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If nationalism is the assertion of legitimacy for a nation and its effectiveness as a political entity, why do many nations emphasize images of their own defeat in understanding their history? Using Israel, Serbia, France, Greece and Ghana as examples, the author argues that this phenomenon exposes the ambivalence that lurks behind the passions nationalism evokes. Symbols of defeat glorify a nation's ancient past, while reenacting the destruction of that past as a necessary step in constructing a functioning modern society. As a result, these symbols often assume a foundational role in national mythology. Threats to such symbols are perceived as threats to the nation itself and consequently are met with desperation difficult for outsiders to understand.
It is claimed that Zionism as a meta-narrative has been formed through contradiction to two alternative models, the Canaanite and crusader narratives. These narratives are the most daring and heretical assaults on Israeli-Jewish identity. The Israelis, according to the Canaanite narrative, are from this place and belong only here; according to the crusader narrative, they are from another place and belong there. The mythological construction of Zionism as a modern crusade describes Israel as a Western colonial enterprise planted in the heart of the East and alien to the area, its logic and its peoples. The nativist construction of Israel as neo-Canaanism demands breaking away from the chain of historical continuity. These are the greatest anxieties that Zionism and Israel needed to encounter and answer forcefully. The Origins of Israeli Mythology seeks to examine the intellectual archaeology of Israeli mythology, as it reveals itself through the Canaanite and crusader narratives.
This multicultural reference work on Jewish folklore, legends, customs, and other elements of folklife is the first of its kind.
Six classic texts of modern Hebrew literature viewed from a variety of critical perspectives.
It covers the construction of institutional complexes, the introduction of significant changes in Jerusalem's administration, the creation of new planning frameworks, the planning of new settlements around the city, the concentration of large tracts of agricultural land by Jerusalem's Arab effendis, and the development of the Arab and Jewish villages in the rural hinterland."--BOOK JACKET.
A lively and personal book that returns the city to political thought Cities shape the lives and outlooks of billions of people, yet they have been overshadowed in contemporary political thought by nation-states, identity groups, and concepts like justice and freedom. The Spirit of Cities revives the classical idea that a city expresses its own distinctive ethos or values. In the ancient world, Athens was synonymous with democracy and Sparta represented military discipline. In this original and engaging book, Daniel Bell and Avner de-Shalit explore how this classical idea can be applied to today's cities, and they explain why philosophy and the social sciences need to rediscover the spirit o...
A study of the Iraqi Jewish community of Zakho that investigates the community's attachment to the Land of Israel, the effects of Zionist activity, and immigration to Palestine and Israel. Unwitting Zionists examines the Jewish community in the northern Kurdistan town of Zakho from the end of the Ottoman period until the disappearance of the community through aliyah by 1951. Because of its remote location, Zakho was far removed from the influence of the Jewish religious leadership in Iraq and preserved many of its religious traditions independently, becoming the most important Jewish community in the region and known as "Jerusalem of Kurdistan." Author Haya Gavish argues, therefore, that whe...
In the decades before the establishment of the State of Israel, striking images of Palestine circulated widely among Jewish Americans. These images visualized "the Orient" for American viewers, creating the possibility for Jewish Americans to understand themselves through imagining "Oriental" counterparts. In The Hebrew Orient, Jessica L. Carr shows how images of the Holy Land made Jewish Americans feel at home in the United States by imagining "the Orient" as heritage. Carr's analyses of periodicals from Hadassah and the Zionist Organization of America, art calendars from the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, the Jewish Encyclopedia, and the Jewish exhibit at the 1933 World's Fair are richly illustrated. What emerges is a new understanding of the place of Orientalism in American Zionism. Creating a narrative about their origins, Jewish Americans looked east to understand themselves as Westerners.
Includes entries for maps and atlases.