Language:
English
Year of publication:
2024
Titel der Quelle:
AJS Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
48,1 (2024) 77-99
Keywords:
Weltsch, Robert
;
Zionism History 1917-1948
;
Jewish nationalism
;
Eretz Israel History 1917-1948, British Mandate period
Abstract:
This article proposes that the marginality of World War II in the historiography of Zionism and Israel is based on a historical perspective that shaped contemporaries' evaluation of reality and framed postwar historiography. Through the wartime writings of Robert Weltsch, I argue that this historiographic absence draws on a dilemma: Should Britain's colonized populations continue their fight for independence from British rule during the war or support the empire in the world conflict against the Axis? The dilemma expressed a tension between the colonial aspects of the Yishuv and its reliance on the British Empire, on the one hand, and its anticolonial struggle for independence from the British, on the other. This article examines the Yishuv's wartime dilemma using the distinction Weltsch made between a narrow perspective, which he associated with World War I's legacy of self-determination, and a broad international view.
DOI:
10.1353/ajs.2024.a926058
URL:
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