An Uneasy Relationship: The American Jewish Leadership and Israel, 1948-1957 »

Zvi Ganin is the author of Truman, American Jewry, and Israel, 1945-1949, and Kiryat Hayyim: Experiment in an Urban Utopia (in Hebrew) and has written extensively on American Jewish and Israeli history. He lives in Israel.

Ganin (history, Beit Berl College) finds that the political, ideological, diplomatic and personal differences among Israeli and US leaders were a significant cause of the struggles in the early years of the modern state of Israel. He details these differences in the relationship (skirmish, actually) between the American Jewish Committee and Ben-Gurion, which were eventually resolved after a fashion in the Blaustein-Ben-Gurion "understanding" of 1950. He describes how the skirmishes continued between the Zionist movement and the American Jewish Community as diplomats in the second Truman administration were seeking Arab-Israeli peace agreements. He then explains how the particularities of Dulles came into play as Israel sought support from its supposed ally in the Eisenhower administration. His work is an interesting reminder that sometimes the "great man" theory has its merits, particularly when so small a number of powerful men clashed over so many life-or-death issues. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR