The Making of Modern Israel: 1948-1967

by Leslie Stein

On May 14, 1948 the State of Israel was declared, announced by David Ben-Gurion at a small gathering that assembled in the main hall of the Tel Aviv Art Museum. Within a time frame of only nineteen years, culminating in the Six-Day War, Israel fought three separate wars. But within its first four years, thanks to mass immigration, its population doubled. Furthermore, Israel had been confronted with acute economic difficulties, intra Jewish ethnic tensions, a problematic Arab minority and a secular-religious divide. Apart from defence issues, Israel faced a generally hostile or, at best, indifferent international community rendering it hard pressed in securing great power patronage or even official sympathy and understanding. Based on a wide range of sources, both in Hebrew and English, this book contains a judicious synthesis of the received literature to yield the general reader and student alike a reliable, balanced, and novel account of Israel's fateful and turbulent infancy.

Genres: History, Israel

340 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2009

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book that give flavor the the modern Israeli struggle for peace and safety. This book gives balance to the modern narrative that Palestinians are innocent captives of a slaving Jewish people. One cannot read this book and not take into account the millennial old struggle between the peoples of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac.
Any black and white view of this conflict comes up short of doing justice to the wrong on both sides.
At fault also are the many western powers who continue to meddle across the globe causing senseless wars and deaths. I of course specifically mean the US, Russia, UK, France, Germany.

This book is of course drawn from a very Jewish perspective but does show a lot of facts about the conflicts and the parties that make of the modern game of Risk we find ourselves in.

[columbialion · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book to be very informative and complete in its chronicling of the formation of the Jewish state. A word of caution to the reader, the book contains many references to both the early political structure of the Israeli government party factions, as well as the assorted geographical sites of conflict. Additionally, the reader should have a basic familiarity with some of the historical political characters of both sides of the Arab/Israeli epoch, in order to understand its development within the authors context. Overall, I would recommend this as an additional read after a basic understanding of the history, politics and geographic origins of the epoch is secured.

[john lambert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book covers how the nation of Israel got started in 1948 up through the 6 Day War in 1967 when the country's size was increased by winning that war. It is well written, like newspaper article, lots of facts and personalities. It's straight forward.

Here's some interesting info on immigration...
- After Israel was created, any Jew from around the world was welcome. So immigration exploded into a country that was just created and had barely won it's first war with the Arabs, the War of Independence. It really is remarkable that the country was able to coordinate everything that had to be done to create lives for some many people. Of course, it was a struggle.
- In May 1948 the Jewish population was 650,000.
- Here are the first 6 years of immigration. 1948: 101,819. 1949: 239,076. 1950: 169,406. 1951: 173,901. 1952: 23,357. 1953: 10,347.
- These immigrants were from these countries (in order): Iraq, Romania, Poland, Yeman, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Morocco, Libya. So immigrants spoke different languages, had different cultures, etc.

A pretty good book.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. The return of the Jews to their ancient homeland after almost 2,000 years was a miracle. That they have managed to remain there is equally so. No surprise though, for it was foretold by the ancient prophets of Israel, and documented in the Bible.
This book provides much detail of what transpired in those years 48-67. Here was a people fighting for the right to exist in their homeland. I see the hand of God in the astonishing outcomes.
It was fascinating to learn of how the PLO emerged, and of the emergence of Yassar Arafat. It is also chilling to learn how decisions made all those years ago, contributed to the rise of extreme terrorism of the type witnessed in 9-11. The writer alludes to this late in the book.
Learning of the depth of involvement of the Soviet Union in the affairs of the Middle East was of particular interest.
So worth a read if you want to get an in-depth understanding of what went on in those years, when Israel struggled to exist, and to hear again of those amazing characters that were key to her success.