Jews And Power

Author : Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher : Schocken
ISBN 13 : 0307533131
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Jews and Power written by Ruth R. Wisse and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2008-12-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the Jewish Encounter series Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.

Author : J. J. Goldberg
Publisher : Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 456 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Jewish Power written by J. J. Goldberg and published by Addison Wesley Publishing Company. This book was released on 1996-10-24 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: an independent force on the national and world scene in the last quarter-century. Goldberg offers an insider's portrait of the people, the institutions, the money, and the ideas that make up organized Jewish political influence in the U.S.

Author : David Biale
Publisher : Schocken
ISBN 13 : 0307772535
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History written by David Biale and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To shed light on the tensions he observed between Jewish perceptions of power versus political realitieswhich "are often the cause of misguided political decisions," like Israel's Lebanese WarBiale analyzes Jewish history from the point of view of politics and power. The author of Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History here challenges the conventions of what he terms the Jewish "mythical past": the anachronistic interpretation that the Diaspora, which occurred between the fall of an independent Jewish commonwealth in A.D. 70 and the rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948, was politically impotent, and, conversely, that the First and Second Temple periods were eras of full Jewish national sovereignty.

Author : Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0743229614
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book If I Am Not For Myself written by Ruth R. Wisse and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1992 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, Jews have been identified with liberalism. Not only have they been a driving force behind the spread of liberal politics; they have also been steadfastly loyal to a doctrine that promised them both safety and political acceptance. Recent evidence suggests that their commitment has not waned. But while Jews continue to stand up for other groups and "vote their conscience", contends Ruth Wisse, the liberal commitment to the Jews is not nearly so strong. Whenever Jews have been attacked - from the trial of Captain Dreyfus to the sustained military and political war against Israel - liberals have been slow to defend Jewish rights and have preferred instead to hold the Jews responsible for the persistence of their enemies. The explanation for this liberal default, Wisse argues, is the survival and success of anti-Semitism. This irrational idea continues to flourish throughout the world, despite the destruction of the fascist and communist regimes that were its deadliest twentieth-century allies. Wisse points out that anti-Semitism's astonishing resilience has put liberals - including liberal Jews - in an impossible position. The only reasonable response to such a doctrine, Wisse insists, is not appeasement or avoidance, but steadfast confrontation and rejection. Yet such opposition is alien to liberal ideas of open-mindedness and strikes many as intolerant. Unwilling to suspend their optimistic view of man as a benevolent and rational being in order to combat a mortal enemy, most liberals - including many Jews - conclude that Jews themselves must be responsible for the continuing wars against them - thus implicitly condoning their sacrifice. Wisse's book, inspired by afriend's emigration to Israel, traces the Jewish romance with liberalism from its discovery by Jewish integrationists and Zionists to the acceptance today by many Jews of a moral equivalence between Zionism and the war against it. She also explores, among the many contradictions of modern Jewish politics, the ambiguous question of Jewish "chosenness", and the Jewish longing for acceptance in a larger human family; the successful Arab war of ideas against Israel; and the dilemma of Jewish writers and intellectuals who wish to transcend their parochializing siege. Above all, she shows how and why anti-Semitism became the twentieth century's most successful ideology and reveals what people in liberal democracies would have to do to prevent it from once again achieving its goal.

Author : Marc Dollinger
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 147982688X
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Black Power, Jewish Politics written by Marc Dollinger and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Black Power, Jewish Politics expands with this revised edition that includes the controversial new preface, an additional chapter connecting the book's themes to the national reckoning on race, and a foreword by Jews of Color Initiative founder Ilana Kaufman that all reflect on Blacks, Jews, race, white supremacy, and the civil rights movement"--

Author : Idith Zertal
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520921712
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book From Catastrophe to Power written by Idith Zertal and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a book certain to generate controversy and debate, Idith Zertal boldly interprets a much revered chapter in contemporary Jewish and Zionist history: the clandestine immigration to Palestine of Jewish refugees, most of them Holocaust survivors, that was organized by Palestinian Zionists just after World War II. Events that captured the attention of the world, such as the Exodus affair in the summer 1947, are seen here in a strikingly new light. At the center of Zertal's book is the Mossad, a small, unorthodox Zionist organization whose mission beginning in 1938 was to bring Jews to Palestine in order to subvert the British quotas on Jewish immigration. From Catastrophe to Power scrutinizes the Mossad's mode of operation, its ideology and politics, its structure and history, and its collective human profile as never before. Zertal's moving story sweeps across four continents and encompasses a range of political cultures and international forces. But underneath this story another darker and more complex plot unfolds: the special encounter between the Zionist revolutionary collective and the mass of Jewish remnant after the Holocaust. According to Zertal, this psychologically painful yet politically powerful encounter was the Zionists' most effective weapon in their struggle for a sovereign Jewish state. Drawing on primary archival documents and new readings of canonical texts of the period, she analyzes this encounter from all angles—political, social, cultural, and psychological. The outcome is a gripping and troubling human story of a crucial period in Jewish and Israeli history, one that also provides a key to understanding the fundamental tensions between Israel and the Jewish communities and Israel and the world today.

