The Postzionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture

Rating:
Summary: A New Light on the Israeli Predicament
Review: The state of Israel is now more prosperous and powerful than at any time in its short history. It has the most vibrant economy in the Middle East. Many believe that the Zionist-Arab conflict, that had marked much of Israeli history in its first half century, is now coming to a peaceful closure. Israel, and the Zionist ideology that led to its establishment, is clearly on the winning side.

And yet, more than ever before, Israel is a fiercely divided society, obsessed with questioning its very fundamentals: its own ideological roots, its raison detre as a Jewish state, its sense of identity, its own historical narrative. In short, despite the unprecedented success of the Zionist project, there is no rest in Zion. The meaning of that Zionist project is hotly debated among Israeli intellectuals.

In this excellent book Laurence Silberstein produced the first comprehensive intoroduction, designed primarily for Jewish-American readers, on the state of the debate about the Israeli predicament. But Silberstein did more than just that. He was able to contribute original cultural insight--both on the theoretical and historical levels--that allows to decode and map the debate afresh even to its own participants. I expect this book would suprise and edify some of those participants.

This is an important book for all those who wonder (and care) where Israel is going.