Israel's Years Of Bogus Grandeur: From The Six-day War To The First Intifada
by Nissim Rejwan /
2006 / English / PDF
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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.
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.