In particular, Zionism and the Creation of a New Society reflects upon Israel's existence as both a state and a social structure - a place conceived before its birth as a means of solving a particular social malady: the modern Jewish Problem.

Scholars from Israel and the US examine from various perspectives the relationship between nationalism and religion.

What is a homeland and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account dissects the concept of “historical right” and tracks the creation of the modern concept of the “Land of Israel” by nineteenth-century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.

An expanded edition of a classic intellectual history of Zionism, now covering the rise of religious Zionism since the 1970s For eighteen centuries pious Jews had prayed for the return to Jerusalem, but only in the revolutionary atmosphere of nineteenth-century Europe was this yearning transformed into an active political movement: Zionism. In The Making of Modern Zionism, the distinguished political scientist Shlomo Avineri rejects the common view that Zionism was solely a reaction to anti-Semitism and persecution. Rather, he sees it as part of the universal quest for self-determination. In sharply-etched intellectual profiles of Zionism's major thinkers from Moses Hess to Theodore Herzl and from Vladimir Jabotinsky to David Ben Gurion, Avineri traces the evolution of this quest from its intellectual origins in the early nineteenth century to the establishment of the State of Israel. In an expansive new epilogue, he tracks the changes in Israeli society and politics since 1967 which have strengthened the more radical nationalist and religious trends in Zionism at the expense of its more liberal strains. The result is a book that enables us to understand, as perhaps never before, one of the truly revolutionary ideas of our time.

"This Very Short Introduction discloses a history of Zionism from the origins of modern Jewish nationalism in the 1870's to the present. Michael Stanislawski provides a lucid and detached analysis of Zionism, focusing on its internal intellectual and ideological developments and divides"--

From serving as the Middle East correspondent for The New Yorker to penning articles for the New York Times, Milton Viorst has dedicated his career to studying the Middle East. Now, in this new book, Viorst examines the evolution of Zionism, from its roots by serving as a cultural refuge for Europe's Jews, to the cover it provides today for Israel's exercise of control over millions of Arabs in occupied territories. Beginning with the shattering of the traditional Jewish society during the Enlightenment, Viorst covers the recent history of the Jews, from the spread of Jewish Emancipation during the French Revolution Era to the rise of the exclusionary anti-Semitism that overwhelmed Europe in the late nineteenth century. Viorst examines how Zionism was born and follows its development through the lives and ideas of its dominant leaders, who all held only one tenet in common: that Jews, for the first time in two millennia, must determine their own destiny to save themselves. But, in regards to creating a Jewish state with a military that dominates the region, Viorst argues that Israel has squandered the goodwill it enjoyed at its founding, and thus the country has put its own future on very uncertain footing. With the expertise and knowledge garnered from decades of studying this contentious region, Milton Viorst deftly exposes the risks that Israel faces today.

Theodor Herzl: Old New Land. (AltNeuLand) First print Leipzig 1902. Translated by Dr. David Simon Blondheim, Federation of American Zionists, 1916 Vollständige Neuausgabe. Herausgegeben von Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin 2015. Umschlaggestaltung von Thomas Schultz-Overhage unter Verwendung des Bildes: Paul Gauguin, Am Fusse des Berges, 1892. Gesetzt aus Minion Pro, 11 pt.

The invasion of Lebanon was the culmination of an extraordinary change which New Zionism created in Israel’s foreign policy system. This book, first published in 1986, examines how New Zionism came to dominate Israeli politics and it investigates the implications of this new ideology for the future of the Middle East. The author agrees that after the creation of the State of Israel, the belief system of the evolving society gradually changed. After the Six-Day War the ideology of Socialist Zionism became increasingly discredited and replaced by the New Zionist quest for Eretz Israel. Hardened by the harsh experience of the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict and enhanced by the threatening image of the enemy, the political culture in Israel became less tolerant and more receptive to the language of New Zionism. As a result, Begin’s Likud came to power in 1977 and quickly changed the whole basis of Israel’s foreign policy. Instead of the cautious pragmatism of Socialist Zionism the Begin government pursued the ‘grand design’ that had enjoyed a long tradition in Revisionist thinking. Although General Sharon was responsible for the actual conduct of the war, it was the New Zionist propensity to use military force to introduce a new order in the Middle East which was responsible for the invasion. The book suggests that it is still too early to assess the full impact of the war in Lebanon on New Zionism. Although the war failed to validate any of the ‘grand design’ tenets of New Zionism, the violent Shiite response in Southern Lebanon may serve to strengthen the New Zionist hard line. This could hasten the annexation of the occupied territories as the final stage of turning the State of Israel into the Land of Israel.

A major new history of the century-long debate over what a Jewish state should be Many Zionists who advocated the creation of a Jewish state envisioned a nation like any other. Yet for Israel's founders, the state that emerged against all odds in 1948 was anything but ordinary. Born from the ashes of genocide and a long history of suffering, Israel was conceived to be unique, a model society and the heart of a prosperous new Middle East. It is this paradox, says historian Michael Brenner--the Jewish people's wish for a homeland both normal and exceptional—that shapes Israel's ongoing struggle to define itself and secure a place among nations. In Search of Israel is a major new history of this struggle from the late nineteenth century to our time. When Theodor Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in 1897, no single solution to the problem of "normalizing" the Jewish people emerged. Herzl proposed a secular-liberal "New Society" that would be home to Jews and non-Jews alike. East European Zionists advocated the renewal of the Hebrew language and the creation of a distinct Jewish culture. Socialists imagined a society of workers' collectives and farm settlements. The Orthodox dreamt of a society based on the laws of Jewish scripture. The stage was set for a clash of Zionist dreams and Israeli realities that continues today. Seventy years after its founding, Israel has achieved much, but for a state widely viewed as either a paragon or a pariah, Brenner argues, the goal of becoming a state like any other remains elusive. If the Jews were the archetypal "other" in history, ironically, Israel—which so much wanted to avoid the stamp of otherness—has become the Jew among the nations.