism in the 21st century. Topics covered include the implication of the transformation of Israeli society for the country's character and the relationships between the elements of the National Religious Camp, Zionism and Judaism. The rising influence of the National Religious worldview on a larger proportion of Jewish citizens is discussed.

The article explores the relationship between the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Israel expelled a large portion of its Arab population following the war. Also discussed are the gap between the Zionist vision and its realization and the gap between national and ethical views that run through Israeli identity.

This paper examines the concept of 'land‐centred' nationalism and suggests that it is important for distinguishing among different types of nationalism and for better understanding the role of land and place in this ideology. In order to demonstrate what land‐centred nationalism actually means, the article examines Zionism as a case study, arguing that some of the leading, early intellectual schools of this national movement (cultural, socialist, and religious Zionism) tended to underscore the role of the Land of Israel in collective identity rather than the role of the political community. Despite many differences in their general outlook, these schools all celebrated the land's spiritual role while neglecting or even opposing the idea of a Jewish state. This devaluation of the bond among citizens in favour of the bond of a people with their ancient land contributed to Zionism's contemporary difficulties and manifests the dangers of land‐centred nationalism more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on historic and ethnographic fieldwork, this article traces the development of the Israeli folk dance movement in Israel and the United States over the last century. Israeli folk dances are consumed worldwide and especially by American Jewry precisely because they are perceived as an authentic expression of national Israeli culture, even as their authenticity is continuously contested and re-evaluated in different historical and cultural contexts and by various actors who engage in their preservation and re-creation. The result is an intricate articulation of an ideological and rhetorical debate on authenticity, which reveals its relativistic character and sheds light on the cultural negotiation of identity between Israeli and American Jewry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It was only after the Six-Day War of 1967 that the Western Wall took on a new political and practical status, when, for the first time in its history, the site and the surrounding plaza came under Jewish and Israeli authority and became accessible to anyone wishing to visit or worship there. The vast quantity of visitors expected at the Western Wall was one of the main factors that hastened the decision to destroy the Mughrebi Quarter, extending to the west of the Western Wall, and build a wide, open plaza. From the moment the open space near the Western Wall was formed, it was considered temporary. A public debate over its permanent design surfaced. We examine the detailed ideas and architectural plans created for the plaza's design. In conducting this examination, we learn about the controversy that existed over the site's character: would it become a purely religious site or would it assume national and cultural roles as well? We postulate that the various plans and ideas for the plaza's design proposed during the first decade after the Six-Day War embodied the tension that was created in Israel during that time, as religious feeling faced off against national sentiment, and as those who saw the Western Wall solely as a place of prayer and reflection squared off against those who valued its historical and national significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes the political motivations behind the Jewish Nation-State Bill introduced in the Knesset in November 2014, shedding light on the ascendancy of the Israeli political establishment's radical right wing. It argues that there were both internal and external factors at work and that it is only by examining these thoroughly that the magnitude of the racist agenda currently being promoted can be grasped. The essay also discusses the proposed legislation's long history and the implications of this effort to constitutionalize what amounts to majoritarian despotism in present-day Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which discusses the anti-Semitic nature of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Topics discussed include the history of the BDS Movement, the ideology of the movement which is hostile to Jewish nationalism and Judaism, and case studies which illustrate the anti-Semitic ideology of BDS which include the boycott of American Jewish rapper Matisyahu in Spain and commercial companies Caterpillar and SodaStream.

