Israel's Years of Bogus Grandeur: From the Six-Day War to the First Intifada

On the eve of the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel was nineteen years old and as much an adolescent as the average nineteen-year-old person. Issues of identity and transition were the talk among Israeli intellectuals, including the writer Nissim Rejwan. Was Israel a Jewish state or a democratic state? And, most frustratingly, who was a Jew? As Nancy Berg's foreword makes clear, these issues became more critical and complex in the two decades after the war as Israel matured into a regional power. Rejwan, an Iraqi-born Jew whose own fate was tied to the answers, addresses the questions of those days in his letters, essays, and remembrances collected in Israel's Years of Bogus Grandeur. Israel's overwhelming victory in 1967 brought control of the former Palestinian territories; at the same time, Oriental Jews (i.e., those not from Europe) became a majority in the Israeli population. The nation, already surrounded by hostile, recently humiliated Arab neighbors, now had an Arab majority (Jewish, Muslim, Druze, and Christian) within its borders-yet European Jews continued to run the country as their own. Rejwan wrote tirelessly about the second-class status of Arab Israelis (and especially of Arab Jews), encouraging a more inclusive attitude that might eventually help heal the wounds left by the Six-Day War. His studies in sociology at Tel Aviv University informed his work. For his cause, Rejwan lost his job and many of his friends but never his pen. Through Munich, Entebbe, political scandals, economic crises, and the beginning of the Intifada, Rejwan narrates Israel's growing pains with feisty wit and unwavering honesty.

Table of Contents:
Foreword. Israel: The Teen Years by Nancy E. Berg Prologue 1. "Contacting the Enemy" An Iraqi Muslim's Lament Kishtainy Writes Back Kishtainy Comes to Jerusalem Rabbi Petuchowski's Predicament 2. In the Wilderness The American Council for Judaism Trude Weiss-Rosmarin and I Erosion All Doors Tightly Shut To a Friend Who Chose to Adapt 3. The Morning After Oft-Celebrated Victory Soul Mates U.S. Jewry's Israel Tangle 4. An Assortment of Concerns Western Vanities Postscript: George Steiner Raises a Point The Zionism-Judaism Mix-Up Letters to Irene Gendzier Nationality or Pan-Movement? 5. Encounters: A Palestinian Intellectual Tells His Story 6. The Majority-Minority Syndrome Israel versus the United States Tremors Elie Kedourie as "a Zionist Historian": Further Letters to Irene Gendzier Irving Howe and Dissent 7. Uses and Abuses of History Golda Meir Redefines Judaism Moot Points Reviews: Fury Misdirected, Bible and Nationality, Boomerang, Some Uses of History, Divergent Problems, Orthodox Dissent 8. Recoupment A Glimpse of the Land of the Teutons Reviews: Futile Pursuit, News from Nowhere, Lost and Found, Nazi Delusions, Perils of Retrojection 9. Jews and Muslims Review: The Jews of Palestine Letters to Esther Cohen Rewrites 10. Orientalism Revisited Reviews: Little New to Impart, Edward Said's Reservations, Misinformation, Disinformation, and Ignorance Vindications 11. The "Who Is a Jew?" Charade Review: Israel and Ishmael Who Is a Jew? Responses and a Rejoinder Epilogue From Gemara to Shulhan `Arukh Sacred Cows No More "Mixing the Exiles" Index

About the Author :
Nissim Rejwan (1924–2017) was Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.