Know your past, own your present, assure your future.
Compiled by Dr. Ken Stein, June 2021 These sources and references unfold the history of the Jewish state through 1949, from state-seeking to state-making to state-keeping.
If one wants to start from scratch or build on an already sophisticated knowledge base about Zionism, modern Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, we believe that the books in English here have significant value. While…
Since the June 1967 war, Anti-Israeli sentiment on US campuses has grown to extraordinary proportions merging with previously evolved anti-Zionism into sporadic mention to regular embrace.
With 20 maps and prose, trace the progression of Jewish physical and demographic growth toward state building from 1882 to 1948 (25,000 to 600,000), with two-thirds in place by 1940.
Modern Zionism to 1949 Learning about modern Jewish history, Israel and the Middle East can be daunting. Whether student or teacher, Jew or non-Jew, knowing what sources to trust and where to find them can…
The course syllabi were all used in college level courses and are appropriate for advanced teen and adult education enrichment. Content and objectives of each course are reflected in the short introductory paragraph. Often the reading,…
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Covering the foundations of Judaism and the history of the Jewish people, the unit starts with the ‘covenants’ and ends in 1897. It traces the Jewish connection to the land of Israel, in the land and in exile. It explains how and why Jews retained their traditions in the face of enormous challenges. It concludes with the birth of Zionism as one answer to Jewish insecurity.
February 26, 2013 If Jews do not own and tell their own story, then others will show falsehoods about who we are and what Israel is about.
Published by JESNA, Jewish Education Service of North America ISSUE #18 WINTER 2004 Israel Education and the College Campus, “Awake ye from ye slumber, the call that is heard, oh my people.” Agenda: Jewish Education,…
Using original sources and employing perspective are keys to substantive Israel education. Failure to use either, handicaps and prejudices learning about Israel. When documents and texts or a broad overview of the literature in a field are not employed, there is a strong possibility that the educator either has a personal political agenda or, is covering up for their own lack of knowledge of what they are teaching. This premise is true for teaching any country’s history and through the lens of any discipline. I reside in the discipline of history.
The biographies listed from Chaim Weizmann’s papers are those individuals with whom he corresponded from the 1870s to 1951. The list includes Americans, Europeans, Zionists and British officials. Each biography is extensive, including affiliation, career high points and other valuable information not usually available elsewhere.
Before a White House dinner, President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk about Gaza, Iran, Syria and Middle East peace.
Jews always have bound themselves together by committing to Torah values, taking care of one another, adapting to new settings, coping with persistently precarious living environments, and finding leaders who looked past immediate obstacles to…
In a 52 minute speech, Netanyahu explained Israel’s absolute need for total victory in the Gaza war because Hamas and Iran were both enemies of the United States and Israel. With bi-partisan emphasis, he thanked Presidents Biden and Trump for their unwavering current and past support. Dozens of congressional members did not attend his speech, noting disagreements with the Prime Minister’s policies.
Citing deep disaffection among elements of Israeli military reserve units, and expressing those concerns to Prime Minister Netanyahu privately, Gallant makes his opinion public, causing Netanyahu to fire him, resulting in hundreds of thousand of Israelis in the streets. Two days after Gallant’s speech, Netanyahu called for a pause in pushing forward the judicial overhaul legislation.
Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan’s eulogy in 1956 for an Israeli guard murdered at a kibbutz next to the Gaza Strip affirms absolute requirements for being an Israeli: vigilance, determination, and not to be fooled by hollow claims for peace.
Ben-Gurion elegantly connects modern Israel from messianic redemption to Zionism, building the country through labor and immigration, with dual needs to remain actively linked to the Jewish diaspora and Jewish values through education.
With less than three dozen Israeli settlements in the territories taken in the June War, the proposal is not for a vast settlement increase, but for economic, infrastructure, and industrial development of the areas.
Unknown to the Carter administration and one month before it issued the US-Soviet Declaration to convene an international Middle East Peace Conference, Prime Minister Begin tells the cabinet that he learned from the Rumanian president that Sadat wishes to have Israeli and Egyptian representatives meet in secret talks. That bi-lateral Dayan -Tuhami meeting takes place on September 16. Begin refers to advanced drafts of proposed treaties between Israel and each Arab state; he presents details about Rumanian Jewish immigration to Israel.