Post-secularism in Israel is expressed, among other ways, by the growing public acceptance of identities that are neither religious nor secular. This paper is predicated on research of individuals located on the boundaries of Orthodox Religious Zionism. It explores their attitudes on a range of issues and argues that they reflect their post-secularist identities. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with young men and women who chose to abandon the strictures of a Religious Zionist lifestyle as well as those who still remain within its bounds. Various late-modern and post-secular modes of thought and expression were identified in interviewees’ narratives. These included pluralism, relativism, egalitarianism, the personalization of relationships with God, and a disregard for theological arguments based upon scientific findings. It is argued that these attitudes are related to two late-modern social processes: (1) the rise of individual expressivism and (2) the belief in the liberal human-rights ethic. These tendencies cut across the social divide between interviewees who left Religious Zionism and those who chose to remain within the fold, traversing the previously dominant religious–secular social divide and thus serving as yet another indication for the blossoming of new post-secular spaces in Israeli Jewish society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taglit-Birthright Israel has brought hundreds of thousands of diaspora Jewish young adults on tours of Israel. Drawing on data from a large-scale program evaluation, we ask how the program affects participants’ feelings of homeland attachment and political views on contentious homeland issues. North Americans who traveled to Israel with Taglit between 2010 and 2012 were surveyed together with a comparison group of applicants to the program who did not participate. In multivariate analysis, Taglit sharply increases feelings of connection to Israel but has no effect on attitudes concerning the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The program modestly increases scores on a “favorability” scale and modestly increases opposition to a possible division of Jerusalem in a future peace deal. In contrast to Benedict Anderson's theory of long-distance nationalism, the findings suggest that feelings of homeland connection can be fostered without triggering ethnonationalist attitudes associated with the political right. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores symbolic boundaries and identity-formation of the 'ethnonational Us', using narrative analysis of eleven Israeli- Jewish dissidents. The hegemonic nationalist discourse in Israel - Zionism - constructs the dissidents' identities as the ' Virtuous Us', yet these individuals genuinely try to connect with the ' Demonized Palestinian Other'. I suggest that the dissidents attempt to use alternative national identity discourses to overcome symbolic boundaries. I highlight inconsistencies within individual dissidents' narratives and attribute them to the employment of multiple discourses, suggesting that some discourses fail to coherently reconcile 'national' history with the well-being of the Other, whilst others repel dissidents by appearing to negate or destroy their identities. The dissidents, therefore, cannot use the available discourses to fully overcome symbolic boundaries. Only the hegemonic nationalist discourse can offer a self-evident and compelling enunciation of the dissidents' political reality, leading one insightful dissident to conclude that there is 'no way out' of his dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rabbi John Rayner was an eminent proponent of ethical Zionism. His views about Israel are related in this article to his views about Judaism and Jewish ethics. The three pillars of Judaism are: truth, justice and peace. Rabbi Rayner personified these values to a remarkable degree. The common thread that runs through his countless sermons and articles was the emphasis on the gentler and more outward-looking values of Judaism. It is by cultivating and exemplifying these values, he believed, that Jews could best help humanity find signposts to justice and peace, not only in the Middle East but everywhere. Ethical Zionism, as understood by Rabbi Rayner, is based on Jewish values. The State of Israel is the main political progeny of the Zionist movement. It follows that the State of Israel ought to reflect Jewish values in its external relations. In the event of a clash between Israeli behaviour and Jewish ethics, Rabbi Rayner invariably came down on the side of Jewish ethics. He consistently placed principle above pragmatism and morality above expediency. He was an honest and courageous man who always spoke truth to power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hummus, one of the most common foods in Israel, was appropriated several decades ago as an icon of Israeli culture and nationality. Organic hummus—a recent version of the dish—appeared due to global-cultural trends of ethical and reflexive food consumption. It is customary to see organic food as representing locality, health, ecology and social justice. But it also embodies representations of globalism and westernism, mainly because of its integration in the global industrial system and its origin among the post-materialistic social elite in Western countries. This article deals with the encounter of the global and local as embodied in organic hummus in Israel. This look at the production, distribution and consumption of organic hummus uncovers social and political layers embedded in the dish and sheds light on several paradoxical aspects. I argue that the global socioeconomic conditions and ideas embedded in the concept of organic attached to hummus allow the imagined re-localization of the dish. Hummus is a dish perceived as representing rootedness, earthiness and local simplicity, but nowadays, in its organic version, it wears an economic and symbolic framework of global values used by the Israeli