The Impossible Dream
After reading Daniel Gordis’ magnificent
biography of Menachem Begin, I looked forward to his history of Israel.
Although I liked his new book, I was somewhat disappointed in that I don’t
think it is as good as Ari Shavit’s , “My Promised Land.”
Nevertheless Gordis brings to life the
idea of a national homeland for the Jews from the proto-Zionists of the
mid-1800s to Zionism becoming a mass movement under the leadership of Theodor
Herzl after the first Zionist Congress in 1897. To dream of a state after
nearly 2000 years of statelessness was truly an impossible dream, but it came
true 50 years later after the horror of the holocaust that befell European
Jewry.
What Zionism did was that it transformed
the cowering Jew of the shtetl to the muscular member of the Israel Defense
Forces of today. This is truly a major accomplishment. However early Zionism
was secular and socialist and along the way it lost some of its Jewish soul
which it is now returning to.
Gordis highlights the role of David Ben
Gurion and his labor socialism in building the institutions necessary for
statehood. After all, a state cannot be created out of thin air. The stat he
built was dominated by the Ashkenazi Jews of northern Europe to the detriment
of the Sephardi Jews of Africa and the Middle East. This would come home to
roost with Begin’s surprise victory of 1977 giving power to the Israeli right.
As with most histories of Israel Gordis discusses the Balfour Declaration, the
White Paper, the war for independence, the 6-day war of 1956, the 1967 war and
the 1973 war. Truly it is a history of conflict with the native Palestinian
population and the neighboring Arab states. A conflict that continues to this
day and in all likelihood it will not be resolved until the Palestinians accept
the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.
What I found lacking in the book was the
absence of any real discussion about the economy. To be sure you need institutions to have a
state, but you also need an economy. There should have been more discussion on
the role of agriculture in the early days and the shift to a modern high-tech
economy. He also neglects the importance of German Reparations in the 1950s,
contributions form worldwide Jewry and foreign aid from the United States.
While few in 1900 would have predicted the arrival of a Jewish state, even
fewer would have predicted the modern economy that Israel has created. That is
an important story worth telling. That said Gordis’ work puts in one volume a
very readable history of Israel.
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