A Brief Look at Michael Brenner's In Search of Israel

The thesis of this fine book is solid. Tensions were built in to the dream of Israel. Thos e tensions continue  as Israel is in its seventh decade as a nation. Part of the dream was that Israel would be a model state, a light to the nations. Others hoped that it would be granted statehood, so the at Jews could exist in a normal situation as a state just like other states.

At times, the author’s encyclopedic knowledge of the different fissures within the Zionist projects is a bit much for a casual reader. On the other hand, he knows some much about the initial cleavage points in the dream of a place to call home after the years of Diaspora. No, Zionism was not a unified, coherent ideology, but it was more a projection of the hopes of both secular and sacred, of socialist vision and messianic dreams of different adherents.

For instance some dreamt that Israel would b eth eland of a 7 hour work week. Others imagined it to be a multi-ethnic model of a commonwealth. Some saw it as the  start of a messianic age, and others saw it as an impediment toward God’s timetable for a messianic chapter. Some ,merely wanted it to be a nation-state just like any other. The different proposals were wanting a place that could be called a homeland, instead of always being treated and viewed as the other.

The Balfour Declaration was vague on the terms of a land grant to a national home in Palestine, so it could be filled with what was projected on to it. What would its borders be? Would it be a “Jewish state” or not? Some dreamed of alternative homelands not in historical Israel at all. Even a definition of being a Jew met with  varying interpretations. Now  a Diaspora exists as people emigrate from Israel and some  live both in Israel and of all places, Berlin. Israel is s a society riven with some fault lines that will take herculean efforts to stabilize or harmonize, let alone seeking harmony with its neighbors and the post ’67 victory that s transformed it into greater Israel.