westernizing elite to demonstrate a symbolic cosmopolitan identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the changing attitudes of the Israeli authorities towards the Jewish veterans of the International Brigades, most of them Communists. Following a brief overview of Jewish participation in general and Jewish Palestinian participation in particular in the Spanish Civil War, we focus our attention first on the initial reactions to the returning volunteers and then on two major events in the process of memory appropriation and gradual inclusion of these fighters in the Israeli national narrative: the 1972 Tel-Aviv conference of Jewish fighters in Spain, sponsored by the Histadrut, and the 1986 speech by Israeli president Chaim Herzog on the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Once the fighters' documents were deposited in the archives of the Israel military in the 1990s, the process was complete. Now they could be portrayed as Jewish heroes, national patriots fighting to protect their people and their homeland, Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article draws attention to Canaanism's topicality in the discussion of one-state and two-state solutions to the Israel/Palestine relationship. The first section surveys the Canaanite movement of the 1930s and 1940s. The second section assesses influences issuing from the movement, distinguishing dated tenets from those of current import. The third section explores the continuing effect of Canaanite impulses figuring as neo-Canaanite motives in present-day discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zionism is not easily defined, especially in terms of its relationship to conflict in the Middle East. Is it possible for Zionism to be harnessed as a Jewish catalyst for peacemaking between Jews and Arabs today? Or is Zionism a zero-sum ideology that tends to perpetuate discrimination toward non-Jews living in Israel and across its checkpoints? This paper seeks to deconstruct the complex reality of Zionism today. It first explores the conventional narrative surrounding Zionism's identity and then deliberates on a few of the more "inclusive" interpretations of Zionism espoused by Jewish thinkers and activists. Following this broad analysis, this article will consider Zionism's flexibility within the diverging political frameworks for peace—that is, the one- and twostate solutions—and its potential contributions to peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the idea of the "New Jew" from different positions in the Zionist spectrum as they shed their diasporic outlooks and settled in Israel. It examines several models of the "New Jew," explores the historiographic aspects of the idea in Zionism and addresses the question of the relationship between historiography and ideology. The article also discusses how the idea of the "New Jew" is portrayed in Zionist historiography.

Copyright of ÖZP - Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft is the property of Oesterreichische Zeitschrift fur Politikwissenschaft and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the history of Israel's lingua franca as a constituent of the Zionist project. Based largely on recent scholarship, this work sheds light on the role of language in the educational and political efforts to create a New Hebrew Man who, in contradistinction to the European Jew, was to live 'as a free man' in his own land. Reflecting Jewish experience in the Russian Empire, these efforts alienated traditional, particularly non-Ashkenazi Jews. The article addresses the question of the uniqueness of the modern Israeli vernacular that contributes to the historical legitimacy of Zionism and the state of Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many observers agree about the marginal position and involvement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) as well as all other ministries active in the sphere of Israeli-Jewish Diaspora relations, which is closely connected to Israeli governments' general positions and attitudes toward the Jewish Diaspora. The article examines the historical sources of this situation in the Israeli government. It discusses especially the role of the MFA, which, theoretically, should have been very closely involved in Israeli-Jewish Diaspora relations. It focuses mainly on the period from 1948 until the mid-1950s. For this was of course the formative period during which the government and all its ministries were formally established and organized; when the initial government position toward the Jewish Diaspora was formulated; when the relations between the government and the Jewish Agency, which during the Yishuv was the semi-government, were set; and when the ideological and strategic debates were intensifying between the first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and the first minister of foreign affairs, Moshe Sharett, and his ministry, which was under the full control of Sharett during a period when the relations between him and Ben-Gurion were gradually fading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) was officially established on 14 May 1948 when the State of Israel was proclaimed, but extensive diplomatic activity conducted by the Zionist movement and the Jewish Agency preceded its official debut. The authorized body that existed previously—the political department—served as the template for the MFA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the relationship between Christians and Jews from the late Middle Ages to the beginning of the 21st century. Examples of the persecution inflicted on Jews are provided, including their 15th century expulsion from Spain by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, the Holocaust of the mid-1900s led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, and multiple invasions and instances of violence in Israel beginning in 2000. The relationship between the Jewish faith and nationality is analyzed in addition to discussion regarding the history of antisemitism.