Prime Minister Sharon unilaterally withdrew Israeli military and civilian forces from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Sharon sought to ensure Israel’s Jewish and democratic essence by getting out of the lives of the Palestinians. Instead Hamas used the territory to kill Jews and degrade Israel morally. Two decades later what would Sharon have said about trusting your neighbor unilaterally?
By Ken Stein and Scott Abramson, March 23, 2025 Zionist/Jewish Economic Development in Palestine Before 1948 Jewish physical growth in Mandatory Palestine in the period known as the New Yishuv was sufficient through land acquired…
The Status-Quo Agreement is an understanding reached between David Ben-Gurion, then the chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, and the religious parties in the period before Israel became a state.
Dr. Eli Sperling, April 15, 2025, for CIE © Center for Israel Education, 2025 Israeli music offers a powerful lens through which we can understand the country’s cultural and political evolution, serving as both a…
In less than 45 minutes, Israeli educator Susan Nachman Fraiman presents a taste of the variety of voices in Israeli art that have emerged in the past 20 years: female, religious, Mizrahi, Ethiopian and Israeli-Palestinian, all of which are rich subjects in themselves. We examine a few examples of works from each of these sectors and try to understand the rich background from which they come. This video is from a session July 25, 2022, at the 21st annual CIE/ISMI Enrichment Workshop on Modern Israel.
Two major discordant issues that vexed Israel before October 7, 2023, continue to cleave Israeli society: a possible exemption from mandatory military service for the Haredim and the Netanyahu government’s persistent effort to wrench from…
During the 2019 CIE/ISMI Educator Workshop on Modern Israel, Emory University Professor Michael Berger discusses how Hasidism was one of the most important Jewish innovations of its time, the evolution of ultra-Orthodoxy, and the status of Haredim within Israel today.
When Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned in 2008 amid allegations of bribery, Israel came within reach of a milestone in gender equality — one that was a credit to the Jewish state as much as…
Neither Israel’s political culture nor Israel’s democracy based on Jewish self determination simply materialized on May 15, 1948. A connection exists from Jewish self-rule in the Diaspora to Zionist political autonomy during the Yishuv and to contemporary Israeli political culture. Likewise, the origins of Israeli democracy are found in the hundreds of years of Jewish Diasporas transitioning into the Zionist movement to the state; from aliyot before the Palestine Mandate to 1948 and since. Components of Israeli political culture…
Elections, Parliament, Political Culture, Prime Ministers, Parties and the Voting Public Israel has a parliamentary system of government with some unusual features in the elections and the creation of multiparty ruling coalitions, as explained by…
Gerda Luft’s, “Cultural Life in Palestine,” is representative of the dozens of excellent analyses of Jewish life and politics in Palestine/Israel and the world located in the annual Palestine Yearbooks, later the Israel Yearbook, published from 1945 forward.
From 1898 to 1948, Zionism evolved from an idea to a concrete reality: the actual establishment of the Jewish state, Israel. Slowly, a few immigrating Jews created facts by linking people to the land. For half a century, fortuity and fortitude made the Zionist undertaking a reality. They exhibited pragmatism and gradually constructed a nucleus for a state. Through perseverance Zionists empowered themselves.
Cohen shows regular Palestinian Arab collaboration with Zionists before Israel was established and asserts that local and family loyalties, with identity to villages, and not to a nation, did severe harm to the Palestinian struggle against Jewish nation building. (Presented with permission of the author, June 2024).
Mufti opposes Arab majority state in ten years contrary to wishes of a dozen key other Palestinian leaders. Mufti wants no Jewish political presence in Palestine whatsoever.
Samuel would serve as Britain’s first and only Jewish High Commissioner (1920-1925) in Palestine; he noted reasons for Arab political in-fighting, origins of Arab dislike of Zionism, how land sales to Jews generated Arab jealousies, Jewish educational focus, and Palestine as a land area capable of supporting 4 million people.
