The Israelis: Founders and Sons

Plot

Amongst the relatively vast literature about Zionism and the history of the State of Israel, this book remains (35 years past its first printing in 1971) a unique contribution. First of all, it almost goes without saying that books in this area are often highly politicized and biased. On the other hand, more "sober" accounts can tend to be hundreds of pages of arid, statistically-based analysis of Israeli society. What of a person who wants to truly understand the underlying texture, culture, and consciousness of Israelis - while at the same time absorbing facts rather than apologetics? This book succeeds excellently on precisely this level.

What is unique about Elon's work is that he manages to explore many different aspects of Israeli society and history, touching on all the major issues thereof, while literally filling the book with incredible details of personal biographies, or of particular towns and events. The greatness of the book is that one doesn't lose sight of the forest for the trees. That is, the larger issues are explored in a rich and cogent way - in fact, all the more richly because those human details that make history alive are included. What emerges is an image of Israel's "founders" as including many powerful dreamers who, in fact, dreamed very different dreams. From Ben-Yehuda's revival of spoken Hebrew in a secular state, to the commune of Bittania, from Communist and Socialist utopians to radical Yiddishists to those who dreamt only of "normalcy..." One must read the book to truly understand the rich tapestry. Reading, one can't help but wonder "who will win? Whose vision of Israel will come about?" Then it strikes you: somehow, they all (and none of them) came true at the same time. Israel is still profoundly divided not only about where it is going but what it is - and the division is not binary (religious / secular or right / left for example,) but truly multidimensional.

Though I would join Roger Jellinek, the New York Times reviewer who proclaimed The Israelis to be "the most acute and even-handed portrait yet," still, some word is probably in order about Amos Elon's identity and its effect on the book. Elon is a well-known author in Israel and to some extent in the world, and is a very widely-educated intellectual whose politics are quite leftist. He is not religious. His recent book "The Pity of it All," a history of Jews in Germany from 1743 to 1933, suffered in my opinion from glaring omissions. For example, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and the Torah im Derech Eretz movement are not even mentioned in the book. Are there omissions in this work as well? Certainly there are, and the more religious people and components of Israeli history are given short shrift. Ashkenazim also dominate. On the other hand, part of the history and founding of Israel is precisely the dominance of the state by just the secular, Ashkenazi, Eastern-European thinkers whom Elon ia a spiritual descendent from. Thus, in a sense, his own bias enables him to give a rich "mainstream" history of Israel from an insider perspective. For this book, his weakness is definitely his strength.

So what this book can give you, if you are willing to let it, is what few books can: a true sense of Israeli history and consciousness which is both even-handed and a true "insider" view, with all the richness and complexity and ambiguity that entails.