Bulletin: Zionism and Political History

Articles

• Menashe Anzi and Anja Siegemund, German Jews in the Middle East: New Perspectives
• Matan Boord, Labor Zionism Urban Men and the ‘New Jew’ in Mandate Palestine (in Hebrew)
• Tamir Goren, The Jewish Neighbourhoods of Jaffa and the Question of Annexation to Tel Aviv at the End of the British Mandate
• Daniel Kessler, The Jewish Community in Nineteenth Century Palestine: Evidence from the Montefiore Censuses

Events

Pnina Lahav, “Golda Meir: A Biographical Sketch,” Bildner Center, Rutgers, March 27, 2017

 

New Article: Omer & Zafrir-Reuven, The Development of Street Patterns in Israeli Cities

Omer, Itzhak, and Orna Zafrir-Reuven. “The Development of Street Patterns in Israeli Cities.” Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis 7.2 (2015): 113-27.

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URL: http://www.jurareview.ro/2015_7_2/a1_72.pdf [PDF]

 

Abstract

Street patterns of Israeli cities were investigated by comparing three time periods of urban development: (I) the late 19th century until the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948; (II) 1948 until the 1980s; and (III) the late 1980s until the present. These time periods are related respectively to the pre-modern, modern and late-modern urban planning approach. Representative urban street networks were examined in selected cities by means of morphological analysis of typical street pattern properties: curvature, fragmentation, connectivity, continuity and differentiation. The study results reveal significant differences between the street patterns of the three examined periods in the development of cities in Israel. The results show clearly the gradual trends in the intensification of curvature, fragmentation, complexity and hierarchical organization of street networks as well as the weakening of the network’s internal and external connectivity. The implications of these changes on connectivity and spatial integration are discussed with respect to planning approaches.

 

 

 

New Article: Bar-Yosef, Heart of Darkness in Israeli Culture

Bar-Yosef, Eitan. “‘The Horror’ in Hebrew. Heart of Darkness in Israeli Culture.” Interventions (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2015.1079499

 

Abstract

Tracing the intricate presence of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in Israeli culture, this essay explores how elements of the novella (the journey to Africa, the iconic Kurtz, and the nature of ‘darkness’) have been repeatedly evoked, both implicitly and explicitly, in various cultural contexts. Focusing on three major episodes – the emergence of political Zionism in the 1890s; young Israel’s intensive involvement in Black Africa in the 1960s; and the pessimism that engulfed Israeli society after the 1973 war – the essay suggests that the novella’s relevance to Israeli culture is rooted in the work’s fluid allegorical mode, which parallels tensions and contradictions that have characterized the Zionist project from its inception. This mirroring reached a climax in the journalistic work of Adam Baruch, who offered a highly stylized postcolonial reworking of Heart of Darkness in his influential account of a journey undertaken to find a disgraced Israeli general, self-exiled in Africa. The search for the Israeli ‘Kurtz’ thus continues to function as a powerful emblem of Israel’s colonial violence.

 

 

New Article: Beck, From West Africa to Mecca and Jerusalem: The Tijāniyya on the Hajj Routes

Beck, Irit. “From West Africa to Mecca and Jerusalem: The Tijāniyya on the Hajj Routes.” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 6.1 (2015): 1-15.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2015.1026243

 

Abstract

Pilgrimage routes from West Africa provided channels for cultural and spiritual exchange between West African and Middle Eastern Muslims, and facilitated religious exchanges. Some of these exchanges were orthodox in nature; others, such as Sufi beliefs and practices, were more popular in their appeal. This article examines the ways that Tijāniyya tāriqa leaders and disciples spread their beliefs and practices along the hajj routes during the colonial period. Since this period saw the transformation of boundaries and borders, the hajj could be perceived more as a “state affair,” as its routes moved within the boundaries of the new empires or fluctuated between the new colonial empires. The article focuses on the Tijāniyya tāriqa, mainly because this tāriqa was relatively new (established around the beginning of the nineteenth century) and as such serves as a good case study for the spread of tāriqa affiliations through the hajj routes from West Africa during the colonial period. This article also examines the role of the hajj for Tijāni West African Muslims who settled in Jerusalem in the same period.

New Article: Alroey, Israeli Historiography and the Mass Jewish Migration to the United States, 1881–1914

Alroey, Gur. “Two Historiographies: Israeli Historiography and the Mass Jewish Migration to the United States, 1881–1914.” Jewish Quarterly Review 105.1 (2015): 99-129.

 

URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jewish_quarterly_review/v105/105.1.alroey.html

 

Abstract

The mass Jewish migration from Eastern Europe (1881–1914) was one of the seminal events in the life of the Jewish people in modern times. During this period, more than 2.5 million Jews migrated to countries across the sea. Two Jewish centers emerged as a result of the mass emigration from Eastern Europe: the State of Israel and North America. Despite the similar reasons for the development of the Jewish collectives in the United States and Israel, two completely different historiographies have emerged over the years. This article investigates how the Zionist narrative, which saw Jewish immigration to Palestine from 1881–1914 as an exceptional case in the history of Jewish migration, was constructed. try and understand the attitude of Zionist historiography towards the first aliyot to Palestine and why it ignored the large Jewish migration from Eastern Europe to the United States.

New Article: Sturm & Frantzman, Religious Geopolitics of Palestinian Christianity

Sturm, Tristan and Seth Frantzman. “Religious Geopolitics of Palestinian Christianity: Palestinian Christian Zionists, Palestinian Liberation Theologists, and American Missions to Palestine.” Middle Eastern Studies 51.3 (2015): 433-51.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00263206.2014.971768

 

Abstract

The introduction of Protestantism into the Middle East by American missionaries in the nineteenth century met with limited success while the responses and internalizations of local converts proved incredibly diverse. The two resultant theological descendants are Palestinian Christian Zionists and Palestinian Liberation Theologists. The article provides a short history of these two movements and highlights influential voices through interviews and media analysis. This article argues that hybrid religious identifications with nation and place has transcended, in some cases, political struggle for territory.

Reviews: Cohen, Becoming Ottomans

Cohen, Julia Philips. Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

 

 

Reviews:

• Rubin, Avi. “Review.” AJS Review 38.2 (2014): 484-487.
• Kern, Karen M. “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47.1 (2015): 196-198.