Rhetorical Subterfuge

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 27-42
Author(s):  
Oona Eisenstadt ◽  

This article focuses on a Talmudic lecture Levinas delivered in 1965. Its long central section is an extended reading of most of that lecture’s images and ideas. Its frame, however, treats what does and does not change in Levinas’s conception of the State of Israel between the early ’60s and the early ’80s. At issue here are two other texts: a short but important paragraph from the 1961 lecture published as “Messianic Texts,” and the interview with Malka and Finkielkraut that took place in 1982, shortly after the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. The gist of my closing argument is that while the structure of the understanding of Israel he outlined in 1961 does not change, it is developed very differently in the 1965 lecture and the 1982 interview. I try finally to account for this difference. In the meantime, the long analysis of 1965’s “Promised Land or Permitted Land” offers a novel account of Levinas’s hermeneutic, an account that might perhaps be applied to other Talmudic lectures.

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carys Moseley

Reinhold Niebuhr’s support for the foundation of the state of Israel is argued to be an expression of his Christian realism, and as such is based on his ethics but not his theology. The first section assesses Niebuhr’s support for Jewish return to the Land of Israel in relation to modern protestant and Jewish support for relocation of the Promised Land back from America to British Mandate Palestine. The second section demonstrates that Niebuhr’s support for Zionism grew out of his threefold moral, political and theological realism. This meant taking into account Israel’s relation to the United States, and increasingly evidenced a national supersessionist outlook. The third section argues that this shift was undertaken via the role of the temporarily messianic nation, whereby the USA replaced Israel as a nation with a mission. In the fourth section, it is argued that the natural theology that underlies Niebuhr's ethics constitutes a 'Hebraic' turn which is ironic given that he does not ground his Zionism in the covenant with Abraham. The last section argues that Niebuhr’s support for Israel’s foundation needs to be understood within his reconstruction of natural law, along with his critique of the fusion of nationalism and religion in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As Niebuhr’s approach to Israel was based on ethics not dogmatic theology and exegesis, and as it became part of a notion of America as messianic, it failed to be passed on adequately to the mainline protestant churches.


2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian S. Lustick

Zionist claims to rightful rule of most or all of Palestine/the Land of Israel ultimately depend on naturalizing those claims into common sense, for Jews, of course, but also for the international community. Following the 1967 war, Israelis in favor of withdrawing from occupied territories have relied on distinguishing between the justice of the 1949 Armistice Lines, and the process that led to the State of Israel within those lines, versus the injustice of the occupation of territories conquered in 1967 and of their settlement and gradual absorption. But as the truth of the expulsions and forced dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 becomes accepted by wider swaths of both Israeli-Jewish and international public opinion, the traditional narrative distinguishing the justice of 1948 and the injustice of 1967 breaks down. Ari Shavit's book, My Promised Land, can be understood as a response by Israeli two-staters to accusations of hypocrisy by the extreme right.


1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Hans Levy

The focus of this paper is on the oldest international Jewish organization founded in 1843, B’nai B’rith. The paper presents a chronicle of B’nai B’rith in Continental Europe after the Second World War and the history of the organization in Scandinavia. In the 1970's the Order of B'nai B'rith became B'nai B'rith international. B'nai B'rith worked for Jewish unity and was supportive of the state of Israel.


Author(s):  
أميرة عبد الحفيظ عمارة

This research is interested in studying the reality of translation from Hebrew to Arabic, especially the translation of novels. The research relied on translated and published novels, from certain publishing houses, and it includes about 29 novels translated from Hebrew to Arabic. The first translation in this field was Ahavat Zion )loving Zion(, a novel by Abraham Mapu (1808-1867), translated by Salim Al-Dawoodi, and published by the Al-khidewiah Press in Cairo in 1899. Translations from Hebrew to, and vice versa, had Flourished after the establishment of the State of Israel, in particular after 1967 War, and resumed after the peace agreement with Israel. The largest wave of such translations was carried out in newspapers, magazines and academic research in part. The eighties and nineties of the last century were a period of translation activity in regard of partial translations in newspapers. The numbers of translations of full novels published so far have not exceeded thirty in most cases, and the number of translations published in Israel is approximate to the translations published in the Arab countries. The trends of novels that were translated inside Israel were of specific trends, and the translated works that were chosen were initiated, encouraged, and financed by organizations supported by the Israeli establishment. In addition, the translators also had a role in choosing the translated novels into Arabic to obtain financial support. As for the translated Hebrew works in the Arab countries, their focus was on the conditions and sufferings of the Israelis from Arab descent in Israel, and on the failure of Zionism and the issues of existential anxiety the Israelis are experiencing.


Pólemos ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Paolo Coen

Abstract This article revolves in essence around the contributions made by the architect Moshe Safdie to the Yad Vashem memorial and museum in Jerusalem. Both probably need at least a brief introduction, if for no other reason than the nature of the present publication, which has a somewhat different scope than the type of art-historical or architectural-historical journals to which reflections of this kind are usually consigned. The first part draws a profile of Safdie, who enjoys a well-established international reputation, even if he has not yet been fully acknowledged in Italy. In order to better understand who he is, we shall focus on the initial phase of his career, up to 1967, and his multiple ties to Israel. The range of projects discussed includes the Habitat 67 complex in Montreal and a significant number of works devised for various contexts within the Jewish state. The second part focuses on the memorial and museum complex in Jerusalem that is usually referred to as Yad Vashem. We will trace Yad Vashem from its conception, to its developments between the 1950s and 1970s, up until the interventions of Safdie himself. Safdie has in fact been deeply and extensively involved with Yad Vashem. It is exactly to this architect that a good share of the current appearance of this important institute is due. Through the analysis of three specific contributions – the Children’s Memorial, the Cattle Car Memorial and the Holocaust History Museum – and a consideration of the broader context, this article shows that Yad Vashem is today, also and especially thanks to Safdie, a key element in the formation of the identity of the state of Israel from 1967 up until our present time.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document