This article provides an ethnographic and historical perspective on the migration of rural Jewish communities from the region of Sous, southern Morocco, to Israel in the early 1960s. Building on theories of the relationship between diaspora, homeland, and nationalism, and using ethnographic data collected among Moroccan Jews and Muslims from the region, I argue that even though the economic factors played a substantial role in persuading rural Jews to migrate to Israel, historical symbols of traditional messianic Zionism played a major role in the migration of rural Jewry. Unlike urban Jews who settled in different Moroccan cities after the Spanish Inquisition, Jews from Akka and other neighbouring hamlets have a particular view of history to which Zionism appealed. In this article, I use a historical narrative to argue that southern Moroccan Jews, whether their memory is based on supposition or fact, imagined their history as connected to Palestine. Accordingly, Zionists invoked these historical messianic symbols to which local rural Jews from Akka and other neighbouring villages subscribed to capture their political, religious, and national support. Henceforth, my contention is that although local and global social, political, and economic stresses in the first half of the twentieth century influenced this migration, the underlying cause is largely attributed to the imagined or real historical roots of these populations towards Palestine as opposed to the roots of Andalusian Jews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Performing Aesthetics, Performing Politics’ addresses the role that community art can play in the process of making home anew for dislocated individuals. By examining the specific case of The Jewish Home Beautiful pageant – first written in the 1930s and performed by North American Jewish congregations ever since – questions about home's properties, associations and manifestations (or lack-thereof) in the political, cultural, emotional and physical realms are posited alongside a critical analysis of the ways in which aesthetics contribute to the process wherein homelessness in one group ends up creating homelessness for others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the study of Jewish history in Israel at the juncture of two currents: the ongoing expansion of an international community of Jewish studies scholars and the waning interest in the field in Israel itself. Mindful of the latter trend, it is easy to adopt a declensionist narrative, according to which the “Jerusalem School,” with its monolithic and Palestinocentric view of the past, has run its course. And yet, that framing occludes a number of novel tendencies in Israel, arising in the present “post-post-Zionist” moment, that expand the contours of Jewish historical scholarship in productive ways. They include: the well-known and controversial work of the “New Historians;” the work of a succeeding generation of scholars who have brought new intellectual and methodological openness to the study of Zionism; the work of Israeli scholars who have introduced a new measure of reflexivity through careful examination of the history of Jewish historiography; and the work of Israeli scholars who have eschewed the once-regnant view of an “immanent causality” in Jewish history. In conclusion, the article suggests that kernels of these trends were present in the founding generation of scholars at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, though the current generation of scholars is both more critical toward the Zionist nationalist narrative and more global in its orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography textbooks, like other cultural artifacts, are usually left as unexploited—raw. Ever since its founding, Tel-Aviv has been represented in geography textbooks in a very positive light—the "European oasis in the East". The dominant line in presenting the city remains—a created artifact that testifies to the vitality and power of Zionism, the center of the State of Israel, the very heart of its economy, culture, and society. It is integrated into the processes of globalization, the contemporary symbols of "world cities" apply to it as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ideas of a number of leading Israeli intellectuals on basic questions of secularism and the link between secular Jews and their Jewish heritage. The secular Jews at the focus of the intellectuals' thinking are individualists, men and women of outstanding personality and aptitude. Most of the article discusses their trend towards individualism (which is often only implied). The last part of the article tries to classify the reasons for that trend—some of which are rooted in the political tension inherent in questions of identity and tradition in Israeli society, and others that are the apolitical legacy of spiritual Zionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the establishment of a Jewish-national state in Israel by the Zionist movement, and its implications of ethnic cleansing of previous inhabitants. The Zionist movement allegedly refused to heed to a bi-national solution, which has reportedly brought Israel to a Jewish national state dominated by militaristic and militant nationalists. It recounts the conflicts with Palestinians and how the Jews think it is their moral right to expel Palestinians from the land.

