We will examine the contradictory effects of modernization on Jewish society in Western and Eastern Europe and the plethora of Jewish responses: assimilation, emigration, socialism, fundamentalism, cultural nationalism, etc. Zionism, one of these responses, will be examined in detail, to be followed up by an exploration of the extent of dis/continuity between Jewish societies and Israeli society. Simultaneously, we will scrutinize the influences of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Israeli society, state, and identity.

 COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

 In-class midterm and final. However, I strongly encourage you to substitute for the final a 10 page research paper in which you will explore the outlines, the forces that shaped, and some of the consequences of one of the Jewish responses to modernization. Alternatively you may examine, on the basis of the most recent scholarship, a historical or current aspect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its implications. In either case it is up to you to pose the research question and define the paper topic while I will help you locate some of the pertinent sources. You also need my consent for substituting a paper for the final exam.
 
 

Lindeman, Albert S., The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs (Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank) 1894-1915, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Shafir, Gershon, Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914, updated edition, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996.

Smith, D. Charles, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Boston, St. Martin's, 2001.

Gershon Shafir & Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Silberstein, Laurence J., Jewish Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective: Religion, Ideology & The Crisis of Modernity, N.Y., New York University Press, 1993, selections.

(These books are available at the University Bookstore in the Price Center.)
 
 

Additional detailed historical background you may find in the following books:

Kyle, Keith & Joel Peters, Whither Israel? The Domestic Challenges, London, I.B. Tauris, 1993.

Howard Morley Sachar, The Course of Modern Jewish History, N.Y., Delta, 1958.

Noah Lucas, The Modern History of Israel, N.Y., Praeger, 1975.

Howard Morley Sachar, A History of Israel: Vol.1: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, N.Y., Knopf, 1986 & A History of Israel: Vol.2: From the Aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987.
 
 

Bibliographical sources that will be useful if you want to gain more in-depth knowledge of one of topics covered in the course or will need to consult if you chose to write a research paper:

JEWS IN GERMANY: On the conflict between assimilation and Jewish nationalism: Reinharz, Jehuda, Fatherland or Promised Land: The Dilemma of the German Jew, 1893-1914, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1975. German Jewish reaction to the massive influx of Eastern European Jews to the West: Aschheim, Steven E., Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.

JEWS IN RUSSIA: An excellent overview of the major ideologies in the Pale of Settlement: Frankel, Jonathan, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917, Cambridge University Press, 1981. An alternative perspective that focuses on the relationship between Jewish economic life and political choices is Peled, Yoav, Class and Ethnicity in the Pale: The Political Economy of Jewish Workers' Nationalism in Late Imperial Russia, London, Macmillan, 1989. For those interested in the economic conditions of Jewish life, the following study seeks to understand why a Jewish industrial proletariat was effectively prevented from emerging in Russia: Peled, Yoav and Gershon Shafir, "Split Labor Market and the State: The Effect of Modernization on Jewish Industrial Workers in Tsarist Russia," American Journal of Sociology, Vol.92, No.6, May 1987.

THE HOLOCAUST: A history of the evolution of 'scientific' anti-semitism, in the context of changing European racism, in the 19th and 20th centuries: George L. Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism, N.Y., Harper & Row, 1978. A excellent, but brief, overview of the Holocaust that is arranged by topic: Michael R. Marrus, The Holocaust in History, N.Y., Meridian, 1987. Another topically organized account, by some of the best known scholars: François Furet, Unanswered Questions: Nazi Germany and the Genocide of the Jews, N.Y., Schocken, 1989.

A study that compares the course of the Holocaust in different countries: Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization during the Holocaust, N.Y., Free Press, 1979. One of the recent general histories (winner of the Israeli Shazar Prize): Leni Yehil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990. An outstanding collection that ponders the implications of the Holocaust for Jews and for humanity: Peter Hayes ed., Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the Holocaust in a Changing World, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1991.

ZIONISM: The evolution of its ideology and conflicting orientations: Hertzberg, Arthur, ed., The Zionist Idea, Garden City, Doubleday, 1959. A contemporary analysis of Zionist dilemmas is in Boas Evron, Jewish State or Israeli Nation? Bloomington, Inidiana University Press, 1995.

