Showing papers on "Jewish state published in 1992"

Ethnic Democracy and the Legal Construction of Citizenship: Arab Citizens of the Jewish State.

Abstract: The citizenship status of its Arab citizens is the key to Israel's ability to function as an ethnic democracy, that is, a political system combining democratic institutions with the dominance of one ethnic group. The confluence of republicanism and ethnonationalism with liberalism, as principles of legitimation, has resulted in two types of citizenship: republican for Jews and liberal for Arabs. Thus, Arab citizens enjoy civil and political rights but are barred from attending to the common good.The Arab citizenship status, while much more restricted than the Jewish, has both induced and enabled Arabs to conduct their political struggles within the framework of the law, in sharp contrast to the noncitizen Arabs of the occupied territories. It may thus serve as a model for other dominant ethnic groups seeking to maintain both their dominance and a democratic system of government.

Judaism, human values, and the Jewish state

Abstract: Introduction by Eliezer Goldman PART 1: FAITH 1. Religious Praxis: The Meaning of Halakhah 2. Of Prayer 3. The Reading of Shema 4. Fear of God in the Book of Job 5. Divine Governance: A Maimonidean View 6. Lishmah, and Not-Lishmah 7. The Uniqueness of the Jewish People 8. The Individual and Society in Judaism 9. Ahistorical Thinkers in Judaism 10. The Religious and Moral Significance of the Redemption of Israel 11. Redemption and the Dawn of Redemption 12. The Status of Women: Halakhah and Meta-Halakhah 13. Religion and Science in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Era PART 2: RELIGION, PEOPLE, STATE 14. The Social Order as a Religious Problem 15. The Crisis of Religion in the State of Israel 16. A Call for the Separation of Religion and State 17. After Kibiyeh 18. Jewish Identity and Israeli Silence 19. The Jew in His Community, on His Land, and in the

Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel

Abstract: Israel is both Jewish state and national homeland to Jews the world over. But a fifth of its population is Arab, a people who feel themselves to be an inseparable part of the Arab nation, most of which is still technically at war with the State of Israel. During the Gulf War many Israeli Arabs found themselves in an absurd situation as they climbed atop their roofs, gas masks on their faces, to cheer on the missiles Saddam Hussein had aimed at Israel. 'My people is at war with my country, ' is how one Israeli Arab has described the dilemma in which he and his brothers are caught. In the summer of 1991, Israeli writer David Grossman sets out on a personal journey into the world of the Arab citizens of his country to explore these problems. This book is an account of that journey, a story about an intensifying bitterness and a Palestinian problem likely to become as serious as the one already familiar to the world.

Reading Exodus into History

Abstract: N AN EARLIER PAPER on the shifting significance of Palestine as the ground of Jewish historical identity, I broached several critical questions, one of which was phrased as follows: "What are the grander links among the ancient Jewish state, the Western cultural complex of 'Zion' through the Bible, traditional Jewish culture in the modern period, Zionism, and what I will call here a postmodern ideal of Diaspora?"' Here I will be considering the link between only two of those elements: the use of the Exodus/ Promised Land narrative in writings from various points of Christian European, and particularly English, history; and the ways that same narrative has been drawn on for the legitimation of Zionism. Perhaps most of all, I hope to show that real insight into the narrative construction of history cannot do without close attention to the precise language of ancient source texts, to the translation of such texts as a practice which helps define collective identity, and to the multiplicity of readings they have afforded in widely differing historical circumstances. The politics of Exodus constitute an exemplary case of the link between history and interpretive reading. The case is first of all "exemplary" in the loose sense that there are so many cases, over such a wide area and long period, in which that narrative has been used to make events cohere into meaningful constellations. It is also more precisely exemplary because the narrative cannot be understood solely as pertaining to the time in which it purports to be

David Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment for a Jewish State

Abstract: Against the background of Kristallnacht and Britain's retreat from the Jewish mandate for Palestine, David Ben-Gurion shaped a new Zionist foreign policy based on the assumed rise of the United States as a world power that would determine the future of the Middle East. This book traces the evolution of the demand for a Jewish state into a central and specific aim of Zionist policy and the interrelated process by which Ben-Gurion became increasingly oriented toward the United States and American Jewry at the expense of Zionism's historical connection with Great Britain. Based on new documentary evidence, Allon Gal's study charts Ben-Gurion's ascent from the leadership of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) to prominence in world Zionist and international diplomacy. The book also portrays the emergence of American Jewry as a political factor that strove to secure Jewish interests in an open and self-assured fashion.

Jerusalem under siege : the collapse of the Jewish state, 66-70 C.E.

Abstract: An internal history of the four tragic years of the Jewish rebellion, which began with militant optimism in the year 66 and ended with the destruction of the Temple and city of Jerusalem four years later. The main theme is internal collapse: from the decades before the war, when deepening factionalism throughout Jewish society contributed to the ultimate outbreak of revolution, to the Temple meeting of 66, when an alliance among competing factions was insecurely riveted together and an "army" with conflicting enthusiasms was formed; from the toppling of the first regime in 67/81, to the disintegration of the second regime from 68 to 70; and from the siege, during which the famine fell on different segments of the population with sadly unequal weight, to desertion, the patterns of which provide a negative image of the constantly shifting political fortunes of revolutionary partners. Classical, rabbinic, archaeological and numismatic evidence is brought to bear on a new interpretation of Josephus' "Bellum Judaicum"

The Teaching of Religion in Government Funded Schools in Israel

Abstract: Religious education in Israel is inextricably linked with the more general aspects of the complex role of religion in Israel, which in turn cannot be understood without a basic understanding of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as that of the traditional status of religious-ethnic-national groups in the Middle East.A comprehensive discussion of these complex issues would take us well beyond the confines of this paper. Thus, we will discuss them only briefly herein, thereby necessarily dealing in generalizations which may, at times, be overly simplistic.

