In 1948 the world witnessed an extraordinary event: the birth of Israel. After nearly 2,000 years as a stateless people scattered across the globe and frequently persecuted by the societies in which they lived--most tragically during the Holocaust of World War II--Jews finally had a homeland in Palestine, the ancestral land of the Jewish people. In the years since 1948, Israel has become the Middle East's most powerful, and most democratic, country...