Is Passover a Legacy Moment in Jewish History?
Ken Stein, Emory University, Center for Israel Education, spring 2020 What are turning points or legacy moments in history? That was the focus of my Zoom class at Emory for 80 students in late March…
Infusing Israel into Your Passover Seder
CIE is pleased to offer this collection of readings, discussion questions, and activities all designed to incorporate Israel into your Passover seder this year.
Forgotten Heroes: The Jewish Resistance and Exodus 1947
Veterans of the Jewish Resistance in France participated in the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews during WWII. They provided emissaries from the Land of Israel with vital infrastructure for clandestine Zionist activities in France, including money, manpower, forged documents, accommodation, and contacts among the French authorities. In July-August 1947, they were significantly involved in the dramatic story of the Exodus 1947, the ship full of Holocaust survivors turned back by the British. It is regrettable that their contribution to the creation of the State of Israel is almost entirely absent from the collective memory.
Is the BDS Movement on the Rise?
According to the BDS movement’s Palestinian branch, the impact of the movement “is increasing substantially.” Many pro-Israel sites and organizations agree with that assessment. But how accurate is this prognosis?
Steve Kerbel: Spring Training: Israel Content in Camp Context
With the cooperation of the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the National Ramah Commission, Center for Israel Education, conducted a three-day Israel learning retreat in May 2018 for 35 overnight and day camp staffers, most of them either in college or recent college graduates.
Israel@70: Israel’s Tougher Neighborhood
In January this year, the veteran Arab journalist Rami Khouri made this assessment of the Middle East as a region, “Never before has the Arab region been so fractured, violent, volatile and vulnerable to the…
Rich Walter: Theodor Herzl, Ahad Ha’am, and Uncivil Discourse
Each day, it seems, there are new stories and discussions in both traditional and social media concerning the lack of civility in the current political discourse. This is also true in conversations, both within the Jewish community and among people of all faiths, regarding Israel.
“How the British Left Palestine,” Bernard Wasserstein, 2018
By Bernard Wasserstein Included as a 15-page chapter in the 2019 book Serendipitous Adventures With Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain, edited by Wm. Roger Louis and used with permission, this overview of the…
One Tribe, Multiple Minyans
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.
Trust, Embrace and Own Israel’s Story
In two books written sixty years apart, When Prophecy Fails, 1957 (Festinger, Riecken and Schachter) and The Influential Mind, 2017 (Sharot, an Israeli neuroscientist), the conclusions were the same.
Zionism and Israel Are Pro-Choice: Embrace Them Both
Rabbis who attended the AIPAC-sponsored National Rabbinic Symposium Association meeting in Washington at the end of August sat in my sessions on Zionism with common interests.
What Works in Zionist Education
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.
Rich Walter and Ken Stein: Reparations to Israel from West Germany, September 10, 1952
The matter over whether or not Israel should enter into negotiations with West Germany was put to debate in the Knesset. In January 1952, the debate was contentious and gripped the nation.
“The Decision that Changed History”: Ten Years since the Disengagement from the Gaza Strip
Shmuel Even’s article provides a detailed and cogent analyses about why another unilateral Israel withdrawal from the Palestinian areas is strategically untenable.
Beyond Birthright and Advocacy
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.
A Zionist State in 1939
“A Zionist State in 1939,” Dr. Kenneth W. Stein, CHAI (Atlanta), Winter 2002 “Had not the Nazi crimes been committed against Jews during World War II, the Jewish State would have never come true.” So…
Ken Stein, “One Hundred Years of Social Change: The Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem”
Kenneth W. Stein, “One Hundred Years of Social Change: The Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,” in Laurence Silberstein (ed.), New Perspectives on Israeli History: The Early Years of the State, New York University Press,…
“The Intifada and the Uprisings of 1936-1939: A Comparison of the Palestinian Arab Communities”
Comparing the 1936-39 Arab uprising in various parts of western Palestine and the intifada that began in 1987 in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, the most striking conclusion is the large number of general similarities between these manifestations of Palestinian national consciousness. The two most significant differences, however, are that the 1987 intifada generated a deeper and more prolonged Palestinian national coherence across all classes than did its predecessor and clarified and crystallized Palestinian opinion, which helped create a historic compromise in Palestinian public policy.
Rural Change and Peasant Destitution: Contributing Causes to the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936-1939
Kenneth Stein, “Rural Change and Peasant Destitution: Contributing Causes to the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936-1939,” John Waterbury and Farhad Kazemi (eds.), Peasants and Politics in the Modern Middle East, Florida International University Press (1989), pp. 143-170….
Shlomo Avineri, “Zionism as a National Liberation Movement,” Jerusalem Quarterly
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…
Porath: “Social Aspects of the Emergence of the Palestinian Arab National Movement”
By Yehoshua Porath, 1973 Historian Yehoshua Porath wrote “Social Aspects of the Emergence of the Palestinian Arab National Movement” as a chapter for the book Society and Political Structure in the Arab World, Menachem Milson…
The Arab-Israel War of 1948 — A Short History
Otherwise known as Israel’s War of Independence, or, “the nakbah” or disaster to the Arab world because a Jewish state was established, the war was fought between the newly established Jewish state of Israel opposed by Palestinian irregulars, and armies from five Arab states. Official beginning of the war is usually given as May 14, 1948, the date Israel declared itself an independent Jewish state, but the war’s first of four phases began in November 1947. Lasting for two years, the war ended with armistice agreements signed in 1949 between Israel and four Arab states.
Ken Stein: What If the Palestinian Arab Elite Had Chosen Compromise Rather Than Boycott in Confronting Zionism?
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…
The Arabs and the Approaching War With Israel, 1945-1948
In “The Arabs and the Approaching War with Israel, 1945-1948,” Yaacov Shimoni reviews in detail the period from the early 1940s to May 1948, examining decisions made by Arab leaders toward Palestine and Zionism. He concludes that disunity among Arab states, jealousies, and disorganization plagued Arab preparations for the expected coming war with the Zionists.
