Israel in Search of Identity

Reading the Formative Years

by Nissim Rejwan

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Nissim Rejwan examines conflict that has plagued Israel--both with its neighbors and within its own borders--since its inception, placing the current situation in historical perspective and tracing the roots of the conflict to the way in which the founding fathers of the Jewish state conceived of the world and of their situation.

Israel’s founders, hailing overwhelmingly from Russia and Russian Poland, subscribed to ethnic-nationalist doctrines current in 19th-century Eastern and Central Europe in their day--doctrines which Rejwan shows are alien not only to Judaism as a faith but also to the religious cultures of the Middle East as a whole. Rejwan analyzes the ways in which modern concepts of ethnic nationality--Arab as well as Jewish--have affected both Zionist Jew and Pan-Arab nationalist, and how Israeli statehood is changing the basic concept of Jewish identity in Israel and in the Diaspora.

He also discusses the demographic trends that affect Israel’s communal and ethnic makeup, specifically the growing influence of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. He concludes with a wide-ranging discussion of the vexed subject of Levantinism and the scare of "Orientalization," and rejects calls made for cultural planning and for a "Western"—as against "Middle Eastern"—Israel.

Nissim Rejwan is a research fellow at the Harry Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of :

• The Many Faces of Islam (UPF, 2000),

• Arabs Face the Modern World: Religious, Cultural, and Political Responses to the West (UPF, 1998),

• Israel’s Place in the Middle East: A Pluralist Perspective  
  (UPF, 1998), and 

• The Jews of Iraq: 3,000 Years of History and Culture.

1999. 192pp. 6 X 9.
Notes, index.
ISBN 0-8130-1664-9 Cloth, $59.95s

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"No book could be more timely. Half a century after independence, the search for identity lies behind almost every serious conflict in Israeli society. . . . There is strength in Rejwan's analysis of the problematic nature of nationality in Zionist thought and practice in the formative period of the Jewish State. There is wisdom in his vision of the future, in which a 'pluralist, multi-ethnic stance' will replace the current 'majority/minority syndrome'. . . . [An] engrossing study of a crucial national issue. Rejwan asks difficult questions for which there are no ready answers. Perhaps politically we are better off not asking questions that, at this moment, cannot be answered. In any event, the historical record, which Rejwan presents here in an eminently readable and innovative manner, should not be ignored."-- Jerusalem Post

"A must for scholars and students of the Middle East. . . . An unflinching appraisal of Israel’s place in the Middle East. . . . This will become a classic, primary text on modern Israel."--Anton Shammas, University of Michigan


"Thought-provoking and eminently readable. A refreshingly original approach to a subject long bedeviled by controversy and partisanship."--Shukri B. Abed, University of Maryland

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