The Sudan and Israel: an episode in bilateral relations

Abstract: Until 1948, both Palestine and the Sudan were effectively under British rule. Though the Sudan was ostensibly an Anglo-Egyptian condominium, it was generally known that the Egyptian government was itself dependent on Whitehall and hence played second fiddle, at best, in matters concerning the Sudan. Palestine had become a British mandatory area after the First World War and consequently was also under HMG's tutelage. It was therefore no wonder that bilateral relations should exist between these two countries, just as they existed between Palestine and other regions under British rule, such as India, Iraq or Egypt. All this changed, however, in the post-Second World War period, when relations between the Arab League and the Jews in Palestine deteriorated rapidly. So much so that following Israel's declaration of independence, in May 1948 and the subsequent war, the Arab League refused to recognise the legitimacy of the new state and declared a general boycott on all trade and on other relations with Israel. The Sudan, as an Anglo-Egyptian dependency, was of course excluded from the Arab League, which consisted of independent states only. Therefore, the League's decisions, did not officially apply to the Sudan. However, the question was whether Egypt had a legal right to enforce its will on the Sudan in this and other matters. In addition, the wisdom of any relations between Arab states in the British sphere of influence and Israel, was also questioned by British officials, both in the Middle East and in London, since it was feared that such relations might affect future Anglo-Arab relations adversely. In the case of the Sudan this matter was brought to the attention of the Foreign Office in London as early as 1949 not so much because of the relevance of Israeli-Sudanese relations as such, but in order to make it quite clear in Cairo that Egypt could not dictate the policies of the Sudan. At stake were the Sudan's exports to Israel, which the Egyptians rejected as contravening the boycott of their enemy, the Jewish state in conquered Palestine. On 10 June 1950 the Egyptian authorities forced an Italian vessel, the Dimavo, to unload its cargo of cotton-seed cake at Port Sudan. This cargo, destined for Israel, was part

Sterling balances and claims negotiations: Britain and Israel 1947–52

Abstract: the Mandate and establish an Arab and a Jewish state in Palestine, the British Government faced three financial problems which took nearly four years to solve.1 First, would either or both new states remain in the sterling area; second, what would be done about the Palestine sterling balances; and, finally, what comprehensive financial settlement covering complicated problems of appraising assets and liabilities should be worked for. While the last issue had to wait until clarification of the overall political situation in Palestine, the first questions posed immediate subjects for decision from late 1947. The fundamental features of membership in the sterling area were that the members used sterling as the normal means of external settlements, and that they held the major part of their reserves in sterling. They also looked to the United Kingdom as a major source of external capital and

The Pagan Freud

Abstract: Freud had a Jewish identity and was a cultural pagan. Of course, both sides of the statement are true. While there is a voluminous secondary literature on Freud’s Jewish identity, there is little on his paganism.1 It is this Hellenic-Roman aspect of Freud’s person and legacy which this essay will explore. I wish to engage the culturally non-Hebraic (and indeed theologically) specifically anti-Mosaic, portion of Freud’s interest, commitment and aesthetic emotional investment. Freud worshipped the culture of antiquity and shared its anti-Judaeo-Christian values.

Israel and the gulf war: a new sense of realism

Abstract: In some respects this article is redundant. Af ter all, a growing number of Jewish schools, both day schools and supplementary schools, have included Israel in their curricula in a prominent way. We mention Israel in our prayers. We teach the history of the Land of Israel. We recruit teenagers for Israel summer programs. Why then should the Gulf War have any impact on how we portray Israel in our schools? Has this war opened an educa tional window of opportunity? My question is rhetorical and the answer affirmative. Seeing Scud missiles fall live on Tel Aviv via CNN has temporarily transformed the perception of and the relation to the Jewish State. Maybe at long last we have the chance to make a very illusive Jewish symbol into a concrete reality for Jewish students around the world. Let me explain why this is so necessary and how I propose to make it happen.

Arab-Jewish socio-spatial relations in Arab adolescents' representations

Abstract: It seems that beyond differences among the drawings several generalisations may be made, relating to the ethno-spatial relations in Israeli Palestinian adolescents' perceptions, two years after the emergence of the uprising. - Israeli Palestinian adolescents tend to adopt a nationalistic identity that to a large extent denies its Israeli civilian component, and thus tends to deny any shared identity with the Jewish sector. This is a shift from the Israeli Palestinians' political consensus which stresses the struggle for civilian and social equality. - The Israeli Palestinian adolescents fully identify themselves with the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, perceiving the uprising there as the major source of stimulation for the formation of a Palestinian identity. - The PLO is perceived as the only political leadership which supports the Palestinians, including Israeli Palestinians, and offer a tangible sense of control over their destiny. - The Palestinian identity crises (incuding the Israeli Palestinians) will be solved through the PLO military struggle for independence and peaceful compromise with the Jewish state. - The elder adolescents, who have developed more sophisticated spatial abilities and have crystalised their collective identity, tend to attribute Palestinians and Jews with separate territorial bases, while the younger ones tend to ignore the territorial aspects of identity and inter-group relations. - The compromise will lead to coexistence between two separate political identities which split the territory west of the Jordan river equally. - The adolescents at the age of 13–14 represent strong awareness of the Palestinian national struggle and they clearly identify with a tendency to separate themselves from the Israeli state and join a Palestinian identity led by the PLO. If this is the milieu in which they form their identity for the future, one may conclude that the uprising succeeded in increasing unity and solidarity at least between the Israeli Palestinians and the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories around a more crystalised and determined national identity.