Author : Anita Shapira
Publisher : Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 646 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 written by Anita Shapira and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2023-06-07 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book traces the history of attitudes toward power and the use of armed force within the Zionist movement from an early period in which most leaders espoused an ideal of peaceful settlement in Palestine, to the acceptance of force as a legitimate tool for achieving a sovereign Jewish state. “[A] classic... This brilliant intellectual history by a distinguished Tel Aviv University scholar shows how the exilic Jewish aversion to Machtpolitik shriveled in the crucible of state-building. Mainstream Zionism, which never saw itself as a movement of European usurpers, evolved what Shapira calls a ‘defensive ethos’ under British rule that skirted both compromise and confrontation with the Arabs. It hoped to dull enmity by offering Palestine's Arabs everything as individuals but nothing as a people. But when the proto-intifada of the Arab Revolt erupted in 1936, a new ‘offensive ethos’ recognizing the inevitability of an Arab-Jewish clash and the legitimacy of the sword gained ground among Mandate Palestine's Jews. Shapira's lucid, searching book — a model of historical curiosity and craft — is indispensable for anyone seeking to understand modern Israel, whose sense of its own power coexists painfully alongside a sense of fearful victimhood.” — Foreign Affairs “Shapira succeeds... in presenting more than a one-dimensional intellectual history of the Zionist movement... Displaying her skills as a serious historian and a fine writer, Shapira offers a nuanced and even-handed examination of a variety of elements within the Jewish community based on a rich selection of original sources.” — The Historical Journal “A rich and sophisticated work that nicely complements more conventional political-historical studies of the Arab-Israeli conflict... Shapira sifts through a vast body of material, ranging from essays, poems, and memoir literature to the unpublished minutes of political party and youth group meetings. Shapira interprets these sources with sensitivity and insight. Shapira writes with power, compassion, and warmth... a landmark book that is an outstanding contribution to the history of Zionist political thought and culture.” — American Historical Review “This is a superb book. It is a well-researched, detailed, and scholarly account that provides new and valuable insights into the dilemma posed by the formation and elaboration of a more forceful Israeli military posture.” — The Historian “Shapira’s powerful, well-written... lucid intellectual history of a segment of the Zionist movement... is fascinating and easy to read... highly educational.” — Journal of Economic History “Anita Shapira provides an excellent analysis of the different debates within Zionism during the pre-state period... Altogether, this is an intellectual history of the Zionist Movement well worth reading. It is meticulously researched and analysed, incomparable in terms of depth, and essential for anyone with an interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Zionism and contemporary Jewish history.” — The English Historical Review “[A] comprehensive political history of pre-1948 Palestine... The book is lucidly written, well researched, based on extensive primary and secondary resources. The translation from the Hebrew edition by William Templer is outstanding... this is perhaps the most conceptually sophisticated and thematically integrated work on the Yishuv recently written... Land and Power is a significant and an excellent contribution to our understanding of Zionism and the Yishuv.” — Shofar

Author : Edward Tivnan
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Lobby written by Edward Tivnan and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 1987 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces Zionism in America and the activities of the pro-Israel lobby, officially created in 1954 as AZCPA (American Zionist Council of Public Affairs) and later called AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Mentions antisemitism and anti-Zionism and the possibility of an antisemitic backlash engendered by AIPAC's activities.

Author : Elka Klein
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 9780472115228
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Jews, Christian Society, & Royal Power in Medieval Barcelona written by Elka Klein and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the development of the Jewish community in Barcelona from 1050 to 1300 and its interactions with greater Catalan society and its rulers

Author : Paul Breines
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Tough Jews written by Paul Breines and published by . This book was released on 1990-10-30 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ... Dilemma of American Jews.