"The Crisis of Zionism," appears to be a book about politics, history and ideology, but in fact it is a research into identity; the identity of a community and the identity of the author. It is a book about the construction, the de-construction and the effort to reconstruct an identity; it sheds light on forgotten historical political facts, while leaving out others; it invents a new narrative, but is by no means false, since such is the nature of all identity projects. In his groundbreaking work, "Imagined Communities," Benedict Andersen quotes French author Ernest Renan: "The essence of a nation…

by Roi Ben Yehuda Over at Tablet, Joseph Dana writes an important piece on Israel’s problematic relationship with the Nakba narrative (the expulsion/dislocation of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel) and the imperative of integrating this narrative into Israel’s public discourse. He concludes: Including the Nakba in Israeli public discourse, newspapers, and textbooks hardly means the unqualified embrace of one version of history over another. But open discussion of competing narratives with reference to the historical record is clearly a precondition for any wider kind of social and political understanding between Israeli Jews and Palestinian…

This is one of the most bizarre pieces I've seen this year. It comes from Tablet's blog editor, Marc Tracy: Israel, A Liberal’s Paradise Are you a liberal upset over Tuesday’s results? Then have we got a country for you! Starting next week, non-Jewish or -affiliated same-sex couples will be able to enter into civil unions. The bill’s sponsor wants to extend the law to all Israelis, including Jews; incredibly, the sponsor is none other than Yisrael Beiteinu MK David Rotem, notorious for sponsoring the heinous conversion bill. Even a blind squirrel catches an occasional nut, eh? On top of…