Tag Archives: Early Zionism

ToC: Israel Studies Review 30.2 (2015)

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Israel Studies Review 30.2 (2015)

Editors’ Note

Editors’ Note
pp. v-vi(2)

 

Articles

Labor Zionism, the State, and Beyond: An Interpretation of Changing Realities and Changing Histories
pp. 1-27(27)
Author: Cohen, Mitchell

Does Israel Have a Navel? Anthony Smith and Zionism
pp. 28-49(22)
Author: Berent, Moshe

The Women of the Wall: A Metaphor for National and Religious Identity
pp. 50-70(21)
Author: Lahav, Pnina

Yiddish, Israel, and the Palestinians: Yosl Birshteyn’s “Between the Olive Trees”
pp. 71-91(21)
Author: Mahalel, Adi

Beyond the Religious-Secular Dichotomy: Looking at Five Israeli Dystopias
pp. 92-112(21)
Author: Katz, Gideon

The Politics of Emotion: A Case Study of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
pp. 113-129(17)
Author: Gold, Dana
 

Book Reviews

Book Reviews
pp. 130-155(26)

New Article: Hirsch, Hygiene among Early Zionist halutzim

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Hirsch, Dafna. “Hygiene, Dirt and the Shaping of a New Man among the Early Zionist halutzim.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 18.3 (2015): 300-18.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1367549414526729

 

Abstract

Personal hygiene has pride of place in two of the most important scholarly conceptualizations of the modern body: that of Norbert Elias and that of Michel Foucault. This article analyzes hygienic practices among early Zionist ideological workers – halutzim (lit. ‘pioneers’). Contrary to the image of the healthy and vigorous manual worker, physicians lamented the disregard for hygiene among the halutzim – a behavior which they attributed to the latter’s ignorance and indifference to matters of health. The halutzim, on their part, construed their hygienic misbehavior as signifying proletarization. However, a close examination of the practices of halutzim, and the meanings they attached to them, reveals a complex and contextual repertoire. As I argue through the case study of the halutzim, rather than a mere instance of discipline (Foucualt) or self-control (Elias), hygiene was a cultural repertoire which was open for appropriation and re-signification in various ways and for various purposes.

 

New Article: Goldstein, Reflections on the Failure of The Lovers of Zion

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Goldstein, Yossi. “Reflections on the Failure of The Lovers of Zion.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 14.2 (2015): 229-45.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1009729

 

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the rift between the two sociocultural groups that constituted Hibbat Zion—the maskilim and the ultra-Orthodox—and on its overall activity. It seems clear that the Jews in Russia were not ready for a movement aimed at establishing a Jewish national entity in Palestine. After 1885, many of them felt that despite anti-Semitism, their living conditions were improving and only a few among them sought to emigrate to the USA. Only a small minority saw their destination as Eretz Israel, yet it was this relatively inconsequential minority that fuelled the activity of Hibbat Zion, even though only very few of them actually believed in the possibility of settling in Palestine. Hibbat Zion and the Odessa Committee both failed to achieve the goals they set for themselves. Yet, we must acknowledge that the very existence of these Jewish national movements and the evolution of patterns of activity and the leadership they engendered paved the way for the development of a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Their members and their leadership established structures that provided a foundation for those who succeeded them: Herzl’s Zionist Organization and the state of Israel.

 

New Article: Alroey, The Idea of a Jewish State in Western Africa, 1907-1913

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Alroey, Gur. “Angolan Zion. The Jewish Territorial Organization and the idea of a Jewish state in Western Africa, 1907–1913.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 14.2 (2015): 179-98.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1006009

 

Abstract

This article traces the attempts in 1907–1913 by the Jewish Territorial Organization to set up an autonomous Jewish entity in West Africa. The Territorialists laid down three criteria for the choice of a territory: (1) A tract of land that must be large enough in size to allow for the absorption of mass Jewish migration. (2) A fertile territory that could provide a livelihood for the Jews who went there. (3) A sparsely populated territory so that no ethnic tensions would be created between the Jews settling there and the local residents. One likely territory was Angola, which at the beginning of the twentieth century was under the protection of the Portuguese government. The plan failed. However, the importance of the “Angola Plan” was to highlight the position of the Territorialists towards Africa in general and Angola in particular.

 

New Book: Rovner, In the Shadow of Zion

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Rovner, Adam L. In the Shadow of Zion. Promised Lands before Israel. New York: New York University Press, 2014.

9781479817481_Full

URL: http://nyupress.org/books/9781479817481/

 

Table of Contents (click for PDF)

Preface

Introduction: They Say There Is a Land . . .

  1. Noah’s Ark on the Niagara: Grand Island, New York (1818–1848)
  2. Greetings from the Promised Land: Uasin Gishu, East Africa (1903–1905)
  3. Angolan Zion: Benguela Plateau (1907–1914)
  4. The Lost Jewish Continent: Madagascar (1933–1942)
  5. New Jerusalem, Down Under: Port Davey, Tasmania (1940–1945)
  6. Welcome to the Jungle: Suriname (1938–1948)

Epilogue: Go to Uganda

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

 

Abstract

From the late nineteenth century through the post-Holocaust era, the world was divided between countries that tried to expel their Jewish populations and those that refused to let them in. The plight of these traumatized refugees inspired numerous proposals for Jewish states. Jews and Christians, authors and adventurers, politicians and playwrights, and rabbis and revolutionaries all worked to carve out autonomous Jewish territories in remote and often hostile locations across the globe. The would-be founding fathers of these imaginary Zions dispatched scientific expeditions to far-flung regions and filed reports on the dream states they planned to create. But only Israel emerged from dream to reality. Israel’s successful foundation has long obscured the fact that eminent Jewish figures, including Zionism’s prophet, Theodor Herzl, seriously considered establishing enclaves beyond the Middle East.
In the Shadow of Zion brings to life the amazing true stories of six exotic visions of a Jewish national home outside of the biblical land of Israel. It is the only book to detail the connections between these schemes, which in turn explain the trajectory of modern Zionism. A gripping narrative drawn from archives the world over, In the Shadow of Zion recovers the mostly forgotten history of the Jewish territorialist movement, and the stories of the fascinating but now obscure figures who championed it.
Provocative, thoroughly researched, and written to appeal to a broad audience, In the Shadow of Zion offers a timely perspective on Jewish power and powerlessness.

 

 

Visit the author’s website: http://www.adamrovner.com/

News: Busy month of November at the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies (Concordia)

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  • The Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs presents One Story at a Time on Monday, November 10th at 7:30 pm (Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec, 475 blvd. de Maisonneuve St Est)
    • o   The Azrieli Foundation is pleased to host a film and readings featuring their newly published authors.
    • o   RSVP by November 3rd to launch@azrieli.ca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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