Netanyahu’s decision to declare two holy sites located in the Palestinian Territories and once shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims “national heritage sites” triggers violence and conflict.
Many Israelis and Jews took to Avatar with aplomb, likening it to Kabbalah and turning out in record numbers in Israel. But it remains to be seen how Jews and Israelis will respond to Palestinian protesters who, dressed as the film’s besieged protagonists, aim to position themselves in the hearts of observers as the sympathetic underdogs.
The recent firing of a progressive leader by the Jerusalem Post has lit up the international press. If Israel is entering its own McCarthy era, as many fear, it is not without American support—on both sides. So where’s the American media coverage?
20th century Jewish aspirations for a revived national home were supported by three centuries of Christian enthusiasm—bolstered by biblical literalism—for the return of the Jews to “their land.” In this excerpt from the newly-released Zeal for Zion, Shalom Goldman traces the Christian roots of Zionism.
Famous for his use of TV to spread the message, Oral Roberts—friend of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion—helped to popularize the notion that the newly founded State of Israel was an indication that God still acts in history and that events prophesied in the bible were at hand.
The Israeli ambassador to the US recently joined the American right charging that pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian J Street put the very “survival of the Jewish state” into question. Indeed, recognizing the full humanity of Palestinians would require a radical transformation of Israeli, Zionist, and even Jewish-American identity.
The reactions to the English-language publication of a book deemed “a scandal” reveal as much about the politics of contemporary Israel (and of its relation to the American Jewish community) as they do about the history the book describes. It’s not that Shlomo Sand believes that the Jews are not the chosen people—he argues that they might not be a people at all.
