Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter One
Since the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, examinations of its history
have usually emphasized its wars, the Arab-Israeli confl ict, and diplomatic negotiations.
That focus is misleading. Israel has fought wars, and it has been a target of more terrorist
attacks than any other country, as well as a constant participant in peacemaking efforts over
decades. Yet confl icts and negotiations, though the stuff of daily headlines, are only a small part
of the story. This topic addresses a broader, ultimately more important question: What is the
reality of this country and its people?
The basic answer is that modern Israel has built a fully realized
—
though not perfect or
completed
—
political system, economy, society, and culture. It is a normal country, although
a unique one with many distinctive features.
Although modern Israel grew from one of the world's oldest societies and cultures, its an-
cient heritage has not necessarily made the task of nation-building easier. On the contrary,
religion and secularism, multiple languages, varying levels of economic development within
its population, and its citizens' often different historical experiences, among other factors,
made its nation-building process exceptionally complex and challenging. Add to this a land
with few natural resources surrounded by hostile neighbors, and the relative success story of
Israel becomes even more remarkable.
DEFINING MODERN ISRAEL
The idea that Jews are “only” a religious group is a concept that began with the French Revo-
lution but did not become infl uential in Western Europe until the mid-nineteenth century.
It never fully took hold in the Eastern European or Middle Eastern Jewish communities. In
Western Europe, sympathetic non-Jews and Jews alike, as well as Jews who wanted to assimilate
to the majority culture, sought to portray Jews as ordinary citizens in every way except in the
narrow, personal area of religion. Not seeing Jews as a separate people with their own culture,
language, and identity was a strategy for trying to gain equality and diminish antisemitism, not
a refl ection of their actual history and self-image until that time.
This approach contradicted all previous history, as well as the Jewish self-image. In Biblical
times and up to the destruction of ancient Israel by the Romans more than 1,900 years ago,
Jews functioned as a national people, arguably the fi rst such in history. Thereafter, for more