ISRAELI SOCIETY AND POLITICS: An overview of the development of Israeli society can be found in: Eisenstadt, S.N., Israeli Society, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967. Another overview which focuses on the Mandate period: Horowitz, Dan & Moshe Lissak, The Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine Under the Mandate, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1978. Both books are written from the perspective of the sociological school of functionalism which emphasizes value choices at the expense of other formative influences. Both works are also are highly favorable to the mainstream of the Israel Labor movement and tout its historical perspective. It might be interesting to read these volumes together with the more recent books of the same authors in which they look into the reasons for the decline of the Labor Movement in the 1970's and 1980's: S.N. Eisenstadt, The Transformation of Israeli Society, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985; and Dan Horowitz & Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1989.

A study that approaches the formation of Israeli society from the perspective of the creation of the political framework of the Labor movement, and employs the elitist perspective: Shapiro, Yonathan, The Formative Years of the Israeli Labor Party: The Organization of Power, 1919-1930, London, Sage, 1976. An earlier insightful, and less theoretical, perspective: Preuss, Walter, The Labor Movement in Israel, 3rd ed., Jerusalem, Rubin Mass, 1965. A historical overview packed with information from the Israeli state archives that recently released their files on this period, looks into the first year of independent Israel: Segev, Tom, 1949: The First Israelis, N.Y., Free Press, 1986. It was a best-seller in Israel. Another survey of various aspects of the new state is offered by S. Ilan Troen & Noah Lucas eds., Israel: The First Decade of Independence, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1995.

ECONOMY:A general survey of Israeli economy: Yoram Ben-Porath ed., The Israeli Economy: Maturing through Crises, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1985. A more up-to-date survey is Assaf Razin & Efraim Sadka, The Economy of Modern Israel, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993.

A study of the ways in which Israeli society copes with permanent warfare: Kimmerling, Baruch, in collaboration with Irit Backer, The Interrupted System: Israeli Civilians in War and Routine Times, New Brunswick, Transaction Books, 1985.

A survey of the political regime: Asher Arian, Politics in Israel: The Second Generation, rev. ed., Chatham, Chatham House, 1989. An edited volume, which seeks to bring together articles published on Israeli politics in the past two decades: Ernest Krausz ed., Politics and Society in Israel, New Brunswick, Transaction Books, 1985. A classic study of Israeli political 'exceptionalism:' Etzioni, Amitai, "Alternative Ways to Democracy: The Example of Israel," Political Science Quarterly, Vol.74, No.2, June 1959.

A study of turning points in the history of Zionism and Israel from the viewpoint of the intellectuals: Michael Keren, The Pen and the Sword: Israeli Intellectuals and the Making of the Nation-State, Boulder, Westview, 1989.

THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT: for the Ottoman background at the outset of Zionist immigration and settlement in Palestine: Beshara Doumai, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995; David Kushner ed., Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, Social and Economic Transformation, Jerusalem, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1986; Migdal, Joel, Palestinian Society and Politics, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1980; and Owen, Roger ed., Studies in the Economic and Social History of Palestine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1982 that takes us up to the 20th century.

A study of the origins of the conflict, that places Zionism in the comparative framework of European overseas expansion and links the development of the unique properties of Israeli society with the characteristics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Gershon Shafir, Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989. An important work by the first head of the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Department, in which he outlines the organization's aims and methods in Palestine: Ruppin, Arthur, The Agricultural Colonization of the Zionist Organization in Palestine, London, Martin Hopkinson, 1926. An eye-opening account of European influences on the character of Zionist settlement: Reichman, Shalom & Shlomo Hasson, "A Cross-Cultural Diffusion of Colonization: From Posen to Palestine," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol.74, No.1, 1984.

The most thorough historical account of the Palestinian nationalist movement, ironically written by an Israeli scholar is the two volume study: Porath, Yehoshua, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1818-1929, London, Frank Cass, 1974. A recent, and more popular approach is in Baruch Kimmerling & Joel Migdal, The Palestinians: The Making of a Nation, N.Y., Free Press, 1992.

A detailed, though occasionally muddled, account of the evolution in the thinking of the Jewish parties toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from its inception until Israeli independence: Gorny, Yosef, Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948: A Study of Ideology, Oxford, Clarendon, 1987. The account of the changes in Israel's 'founding father's' perspective on peace and war with the Palestinians: Teveth, Shabtai, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985. The perspective of the left-wing of the Labor movement on the conflict: Flapan, Simcha, Zionism and the Palestinians, London, Croom Helm, 1979.

