David Ben-Gurion

Secularism and Its Discontents

In an essay first published December 17, 2010, Yehudah Mirsky examines a defense of Jewish secularism and finds it—and Jewish secularism itself—wanting.

The Challenge of Sovereignty

On the eve of Israel's independence, David Ben-Gurion sat alone, questioning whether a people so long accustomed to being the victims of sovereign power could take responsibility for themselves.

On Silence

Eschewing Jewish expressions of mourning, Israel's founding generations shaped a national ethos of silence and self-restraint, which found expression in the words of poet David Shimoni: “Don’t mourn, don’t cry/ at a time like this./ Don’t lower your head,/ Work! Work!”

The Mad Zionist

British Major-General Orde Wingate, who fought in theaters from Palestine to Burma, was a military genius.  He was also a Zionist's Zionist.  A new Wingate biography tries to explain why.

Leibowitz at 110

A scientist, a philosopher, and a sharp-tongued public intellectual, Yeshayahu Leibowitz was an oracle for some, a crank to others.  Two decades since his death, his ideas remain influential on Israeli society.

Which Land Is Our Land?

After David Ben-Gurion urged young American Jews to make aliyah, the American Jewish Committee responded by resolving to "forcefully discourage Israeli propaganda for immigration from America."

Partition, Then and Now

Since the beginning of the Zionist project, the partition of the land into two states has never found enthusiastic support among either Jews or Arabs.

The Soul of the Sabra

For those who have been taught—by Peter Beinart or some other recent chronicler of Israel’s history—that Zionism only began to go awry after 1967, Patrick Tyler’s new book might come as a shock.  Israel’s aggressive territorial ambitions didn’t emerge after the Six-Day War, Tyler argues, but antedated that (to his mind) avoidable conflict by more than a decade. 

Tal Tales

Tomorrow, the Deferral of Military Service for Yeshiva Students Law (Temporary Measure), better known as the Tal Law, will expire.  This law is not just any law: it is the latest enactment of the so-called “status quo arrangement” that frames the uneasy relationship between Israel’s Haredi and secular populations, and between religion and State more generally.