University of Calgary Israel Studies Program and the Department of History The Formation of Israel Instructor: Dr. Moshe Naor Block Week Course: January 2008 (HTST 493.20) E-mail Address: manor@ucalgary.ca Course Description The course will examine the social, cultural, security and political history of the Jewish community in Palestine (The Yishuv) and the early years of the State of Israel. Covering the period from the beginnings of the Zionist movement in the early 1880s until Israel's first decade of Independence, we will explore the origins of the State of Israel, the process of State building after 1948, and the creation of national identity, as well as the effects of the transition from community to statehood during this formative Era. Course requirements The required bibliography and the course readings are some of the sources that you may use for your final paper. Each student should also choose one article from the course readings list below for his/her single oral presentation in class (25%); Attendance and participation (15%); 15-page research essay (60%). Required Bibliography Ben Halpern and Jehuda Reinharz, Zionism and the Creation of a New Society, Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 2000. Jehuda Reinhartz and Anita Shapira (eds,), Essential Papers on Zionism, New York and London: New York University Press, 1996, pp.63-93. Ilan Troen and Noah Lucas (eds.), Israel: The First Decade of Independence, State University of New York Press, 1995
Course Topics and Readings Class 1 (Jan.7) Zionism and Nation Building in a Changing Era Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, New York: Basic Books, 1981, pp.3-13. Hedva Ben-Israel, "Zionism and European Nationalisms: Comparative Aspects", Israel Studies, 8 (2003), pp.91-104. Jeorge Mosse, "Max Nordau, Liberalism and the New Jew", Journal of Contemporary History, 27 (1992), pp.565-581 Class 2 (Jan.7) Immigrants and Pioneers Israel Bartal, "'Old Yishuv' and 'New Yishuv': Image and Reality", The Jerusalem Cathedra, 1 (1981), pp.215-231. Gur Alroey, "Journey to Early-Twentieth-Century Palestine as a Jewish Immigrant Experience", Jewish Social Studies, 9(2003), pp.28-64. Class 3 (Jan.7) The Conquest of land and Labor Dafna N. Izraeli, "The Women Worker's Movement: First Wave of Feminism in Pre- State Israel", Deborah Bernstein (ed.), Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel, SUNY Press, 1992, pp.183-210 Derek J. Penslar, "Is Zionism a colonial movement", Israel in History, London and New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 90-111. Class 4 (Jan.8) - Settlers or Colonialists? Film - They Were Ten (1961), Director: Baruch Dienar Class 5 (Jan.8) Dual Society; British Mandate and National Conflict Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp.39-47, 84-95, 147-177. Israel Kolatt, "The Zionist Movement and the Arabs", Essential Papers on Zionism, pp.617-647
Class 6 (Jan. 8)- Between the Iron Wall to the Binational State Yaakov Shavit, "Fire and Water: Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Revisionist Movement", Essential Papers on Zionism, pp.544-566. Hagit Lavsky, "German Zionists and the Emergence of Brit Shalom", Essential Papers on Zionism, pp.648-670. Class 7 (Jan. 9) The Labor movement way for Hegemony Zeev Sternhell, The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish State, Princeton University Press, 1998, pp.3-46 Anita Shapira, "Black Night White Snow": Attitudes of the Palestinian Labor Movement to the Russian Revolution, 1917-1929", Essential Papers on Zionism, pp.509-543 Class 8 (Jan. 9) Hebrew Culture and Nation Building Anat Helman, "Even the Dogs in the Street Bark in Hebrew: National Ideology and Everday Culture in Tel Aviv", The Jewish Quarterly Review, 92 (2002), pp.359-382. Avraham Shapira, "Spiritual Rootlessness and Circumscription to the 'Here and Now'' in the Sabra World View", Dan Urina and Efraim Karsh (eds.), In Search for Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israel Culture, London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1999, pp.103-131. Anita Shapira, "Native Sons", Essential Papers on Zionism, pp.790-821. Class 9 (Jan.9) The Yishuv and the Holocaust Yechiam Weitz, "The Yishuv's Response to the Destruction of European Jewry, 1942-1943", Studies in Zionism, 8 (1987), pp.211-222. Dalia Ofer, "Fifty Years After: The Yishuv, Zionism, and the Holocaust 1933-1948", Major Changes Within the Jewish People in the Wake of the Holocaust, pp.463-495.
Class 10 (Jan.10) Zionism and the use of force (1936-1947) Uri Ben-Eliezer, The Making of Israeli Militarism, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998, pp.65-94 Michael J. Cohen, "The Zionist Perspective", Roger Louis and Robert W. Stookey (eds.), The End of the Palestine Mandate, London 1986, pp.79-103. Class 11 (Jan.10) - The end of the British Mandate and the 1948 War Avi Shlaim, "Israel and the Arab coalition in 1948", Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim (eds.), The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp.79-103. Benni Morris, ""The New Historiography: Israel and its Past", 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, pp.1-48. Class 12 (Jan.10) - The 1948 generation Film: Hill 24 Doesn't Answer, 1955, Director Thorold Dickinson Class 13 (Jan.11) - The Transition from Community to Statehood Ilan Pappe, "An Uneasy Coexistence: Arabs and Jews In the First Decade of Statehood", Ilan Troen and Noah Lucas (eds.), Israel: The First Decade of Independence,, State University of New York Press, 1995, pp.617-658 Hanna Torok Yablonka, "The Silent Partner: Holocaust Survivors in the IDF", Israel: The First Decade of Independence, pp.557-572 Zeev Drori, "Utopia in Uniform", Ilan Troen and Noah Lucas (eds.), Israel: The First Decade of Independence, pp.593-612.
Class 14 (Jan.11): The Israelis: Society in Conflict Film: Three Days and a Child (1967), Director: Uri Zohar Claas 15 (Jan.11) The 1950s in Israel and the early years of the state Uri Bialer, "Israel's Global Foreign Policy, 1948-1956", New Perspectives on Israeli History: The Early Years of the State, pp.227-241 Motti Golani, "Shell we go to War? And if we do, When? The Genesis of the Internal Debate in Israel on the road to the Sinai War", Israel Affairs, 6 (2000), pp.22-42. Gabriel Sheffer, "Sharett's Line, Struggles and Legacy", Israel: The First Decade of Independence, pp. 143-170