Authors: Michelle Mart
ISBN-13: 9780791466889, ISBN-10: 0791466884
Format: Paperback
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Date Published: January 2007
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Eye on Israel shows how the seeds of contemporary U.S.-Israeli relations were sown in the cultural narratives of the late 1940s and 1950s, long before American policymakers formed a close political and strategic relationship with Israel. Michelle Mart brings together diverse areas of history and examines the cultural antecedents of this much-heralded relationship. She also tackles the difficult question of the relationship between American Jews and U.S. policy toward the Jewish state. Finally, Mart demonstrates that American images of Israel and Jews were shaped by specific cold war concerns - visible in movies, novels, magazines, and newspapers - and reflect American identity and political mythology in the midst of the struggle against communism. The result is a unique examination of the intersections of culture, diplomacy, and ethnic and national identity through the specific case of U.S.-Israeli relations and American Jewish identity in the postwar period.
1 | Images of the "new Jew' in postwar culture : building on the legacies of antisemitism and the Holocaust | 1 |
2 | The United States and the founding of Israel : a particularist state with a universal mission | 23 |
3 | Views of the new Jewish state : the "Americanization" of Israel | 53 |
4 | The 1950s religious revival and "Christianizing" the image of Israel and Jews | 85 |
5 | Acceptance and assimilation : Jews in 1950s American culture and politics | 109 |
6 | The Cold War, Suez, and beyond : cultural images and changing American-Israeli relations in the late 1950s | 141 |