Jewish State or Israeli Nation? - Hardcover

by Boas Evron (Author)

". . . an excellent book . . . provides valuable insights into a broad range of cutting-edge topics in the social sciences such as ethnic and identity politics, nation building, transnationalism and diasporas." --Choice

"This book will take its place as a classic in the field . . ." --Journal of Church and State

" . . . a lucid formulation of post-Zionist ideology for the generation of the 1980s and 1990s." --International Journal of Middle East Studies

"It is . . . a remarkable experience to read Evron's thoughtful book. He finds much to criticize in the conventional reading of Jewish history and argues that Israel should be thought of not as a state for the Jewish people but as a territorial state much like others, with full rights for all its inhabitants." --Foreign Affairs

" . . . an extremely erudite, brilliant and powerful book with a novel approach: a sober secular conception of Judaism." --Maariv

"A provocative post-Zionist critique of the fundamental concepts of Jewish peoplehood, Zionism, and Israeli nationalism." --Choice

"This compelling book conveys the reader straight to the frontline of the
battle raging in Israel over the proper boundaries of the national
identity. Evron's radical post-Zionist critique of Israel's conceptual
foundations calls in question the core link between Israel and Judaism and
between Israel and the Jewish diaspora. His penetrating analysis
challenges the muddled ideological bearings of Israel's public
self-images and points the way toward what may be a more realistic
adaptation to its Middle Eastern environment." --Noah Lucas, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies

"Boas Evron is one of the most important and innovative contemporary Jewish-Israeli thinkers and writers. . . . For the English-speaking reader, Evron's book is a unique opportunity to understand the new secular Israeli nationalism, written by one of its most critical yet optimistic representatives." --Baruch Kimmerling, The Hebrew University

Boas Evron concludes that Israel should become a territorial state that would accommodate its sizeable non-Jewish minority in a truly democratic way.

Back Jacket

Boas Evron traces the violent fissures in Israeli society to a basic incompatibility between the concept of a democratic, secular state, on the one hand, and an integral nation defined on a religious basis, on the other. Surveying the full sweep of Jewish history, Evron argues that the Jews were never a territorial nation. Judaism is instead a religious civilization for which the diaspora was not a historical coincidence but a necessary condition of its existence. He concludes that Israel should become a territorial state accommodating its sizeable non-Jewish minority in a truly democratic way.

Author Biography

BOAS EVRON, a sabra, has been a columnist and critic for Haaretz and Yediot Aharonot and is founder and director of the Israeli Arts Council Project of Translations of the Classics into Hebrew. His previous publications in Hebrew include The Quality of Freedom and A National Reckoning, from which the present work is adapted.