David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Renaissance

A reappraisal of David Ben-Gurion's intellectual origins and actual role as the founding father of Israel.

Shlomo Aronson (Author), Naftali Greenwood (Translated by)

9781107425200, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 July 2014

478 pages
23.4 x 15.6 x 2.7 cm, 0.73 kg

'Aronson creates an illuminating portrait that challenges the recent litany of attacks that have become standard fare in the relentlessly negative discussions of Israel. His sympathetic rehabilitation of Ben-Gurion is also a timely and intricate refutation of its critics.' Jerusalem Post

This book offers a reappraisal of David Ben-Gurion's role in Jewish-Israeli history from the perspective of the twenty-first century, in the larger context of the Zionist 'renaissance', of which he was a major and unique exponent. Some have described Ben-Gurion's Zionism as a dream that has gone sour, or a utopia doomed to be unfulfilled. Now - after the dust surrounding Israel's founding father has settled, archives have been opened, and perspective has been gained since Ben-Gurion's downfall - this book presents a fresh look at this statesman-intellectual and his success and tragic failures during a unique period of time that he and his peers described as the 'Jewish renaissance'. The resulting reappraisal offers a new analysis of Ben-Gurion's actual role as a major player in Israeli, Middle Eastern, and global politics.

Introduction
1. The intellectual origins of Ben-Gurion's Zionism
2. The Holocaust and its lessons
3. Ben-Gurion between left and right
4. Ben-Gurion and the Israel Defense Forces - from its formation to the Suez-Sinai campaign of 1956
5. From the 1956 war to the 'Lavon Affair'
6. From 'the Affair' to the Six-Day War
Conclusion: the waning of an age and its leader.

Subject Areas: Jewish studies [JFSR1], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]