This article describes the public discourse and debate in the early 1950s over the shaping of the new Israeli citizen. Thai discussion included the concept of "pioneering" (halutsiyut) as a leading tenet that would ensure citizenship not only as a set of entitlements but first and foremost as an obligation. Educators, public figures, adolescents and young adults, and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion all tackled questions that dealt with various aspects of citizenship and the challenges of citizenship education. The debate centered on the question of the very possibility of creating a "pioneer-citizen." The article examines the earliest criteria of good citizenship in Israel, which did not settle for the perfunctory duties of voting, paying taxes, and abiding by the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cold War liberals constituted a cosmopolitan anticommunist intelligentsia. Many of them were of Jewish origin, so they had to negotiate between their European homelands, Jewish nationalism, and cosmopolitan ideals. Out of their national dilemmas emerged novel visions of liberal pluralism, but the tensions between liberalism and nationalism were also a source for ambiguities and, occasionally, blunders. This article focuses on five intellectuals, illustrating the spectrum of positions on the Jewish Question among West European Cold War liberals: Raymond Aron (1905-83), the French patriot; Isaiah Berlin (1909-98), the liberal pluralist; Karl Popper (1902- 94), the cosmopolitan anti-Zionist; Manes Sperber (1905-84), the Jewish cosmopolitan; and Jacob Talmon (1916-80), the Zionist. Increasingly identifying themselves as Jewish, timidly promoting a Jewish agenda, and recognizing a stake in the Zionist project, the Cold War liberals reflect a major transformation in the identities of the West European Jewish intelligentsia in the aftermath of the Holocaust and Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the increasing incorporation of professional therapeutic knowledge and practices into the state-led apparatus of absorption of new immigrants in Israel. Singling out this phenomenon is the seemingly unexpected alliance between the therapeutic ethos, which leans on individualist, a-national and universal values, and state-led absorption practices, based on a Zionist, collectivist and local ethos. According to the Zionist ethos, the newcomer 'returning to an historical homeland' is expected to become part of a territorially bounded collective entity and to adopt a new national identity that will predominate over other identities. The therapeutic ethos undermines moral authorities promoting collective redemption through identification with community goals and challenges a patronizing attitude towards new immigrants. Analysing the rhetoric and practice of Na'aleh - a decade-and-a-half-old project for adolescents immigrating from the former Soviet Union, characterized by a 'therapeutic absorption policy', this article examines the meaning of 'therapeutic' absorption in shaping a new Israeli citizen within the current social context. In order to clarify the historical uniqueness of this phenomenon, Na'aleh's absorption paradigm is compared to Youth Aliyah - the project that absorbed youngsters in a distinctly different ideological period of Israeli history (early 1940s), particularly with regard to the status of Zionism. A locus of comparison is the perceptions of the absorbing personnel and the absorbed immigrants in both ventures. The main claim of this article is that the psychologizing of the absorption apparatus both challenges and fortifies the traditional role of statist Zionism under global, postmodern conditions, typified by the erosion of the nation-state and questioning the moral status of its constitutive ethos. Therapeutic absorption transforms the newcomer into the object of therapeutic intervention rather than assimilative education. However, it simultaneously enables the 'Russian' teenagers from a 'pre-therapeutic society' to internalize a 'therapeutic habitus', which grants them the skills and competency to become a 'local' and to attain symbolic goods significant in their new social environment. Therapeutic personnel, characterized by emotional skills and cultural proximity to the absorbed pupils, rather than ideological identification with Zionist project, serve as a newer version of traditional agents of Israeli socialization, by virtue of their own unique course of absorption in Israel that blends the process of 'becoming Israeli' with socialization into a professional/therapeutic culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the representation of Jewish history in the Zionist school system of the Yishuv and the early State of Israel (1920-1954). In the Yishuv period the history curriculum was centered on “shifting Jewish centers” in the spirit of historian Simon Dubnow, an approach that also integrated Jewish and non-Jewish history. From the 1930s, Ben Zion Dinur and the Teachers' Council of the Keren Kayemet le-Yisrael (Jewish National Fund) attempted to make the Land of Israel the central axis uniting Jewish history, a focus that downplayed non-Jewish history. Because of the opposition to this approach within the education system, this change, which Dinur regarded as essential for the integration of the new immigrants from the Muslim countries into Israeli society, was implemented only after he was appointed minister of education in the early 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses two intellectual models that attempted to grant religious meaning to Zionism and the Jewish State without turning them into non-rational religious entities. Rabbi Uziel's model, like that of Rabbi Kook, interprets the development of the State within the framework of the messianic idea. However, while Rabbi Kook speaks in terms of the messianic approach of the Kabbalah, Rabbi Uziel formulated his messianic approach on the rational philosophy of Maimonides. As a result, the State is not ascribed some absolute value—after all, no messianic State is a value in itself, but is seen as a means for the individual to reach religious fulfillment. Therefore, the test for the State will be whether it meets the halachic and moral standards that represent the only framework within which reality takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the letter, a memorandum by the philosopher Professor Isaiah Berlin to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in January 1959, pertinent to the question of Jewish identity. The letter is response to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's enquiry for the registration of children of mixed marriages, in which the prime minister seeks opinions of intellectuals about the relationship of religion and nationalism in the formulation of Jewish identity. In the memorandum, Berlin expressed strong liberal and secular views and noted the utilitarian dilemma concerning the freedom of expression and rights of the individual and the dire consequences for Israel and the preservation of Jewish unity.