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The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew

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In The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew, Oz Almog takes the prevalent notion that Zionism created a new kind of Jew in Palestine and the State of Israel and turns it on its ear. Using the first generation of native born Palestinian Jews as his example, the Sabra of the title, Almog presents a very convincing case that the Zionism of the Sabra was less a departure and disruption of the past expressions of Rabbinical Judiasm, and more a remolding of the past to fit the present. This makes a great deal of conventional sense. Revolutionary movements like Zionism often present themselves as radical departures from the past when in actuality they pick and choose what suits the movement. For Almog, this makes the Zionism of the Sabra a new type of secular, nationalistic religion. Although he may take this to an extreme in certain places, using religious terms freely for a strictly secular, nationalist movement, the underlying premise is convincing. The Sabras in this study come across as stalwart devotee of a new faith. Here, religious Judaism has not so much ceased as been poured into a new mold.