Bedford Public Library

Impossible takes longer, 75 years after its creation, has Israel fulfilled its founders' dreams?, Daniel Gordis

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-327) and index

illustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

Impossible takes longer

bibliography

1373992481

Daniel Gordis

75 years after its creation, has Israel fulfilled its founders' dreams?

"In 1948, Israel's founders had much more in mind than the creation of a state. They sought not mere sovereignty but also a "national home for the Jewish people," where Jewish life would be transformed. Did they succeed? The state they made, says Daniel Gordis, is a place of extraordinary success and maddening disappointment, a story of both unprecedented human triumph and great suffering. Now, as the country marks its seventy-fifth anniversary, Gordis asks: Has Israel fulfilled the dreams of its founders? Using Israel's Declaration of Independence as his measure, Gordis provides a thorough, balanced perspective on how the Israel of today exceeds the country's original aspirations and how it has fallen short"--, Provided by publisher

Preface: A Jewish national liberation movement -- Part I "I broke the bars of your yoke". Zionism transforms a nation -- "We hereby declare" : first, existence -- "We shall still see goodness" : healing Jewish heartbreak -- "Grounded in our national culture" : restoring a nation -- Part II "Must the sword devour forever?". Conflict and the Jewish state -- "Lest the sword fall from our hands" : Jews defend themselves -- "The day of vengeance will come" : wars with neighboring states -- "Liberation" or "Nakba" : Palestinians, land, legitimacy -- Part III "As envisioned by the prophets". The complicated care of Israel's democracy -- "I'm for Jewish democracy" : ethnic democracy and its discontents -- "Do what is just and right" : the "other in Israeli society -- "A life of honest toil" : from food rationing to tech powerhouse -- Part IV "The Jewish state" or "The state of the Jews"?. Jewish statehood, Jewish flourishing -- "Trust in the rock of Israel" : Judaism in the state of the Jews -- "From the four corners of the earth" : Israel and the diaspora -- "The world shall fill with bounty" : Israel and humankind -- Conclusion: "Half dust, half heaven"