Table of Contents

Preface; Glossary; Part I. Setting the Scene: 1. Ideas and the course of history; 2. Israeli society and politics before Independence; 3. A remarkable and terrible decade; Part II. Appearances and Reality: 4. The political world of the founding fathers; 5. The vicissitudes of hegemony; 6. The revolutionary maximalists; 7. The reluctant vanguard; 8. The lost avant-garde; 9. The Communists - in captivity; Part III. The Fallacies of Realpolitik: 10. Jabotinsky and the Revisionist tradition; 11. The revolt; 12. The mysticism of realism; Part IV. Sectarian Interests and a Façade of Generality: 13. The General Zionists; 14. The farmers and the Sephardi notables; Part V. God's Dispositions: 15. Religious natlionalism; 16. Religious orthodoxy and the cult of separateness; Part VI. The Boundaries of the Intelligentsia: 17. Canaanites and Semites; 18. Magnes, Buber and Ihud (Unity); 19. The divided heritage: Israel's diplomatic tradition; Notes; Index.

Promotional Information

Historical reconstruction of the origins of Zionist ideology demonstrating its influence on Israeli politics.

Reviews

'... Sofer has done an excellent job. In elegant, graceful prose, he paints a penetrating portrait of pre-state politics, from the right to the Communists on the far-left, illustrating the process by which David Ben-Gurion and his particular faction of the Labour movement achieved hegemony.' Itamar Rabinovich, Haa-retz and Herald Tribune '... dispassionate, sober account ... meticulously researched and succinctly written.' Political Studies