Four out of every five Jews in the world live in the United States and Israel; 6.3 million in Israel, 6.7 million in the US. According to Pew Research Center Studies, 7 in 10 American Jews feel attached or very attached to Israel.
In teaching history, the most difficult task remains creating context:catapulting students back into a different time frame and having them disregard their contemporary historical perspective. The goal is to witness history as it unfolded, not as it concluded.
At Seattle’s Temple de Hirsch Congregation a week ago, the audience audibly gasped when I told them that the next day I would be giving a noon talk at Evergreen State College.
Winter 1979 By Shlomo Avineri “Zionism as a National Liberation Movement,” Jerusalem Quarterly 10 (Winter 1979): pp. 133-144. At the root of Zionism lies a paradox. On the one hand, there is no doubt about…
“Wilbur Carr, the Imperial State Department, and Immigration: 1920-1945” © Copyright 2011 by Kathy Warnes. All Rights Reserved. kathywarneswriter.weebly.com, kathywarnes@gmail.com The State Department, as it evolved in the first four decades of the 20th century…
Context and perspective are key elements in understanding history. Zionism emerged in the 19th century because there was a unique Jewish identity built around belief, Torah, ritual, and community concern for one another. And second, the presence of wretched anti-Semitism. Nordau gave an impassioned speech about the Jewish condition at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in the late 19th century making the case for a Jewish national home. Nordau energized the audience and the Zionist movement.