A polemical account of the Zionist perspective on the greatest controversy of all, the land question: Avneri, Arieh L., The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, New Brunswick, Transaction, 1984. A solid study of this topic is Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Another, but shorter, insightful perspective: Porath, Yehoshua, "The Land Problem as a Factor in Relations Among Arabs, Jews and the Mandatory Government," in Gabriel Ben-Dor ed., The Palestinian and the Middle East Conflict, Ramat Gan, Turtledove, 1978. An attempt to present a theoretical perspective on the land conflict and some its implications: Kimmerling, Baruch, Zionism and Territory, Berkeley, Institute of International Studies, 1983.

A polemical account of the Palestinian perspective by the literary scholar: Said, Edward, The Question of Palestine, N.Y., Vintage, 1979. Two additional such accounts are Rodinson, Maxime, Israel - A Colonial-Settler State?, N.Y., Monad, 1973; and Kayyali, A.W., Palestine: A Modern History, London, Croom Helm, [1978]. The definitive study of the refugee question, based on material from Israeli military archives is Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988.

A classical study of the end of the British Mandate and the triangular contest between Great Britain, Jews, and Palestinians leading up to the U.N. partition resolution of 1947: J.C. Hurewitz, The Struggle for Palestine, N.Y., Schocken, 1950. A good account of the forces that fostered partition and what did it meant: Kleiman, Aaron S., "The Resolution of Conflicts through Territorial Partition: The Palestine Experience," Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.22, No.2, April 1980.

Two contradictory perspectives on the economic dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian relations: Metzer, Jacob & Oded Kaplan, "Jointly but Severally: Arab-Jewish Dualism and Economic Growth in Mandatory Palestine," Journal of Economic History, Vol.65, No.2, March 1985 and Shalev Michael, “Jewish Organized Labor and the Palestinians: A Study of State/Society Relations in Israel,” in Baruch Kimmerling, ed., The Israeli State: Boundaries and Frontiers, N.Y. SUNY Press, 1989, pp.93-133.

There are two high quality studies of the social position of Arab citizens in Israel: Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1979; and Zureik, Elia T., The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism, London, RKP, 1979.

An excellent article examines the blind-spots in the Israeli scholarly and public perspective in their approach to Palestinians: Ehrlich, Avishai, "Israel: Conflict, War, and Social Change," in Colin Creighton & Martin Shaw eds., The Sociology of War and Peace, London, Macmillan, 1987.

The Journal of Palestine Studies, though as much a political as a scholarly publication, contains many useful articles on Palestinian society and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, written mostly by Palestinians, but some also by U.S. and Israeli scholars.

The metamorphosis that took place after the Six Day War in Israeli society toward the conflict are examined in many works. The following three focus on changes within Israeli society and their impact on the character of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Shafir, Gershon, "Changing Nationalism and Israel's 'Open Frontier' on the West Bank," Theory and Society, Vol.13, No.6, November 1984, pp. 803-827, and Gershon Shafir, "Ideological Politics or the Politics of Demography: The Aftermath of the Six Day War," in Ian S. Lustick and Barry Rubin eds., Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Politics, and Culture, New York, State University of New York Press, 1991, p.41-61. A work that focuses on changes in Israel's foreign policy: Sella, Amnon & Yael Yishai, Israel the Peaceful Belligerent, 1967-1979, N.Y., St. Martin's Press, 1986.

RELIGION AND ZIONISM: The evolution of the attitude toward Palestine in rabbinical Judaism: Davies, W.D., The Territorial Dimension of Judaism, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982. An excellent historical account of the early conflict, mutual transformation in result of that conflict, and partial accommodation between orthodoxy and Zionism: Ehud Luz, Parallels Meet: Religion and Nationalism in the Early Zionist Movement (1882-1904), Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society, 1988. A good introduction to the history and stormy controversies (e.g. 'who is a Jew?) surrounding the relationship of religion and politics in Israel: S. Zalman Abramov, Perpetual Dilemma: Jewish Religion in the Jewish State, Rutherford, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1976. An attempt to present Judaism promoting, though on its terms, a Western type fusion of religion and political culture, is Charles S. Liebman & Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983. For a suggestive exploration of the fundamentalist dimensions of Judaism and Islam, and their respective impact on Israeli, Arab, and Iranian politics: Emmanuel Sivan & Menachem Friedman eds., Religious Radicalism and Politics in the Middle East, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1990. An excellent study of the aims of and tendencies within Gush Emunim is Ian S. Lustick, For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, N.Y., Council on Foreign Relations, 1988. A survey of different levels of religiosity is Charles S. Liebman & Elihu Katz eds., The Jewishness of Israelis: Responses to the Guttman Report, Albany, SUNY Press, 1997.

