2021/01/06 by Adi Sherzer · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
paper · doi:10.1080/00263206.2020.1862801
crossref issued 2021/01/06 · crossref published 2021/01/06 · crossref published-online 2021/01/06 · openalex publication_date 2021/01/06 · crossref created 2021/01/06 · crossref published-print 2021/03/04 · crossref deposited 2021/07/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/03/27 · crossref indexed 2026/07/30
The article focuses on David Ben-Gurion’s past image using a series of programmatic and widely distributed speeches he made during Israel’s first Independence Days (1948-1958). The article argues that while the founding of the state was defined as a turning point it was certainly not portrayed as a ‘beginning’, and that both the ancient sovereign and the exilic Jewish experience had a central place in Ben-Gurion’s relevant past. At the centre of discussion stand five main characteristics of the speeches: the continuation between the state and the Jewish ancient past; the central place of a secularized messianism as a bridge between the exilic past and the sovereign present; the attempt to portray a widely accepted shared past using consensus-based terminology; the simplification of the Zionist rebellion against the exile; and the fundamental differentiation between the Jewish symbolic past and the realistic Israeli present. These five elements are analysed against the background of other texts by Ben-Gurion and his image in the research. Finally, this case study is placed within a wider context which demonstrates the Israeli quest for a Jewish framework of meaning that would authenticate the new national myths and charge them with meaning.