In this 46-minute video recorded Dec. 25, 2022, two emeritus professors from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem joined President Ken Stein to discuss the key period when the Zionists succeeded in creating and securing a…
Palestine’s High Commissioner Chancellor seeks to halt the Jewish National Home in favor of the Arabs. He fails to overcome the Zionist drive and Arab unwillingness to cooperate with his intentions.
This document was secured at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. Less than a year before Hitler invaded Poland, Arab leaders with an interest in Palestine are starkly disappointed that the the German government did not go to war against the Zionists in Palestine. The same leaders give the Zionist national builders high marks for their perseverance against terrorist bands in the Palestinian countryside. They worry that unless Arab states come to the Palestinians’ assistance, Palestine will be lost to the Zionists. A remarkable assessment for Palestinian Arab leaders and their supporters.
The Palestinian Arab elite chose to boycott in virtually all British and U.N. overtures to them from 1920 to 1948, with egregious consequences. The Palestinian Arab elite shunned British officials who were staunch supporters of…
Reprinted with permission from the author. Dr. Avraham Sela’s survey is unique for its breadth and analytical candor. He analyzes Arab authors, country by country who wrote about the 1948 Arab loss of Palestine. Sela…
By Moshe Naor “Israel’s 1948 War of Independence as a Total War,” Journal of Contemporary History, SAGE Publications, 2008, published with permission of the author. The 1948 Israeli-Arab War is described in most research as…
September 16, 1949 Israel becomes a member of UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Based in Paris, UNESCO has the purpose of creating peace and security by encouraging international collaboration in education, natural…
For more than 100 years, Arabs and Muslims have expressed multiple attitudes toward Jews, Zionism and Israel. The remarks stretch along a spectrum from hatred, including the absolute, uncompromising need to prevent a Jewish state…
Since its inception in 1988, Hamas has been crystal clear about its total opposition to Zionism and Israel. It opposes any kind of negotiations or agreements that recognize Israel as a reality, and its more extreme spokesmen regularly incite or celebrate the killing of Jews.
In September 2023, thirty years after the historic signing of the Oslo Accords, there is occasion to review Prime Minister Rabin’s understanding of them. I assembled this collection years ago from Daily Reports- Near East and South Asia, 1993-1995. Two short items about Rabin’s views are also found or linked here. Rabin provided a summary of his views of the Accords in a Knesset speech in October 5, 1995. Some of Rabin’s reasons for signing the Accords are also provided in Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers.
With no constitution, citizen rights and government responsibilities are stated in 14 laws. The Judiciary is covered in the Seventh Basic Law, February 1984.
As a negotiating plan it seeks an end to the conflict with reciprocal performance objectives. Israel accepts the plan with some reservations; Hamas rejects it out of hand. The plan is not enacted.
As it has in the past Hamas may accept a tahdi’a or calming down of tensions, or even a temporary truce or hudna, negotiated by a third party, but for it to accept Israel as a reality is totally contrary to its ideological outlook.
August 23, 1950 American Jewish Yearbook, Vol. 53. 1952. 64-8. Over time, world Jewish opinion became splintered not only about the nature of Zionism or the role of Israel in their identity, but the degree…
Mufti opposes Arab majority state in ten years contrary to wishes of a dozen key other Palestinian leaders. Mufti wants no Jewish political presence in Palestine whatsoever.
In response to President Eisenhower’s demand that Israel leave Sinai, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion provides a detailed history of Israel at the UN and Egypt’s denial to Israel of use of the Suez Canal. He stresses Egyptian “injustice, discrimination, hostility, and boycott” imposed on Israel.
Speculation again abounds whether a two state solution might be a seriously considered outcome to Palestinian-Israeli differences. A long history of its mention but not its implementation persists. Advocacy by external voices persists, but no one seems ready to make the critical political trade-offs required.
As Israel turns 75 this spring, it is in the throes of a dynamic controversy over governance. Where might this ‘crisis’ or potential ‘political earthquake’ fit into Zionism’s history, and Israel’s tomorrows still to come?