WOMEN: in the Yishuv and the pioneering movement: Deborah Bernstein, The Struggle for Equality: Urban Women Workers in Prestate Israeli Society, N.Y., Praeger, 1987; and in Israeli society and culture: Lesley Hazleton, Israeli Women: The Reality Behind the Myths, N.Y., Simon & Schuster, 1977. For those interested in Golda Meir's early political involvement and the circumstances under which she first made her mark: Izraeli, Dafna N., "The Zionist Women's Movement in Palestine, 1911-1927: A Sociological Analysis," Signs, Vol.7, No.1, 1981. A recent study of Israeli women's rights and feminism is Yael Yishai, Between the Flag and the Banner: Women in Israeli Politics, Albany, SUNY Press, 1996.

ETHNIC RELATIONS AND IMMIGRATION: an anthropological perspective, which focuses mostly on the role of religious symbolism in the process: Shlomo Deshen & Moshe Shokeid, The Predicament of Homecoming: Cultural and Social Life of North African Immigrants in Israel, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1974. A sociological approach to the same symbolic dimension: Hanna Herzog, "Political Ethnicity as a Socially Constructed Reality: The Case of the Jews in Israel," in Milton J. Esman & Itamar Rabinovich eds., Ethnicity, Pluralism, and the State in the Middle East, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1988, pp.140-150.

A critical approach that analyzes the unequal conditions that accompanied the absorption of ashkenazi and mizrachi Jews in the Yishuv and Israel. A study of the origins of intra-Jewish inequality: Gershon Shafir, "The Meeting of Eastern Europe and Yemen: 'Idealist Workers' and 'Natural Workers' in Early Zionist Settlement in Palestine," Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol.13, No.2, April 1990, pp.172-197. An examination of post-independence inequalities: Bernstein, Deborah & Shlomo Swirski, "The Rapid Economic Development of Israel and the Emergence of the Ethnic Division of Labor," British Journal of Sociology, Vol.33, No.1, March 1982.

THE PEACE PROCESS: Some of the worthwhile works are Robert O. Friedman ed., Israel Under Rabin, Boulder, Westview, 1995; David Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO: The Rabin Government’s Road to the Oslo Accord, Boulder, Westview, 1996; Yoav Peled & Gershon Shafir, "The Roots of Peacemaking: The Dynamics of Citizenship in Israel, 1948-93," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.28, No.3, August 1996, pp.391-413. The first issue of the new journal, Israel Affairs, also contains a number of interesting articles on the topic. An analysis of the domestic sources of the peace process is Yagil Levy: Trial and Error: Israel's Route from War to De-Escalation, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1997. An interpretation of the peace proces from the perspective of Arab interests is Avraham Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Middle East Politics and the Quest for Regional Order, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1998.

RECENT GENERAL WORKS: For an insightful overview of the interpretations of Israeli society by its sociologists, see Uri Ram, The Changing Agenda of Israeli Sociology, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1995. A yearbook series which features short essays and extended book-reviews provides a good overview of the recent scholarly thinking on social, political, and cultural aspects of Israeli society. Some of the volumes that had been published so far are: Ian S. Lustick ed., Books on Israel, Albany, State University of New York, 1988; Ian S. Lustick and Barry Rubin eds., Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Politics, and Culture, New York, State University of New York Press, 1991 and Kevin Avruch & Walter P. Zenner, eds. Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Religion, and Government, SUNY Press, 1997.. A survey from a demographic perspective is Calvin Goldscheider, Israel’s Changing Society: Population, Ethnicity, and Development, Boulder, Westview, 1996. A fine overview of the dilemmas in many aspects of Israeli society is in Kyle, Keith & Joel Peters, Whither Israel? The Domestic Challenges, London, I.B. Tauris, 1993.For a comparative perspective see Michael Barnett, Israel in Comparative Perspective, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1996.

Book reviews that appear twice a year in the Israel Studies Forum will be useful in alerting you to new works.

The annotated atlases of Martin Gilbert provide a geographical perspective on Jewish and Israeli history. I especially recommend his Jewish History Atlas, The Holocaust: Maps and Photographs, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps.

Class Notes from December 1, 2004 makeup lecture: