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Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal Hardcover – July 19, 2016

by Milton Viorst (Author)

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From serving as the Middle East correspondent for The New Yorker to penning articles for the New York Times, Milton Viorst has dedicated his career to studying the Middle East. Now, in this new book, Viorst examines the evolution of Zionism, from its roots by serving as a cultural refuge for Europe's Jews, to the cover it provides today for Israel's exercise of control over millions of Arabs in occupied territories.

Beginning with the shattering of the traditional Jewish society during the Enlightenment, Viorst covers the recent history of the Jews, from the spread of Jewish Emancipation during the French Revolution Era to the rise of the exclusionary anti-Semitism that overwhelmed Europe in the late nineteenth century. Viorst examines how Zionism was born and follows its development through the lives and ideas of its dominant leaders, who all held only one tenet in common: that Jews, for the first time in two millennia, must determine their own destiny to save themselves. But, in regards to creating a Jewish state with a military that dominates the region, Viorst argues that Israel has squandered the goodwill it enjoyed at its founding, and thus the country has put its own future on very uncertain footing.

With the expertise and knowledge garnered from decades of studying this contentious region, Milton Viorst deftly exposes the risks that Israel faces today.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Thomas Dunne Books
Publication date

July 19, 2016
Dimensions

6 x 0.88 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1250078008
ISBN-13

978-1250078001
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book will be especially useful to those new to the idea of Zionism and its historical implications while also providing food for thought to readers more engaged with the topic." - Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

MILTON VIORST was the Middle East correspondent for The New Yorker and has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Middle East Policy, Ha'Aretz, The Nation, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Viorst's books on the Middle East include In The Shadow of the Prophet, Storm from the East, and What Shall I Do with This People? He has served as a Ferris Professor at Princeton. Viorst lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, the poet Judith Viorst.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thomas Dunne Books (July 19, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250078008
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250078001
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.88 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,590,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,798 in Nationalism (Books)
- #3,252 in Israel & Palestine History (Books)
- #3,533 in History of Judaism

Customer Reviews:
9 ratings

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Thomas Mitchell

A unique approach to Zionism.

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2019

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I have read many histories of Zionism, they all seem to take one of three approaches. First, are books that treat it as a political ideology and give a history by school of Zionism: labor Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, general Zionism, religious Zionism, etc. Second, are books that give a straight narrative history of Zionism and Israeli history such as the histories by Howard Sachar and Conor Cruise O'Brien. Finally, are biographies of major figures within Zionism such as Herzl, Jabotinsky, Weizmann, et al. This book combines the first and third approaches to cover the four most important schools of Zionism and the most relevant personalities. The book consists of six biographical chapters covering the most significant figures within the first ninety years of Zionism, from Theodor Herzl in 1895 to Menahem Begin in 1983. The final chapter brings it up to date by covering the major figures and events within Israel from Begin's resignation in 1983 to the time of publication in 2016 (or the 2015 election). There is an emphasis on Revisionist Zionism, the ideology of the ruling Likud party, with chapters on Jabotinsky, Begin, and ample coverage of Netanyahu. A very good starting point for anyone wanting an overall impression of what motivates what were until recently the two main parties in Zionism, Labor and the Likud.

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2018

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The book "ZIONISM
The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal" has an amazing cover and is in excellent condition with all 318 pages being accounted for.
What I must say is that I can't simply waite to read this book and truly understand what Zionism is.

One person found this helpful

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Lisbeth B. Schorr

Clear and compelling

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2016

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I've never read such a clear and compelling history of Zionism. So much that I never understood but yearned to, has become illuminated!

One person found this helpful

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Some Leading Zionists biographies

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2016

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“Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal” by Milton Viorst (2016).

Initially I was expecting an extensive analysis of the overall Zionism movement since the 1880s through 2010ish. And this book does cover this era, but it is stronger in the 1880s-1920s than thereafter. I learned a lot about these four decades from this book. However, during this limited time period the author primarily discussed just the influences of “the usual suspects”: Herzl, Weizmann and Jabotinsky.