May 7, 2023 In a 32-minute presentation recorded during the second hour of our special two-hour Israel@75 webinar and Teen Israel Leadership Institute session May 7, 2023, Adina Karpuj, a podcast producer for Israel Story who lives in Jerusalem, talks…
June 30, 2020 Even as Israel, like America, guarantees religious freedom, it has been connected from its inception to Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people. Nevertheless, that connection has been fraught with tension, from…
February 4, 2023 Center for Israel Education President Ken Stein explores the state of Zionism and the Jewish people in an in-person conversation with Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple in Atlanta, Rabbi David Silverman of the Atlanta…
In a July 1, 2020, session of our annual educator workshop, CIE’s Eli Sperling programs a youthful, entertaining video playlist to bring Israel’s religious, cultural and ethnic variety into the classroom.
Using archival and published sources, including materials from the CIE website, CIE President Ken Stein identifies six factors as reasons for the Zionists’ success: Zionist political action, the impaired socio-economic condition of the Arab population,…
During the 2019 CIE/ISMI Educator Workshop on Modern Israel, Emory University Professor Michael Berger discusses how Hasidism was one of the most important Jewish innovations of its time, the evolution of ultra-Orthodoxy, and the status of Haredim within Israel today.
During the 2019 CIE/ISMI Educator Workshop on Modern Israel, Professor Yitzhak Reiter of Ashkelon Academic College discusses Israel’s Arab minority. The talk focuses on the factors that impact relations between Israel’s Jews and Arabs, the impact of the 2018 Nation State Law, and the conflict between civic and national identities.
This presentation addresses the changing practices within shared holy places in Jerusalem between conflict and contestation with special focus on the Temple Mount compound and the Western Wall. It discusses strategies of stakeholders and conflict management methods that have been used in order to mitigate disputes as well as the incentives for tolerance and coexistence. Presenter Yitzhak Reiter, ISMI visiting scholar, is a Professor of Islam, Middle East and Israel Studies. He chairs the Department of Israel Studies and is the head of the Research Authority at Ashkelon Academic College.
Emory Professor of Contemporary and Middle Eastern History, Political Science, and Israeli Studies and Center for Israel Education President Ken Stein discusses the teaching and status of Israel on college campuses at the CIE 2018 Educator Enrichment Workshop.
Ken Stein, President, Center for Israel Education, May 19, 2025 Introduction Since 1937, the idea of geopolitically separating Jewish and Arab populations west of the Jordan River has been a recommended solution to mitigate violence between…
August 2025 polling data about American attitudes toward Israel and Hamas and about American political party partisanship toward Israel over the past decade.
March 12, 2025 By Ken Stein The Jewish growth in Mandatory Palestine in the period of the New Yishuv to establish a Jewish territory for a state had significantly developed by 1939. Arab leadership in…
By Scott Abramson A Disadvantaged Land in a Pivotal Location The State of Israel lies at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, at the intersection of three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe. Together with…
Musa Alami, “The Lesson of Palestine,” Middle East Journal, Volume 3, No. 4, October 1949, pp. 373-405 Reprinted with permission of The Middle East Institute, October 2021 In this 1949 article published in Middle East…
By Scott Abramson, May 2024 Introduction — A Unique Hatred If the Bible nearly 3,000 years ago described the Jews as “a people who shall dwell alone,” Jewish history has since validated this as prophecy….
Dr. Yedidia Stern, President, Jewish People’s Policy Institute July 28, 2023 (By posting a guest’s views, CIE does not take a position on the contents, nor verify facts nor the assumptions presented.) Israel’s political center…
Compiled by the Center for Israel Education – June 2023 Tens of thousands of Hebrew literary works have been published since the late 18th century. This list of Hebrew literature in English is suggestive and…
In 13 days in September 1978, Egypt and Israel made a two part agreement: an outline for an Egyptian – Israeli Treaty ending their state of war and an agreement on where and how the Palestinians would engage in self-rule. With great clarity and insight, Hermann Eilts, Sam Lewis, Hal Saunders, and Bill Quandt recall the ups and downs of those negotiations.
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