S. Ilan Troen

Noah Lucas

Israel presents a panoramic display of fresh interpretations and new research findings related to Israel's first decade of independence. Those years of rapid change are widely regarded as a formative period in the development of the state and the society. As new archival materials have become available for scrutiny, a new generation of historians and social scientists has begun to re-examine old issues and to raise new questions. In this context of academic ferment, scholars in diverse disciplines, of different generations and of opposing ideological orientations, have collaborated in this book in examining the period anew. Thirty-two authoritative essays offer new understandings from the diverse perspectives of history, political science, sociology, literary criticism, geography, anthropology, and law. The intention is to provide a wide-ranging reconsideration of post-independence Israel that will serve as a benchmark for future study and research.

The First Decade of Independence

Israel

Maoz Azaryahu

Selwyn Ilan Troen

Tel-Aviv, the First Century brings together a broad range of disciplinary approaches and cutting-edge research to trace the development and paradoxes of Tel-Aviv as an urban center and a national symbol. Through the lenses of history, literature, urban planning, gender studies, architecture, art, and other fields, these essays reveal the place of Tel-Aviv in the life and imagination of its diverse inhabitants. The careful and insightful tracing of the development of the city's urban landscape, the relationship of its varied architecture to its competing social cultures, and its evolving place in Israel's literary imagination come together to offer a vivid and complex picture of Tel-Aviv as a microcosm of Israeli life and a vibrant modern global city.

Visions, Designs, Actualities

Tel-Aviv, the First Century

Deborah Dash Moore

Two creative centers of Jewish life rose to prominence in the twentieth century, one in Israel and the other in the United States. Although Israeli and American Jews share kinship and history drawn from their Eastern European roots, they have developed divergent cultures from their common origins, often seeming more like distant cousins than close relatives. This book explores why this is so, examining how two communities that constitute eighty percent of the world’s Jewish population have created separate identities and cultures. Using examples from literature, art, history, and politics, leading Israeli and American scholars focus on the political, social, and memory cultures of their two communities, considering in particular the American Jewish challenge to diaspora consciousness and the Israeli struggle to forge a secular, national Jewish identity. At the same time, they seek to understand how a sense of mutual responsibility and fate animates American and Israeli Jews who reside in distant places, speak different languages, and live within different political and social worlds.

S. Ilan Troen

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