17.565
Israel: History, Politics, Culture, and Identity
Examines Israeli identity using a broad array of materials, including popular music, film, documentaries and art, in addition to academic historical writings. Topics include Israel's political system and society, ethnic relations, settlement projects, and the Arab minorities in the Jewish state. Students also discuss whether there is a unique Israeli culture and the struggle for Israel's identity. Limited to 60; preference to students in the MISTI MIT-Israel program.
Spring 2019 · Israel: History, Politics, Culture, Identity
Topics
- A staged Israeli-Arab-Palestinian peace conference
Readings
- General background books
- [A] = Amir, Eli. Scapegoat . Am Oved Publishers, 1987. ISBN: 9789651320545.
- [B] = Bunton, Martin. The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780199603930.
- [S] = Shapira, Anita. Israel: A History . Brandeis University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781611686180.
- The Zionist metanarrative: basic characteristics of the Zionist metanarrative—the New Jew and the return to the old-new homeland
- The British Mandate period (1917–1948)
- [D] Chapter 1: Introduction: Two Worlds Collide.
- [D] Chapter 2: The Jewish Story.
- [D] Chapter 3: The Arab Story.
- 1948—the establishment of the State of Israel and the Palestinian “catastrophe” ( al Nakba )
- A brief survey of Israel’s wars, 1948–present
- Israel’s formative years, 1948–1967
- Shamir, Moshe. Excerpts from With His Own Hands . Translated from the Hebrew by Joseph Shachter. Israel Universities Press, 1970, pp. x–xi, 1–3, 216–53.
- The watershed of 1973–1982 and the shattering of the old civil religion and the New Jew myth
- [A] Chapter 1: The Boy Market in Ahuza.
- [A] Chapter 3: Kiryat-Oranium.
- [A] Chapter 21: Fowl of Atonement.
- Rubinstein, Amnon. “No More Sabras.” Chapter 8 in From Herzl to Rabin: the Changing Image of Zionism . Holmes & Meier Publishers, 2000. ISBN: 9780841914087.
- Yiftachel, Oren, and Erez Tzfadia. “Between Periphery and ‘Third Space’: Identity of Mizrahim in Israel’s Development Towns.” Chapter 11 in Israelis in Conflict: Hegemonies, Identities and Challenges . Edited by Adriana Kemp, David Newman, Uri Ram, et al. Sussex Academic Press, 2004. ISBN: 9781903900659.
- 1948 revisited: the debate over the 1948 war, the Palestinian refugees
- The presence of the Nakba in contemporary Israel
- [S] Chapter 7: The War of Independence, 1947–1949.
- Rabin,Yitzhak. “Appendix A: Passage Censored from the First Edition.” In The Rabin Memoirs . University of California Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780520207660.
- Kanafani, Ghassan. “Returning to Haifa.” In Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories . Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000. ISBN: 9780894108907.
- Gelber, Yoav. “Introduction” and “Epilogue.” In Palestine 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem . 2nd ed. Sussex Academic Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781845190750.
- ———. “Postzionism: The Academic Debates.” Chapter 4 in The Postzionism Debate: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture . Routledge, 1999. ISBN: 9780415913157.
- Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents . 9th ed. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 178–201. ISBN: 9781319028053.
- The messianic component in Israeli identity and politics, Gush Emunim
- ———. “I Want to Shoot Jews.” Chapter 2 in The Yellow Wind . Translated by Haim Watzman. Picador, 2002. ISBN: 9780312420987.
- The Haredi (Jewish Ultra-Orthodox [fundamentalist]) communities in Israel
- Arad, Gulie Ne’eman. “The Shoah as Israel’s Political Trope.” Chapter 8 in Divergent Jewish Cultures: Israel & America . Edited by Deborah Dash Moore and S. Ilan Troen. Yale University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780300084269.
- “Miracles and Mirages: A Strong Economy Built on Weak Fundamentals.” The Economist, April 3, 2008.
- Shammas, Anton. Chapter 11 in Arabesques: A Novel . Translated from the Hebrew by Vivian Eden. University of California Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780520228320.
- ———. “Conclusion.” In Popular Music & National Culture in Israel . University of California Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780520236547.
- Van Evera, Stephen. “Memory and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Time for New Narratives.” (Draft paper). August 2003.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: None U (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units. HASS-S Credit cannot also be received for 17.567
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2019
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.