While reading about these leaders, what I found lacking was the author not listing the specific policies that they were trying to implement. The author provided generalities about some of their personality conflicts, but I was left yearning to learn more about how they communicated and interacted with the lessor Zionists within Poland and Eastern Europe. The author noted how these luminaries might entice thousands of Jews to attend some speech, but I don’t recall the author noting through what publications or groups informed the Jewish masses to learn of some upcoming speech/confab.

The author noted that some Jews were openly split between the secular-Zionists versus the Orthodox-rabbis who didn’t want to have anything to do with secularism. However, I don’t recall the author listing any numbers as to how many Jews participated in or championed these different camps. I just didn’t get any feeling as to what percentage or number of Jews supported the various camps.

When discussing the Jews immigrating to British-held Palestine, I don’t recall the author really mentioning how many Jews were immigrating after 1920 (although the author did state that there were about a million Arab-Palestinians and 400K Jewish-Palestinians). The author offered little(no) discussion as to how many Zionists differed or supported the pro-capitalist versus pro-socialist(communist) agendas of the various Zionist political parties.

As the author began discussing the 1980-2010s, I developed the feeling that although there was much to discuss about the various “peace proposals” between the various Israeli governments and their PLO-PA (Hezbollah/Hamas) counterparts, the author decided to rather “rush through” these periods as he barely mentioned even the highlights of the different peace-negotiation offers. There is no comparison of (for example) 17 proposals offered by the Israelis compared to 21 submitted by the Palestinians.

The author pretty well blames the Israelis for failing to submit a successful peace settlement with the Arab-Palestinians: “Does Zionism’s recent silence on the issue suggest that the Jewish DNA contains an immunity to peace?” (p. xi) and he wrote something along the line that “Israelis are going to have to offer more in peace incentives to the Palestinians in order to secure their acceptance.” However, the author doesn’t spell out what additional incentives need to be offered.

While reading this book, I stumbled across an article written by an Israeli officer that I found illuminative (from which partial comments are:) “There was nothing particularly remarkable about the fact that in July 2004, just weeks out of high school, I was joining the army. Military service here is mandatory, and while growing up, it was probably one of the most reliable facts of life. That I was to be kravi—that is, in a combat unit—wasn’t as obvious. Only about 15 percent of Israeli soldiers are fighters, but it was what I wanted. It wasn’t that I found combat so enticing a prospect; it was pure old-fashioned Zionism.” It is this humanist feeling that I found lacking throughout this book.

Because of the limited scope of this book, and because it concentrated on the influences of just a handful of well-known movers-and-shakers, I think a more accurate title for this book would have been: “Some Leading Zionists”.

{Nov. 2016 update: regarding the development and influence of Zionism, I highly recommend the recent publication of "Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn" by D. Gordis.}

4 people found this helpful

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Prufrock

Important and timely work of History

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2016

This is a very important book, the first complete history of Zionism in 50 years. It charts Zionism’s evolution from a secular vision aspiring to provide a safe refuge for a persecuted people to a doctrine infused with chauvinism and religious ardor, seeking to justify the intimidation of neighbors and the rule of conquered land. This book explores the meaning of today's events in the context of the tumultuous history of the Jews and of Zionism.

7 people found this helpful

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Yury Girshovich

Hope the rest of the book is better researched and edited

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2016

I just started reading this book, whose subject is very important to me. But I got turned off at the very beginning on page 3, a bit too early. The author's claim that Baruch Spinoza "fled the Inquisition in Portugal" is baseless because Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632 long after the Jews were expelled from Portugal in 1496-97. Hope the rest of the book is better researched and edited. I will be happy to review the whole book, but the prologue is extremely disappointing.

4 people found this helpful

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Gamaliel Isaac

Bias makes the Author Impervious to Facts

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2016

A very good critique of this book was published in the Washington Free Beacon. See [...] Milton Viorst's book is a good example of how a delusional point of view is unshaken by facts.

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2016

I had very much looked forward to reading this book. I enjoyed the author's style of writing. However, the author seems to leave out certain important pieces of information in order for his narrative to come across. For example, in discussing the Gaza strip in its current state he neglects to mention that Egypt also controls a crossing into Gaza. Also the author refers to the "Western Wall" as the "Wailing Wall" a term that is not widely in use today.

One person found this helpful

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