A Stranger in the Land: Jewish Identity Beyond Nationalism

By Daniel Cil Brecher

A critical appraisal of the politics of Jewish identity after the Holocaust and a passionate memoir by an Israeli dissenter. in 1984, Daniel Cil Brecher, then a reservist in the Education Corps of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590512111
• ISBN13: 9781590512111
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Other Press (NY)
• Length: 372 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Engaging and illuminative text about Middle-East conflict and Zionism

In A Stranger in the Land, Daniel Cil Brecher creates an engaging narrative about the Israeli Nationalism. As a Jew who grew up in Germany and as a historian who worked in Israel, Brecher came face to face with anti-Semitism in Germany and chauvinistic nationalism in Israel. By incorporating personal experiences and contexts from Middle East conflict, he supplies an account that is at once personalized and representative of biases, prejudices and myths that Israelis have build to rationalize their relationship with Arabs and Arab States. The justification of certain excesses committed by the Israel state rests on their own victimization during holocaust. Brecher identifies the rational and irrational arguments advanced through propaganda and myths to portray Jews as being driven into conflict after conflict in Middle East. He examines the choices made by various Jewish leaders in past hundred years, be it armed conflicts in Palestine, Syria or Lebanon, or acquisition of land, and details the contexts by which every choice was justified, defended and is celebrated in retrospect. As a historian, he found access to sources and facts that he uses to serve us an analysis which captures difficult human contradictions, epitomized in Middle East conflict. Israel is a relatively young, but powerful nation. By merely existing in a land bought, annexed, captured or taken away from Arabs who lived there for centuries, as a nation, Israel has been a defiant, unwelcome neighbor for most Arab nations that surround it. Israel presents itself as a territory battered by terrorists and hostilities from all sides. In Brecher's view, the hostilities are fed by Israeli ultranationalism, and the need or greed to carve out a Jewish state in spite of gross human cost involved. By emphasizing their claim to land as just and as ordained by religious edicts and Western support, the Israelis are able to treat the claims of Arabs or Palestinians as secondary and unreasonable. The whole education system, employment, businesses, media, government and daily life of an Israeli promotes this nationalism. Holocaust looms as a grey background which sanctions splashing of the non-Jewish blood for the protection of a Jewish state and the Jewish identity. Yet and here Brecher's presentation stimulates the question that Arabs have asked for decades: Why should Palestinians or Arabs be punished for the excesses that were committed by Chirstians or Nazis in Europe? Of course, the Middle East conflict is fed by armed and political struggle or unrest kept alive by Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas, Hezbollah and various other radical Muslim outfits. In this war, every side has its share of bitterness and bad blood. Revenge drives some, religion motivates others and for some, it is a simple question of seeking a homeland. The idea of attracting the world attention to Palestinian issue by making loudest noises (bombs) or through dramatic episodes (hijacks) seem to have origi

An outstanding cultural and social survey

In 1984 the author, a reservist in the education corps of the Israeli army, refused to cross into occupied Lebanon to delivery a morale-boosting lecture to Israeli troops: his act of rebellion changed his life and A STRANGER IN THE LAND blends history with autobiography and personal insights into the politics and meaning of displaced Jews and their Israeli homeland. An outstanding cultural and social survey, A STRANGER IN THE LAND reaches beyond the usual confines of either memoir or Jewish history and should do well in any general public lending collection. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch