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The Jewish People in Dispersion

Sep 7, 2020

12. Israel - Into the Future While we’ve focused on the modern state of Israel, millions of Jews of course continue to live in many lands of the Diaspora. But what for centuries had been expressed as raw antisemitism more recently finds expression as anti-Israel agitation. Perhaps the best the Jews can hope for is...


Sep 6, 2020

11. Israel's First 35 Years The ancient prophet Jeremiah once excoriated those who cry “Peace,” when there is no peace. But in the infant modern state of Israel, no one had even a delusion of peace. In the wake of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, the young nation continued to be beleaguered on every side. Yet,...


Sep 5, 2020

10. The Rise of Israel In the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, that annihilated the great bulk of European Jewry, it seemed as though a Jewish state in Palestine was the last best hope of the Jewish people. Yet, the way seemed blocked, due to British policy that had been in effect for decades. Nonetheless,...


Sep 4, 2020

9. Antisemitism and Zionist The 1880s & 1890s are often identified as the period of Zionism’s birth. At that time a genuine cataclysm fell on Russian Jewry. But the greater the gloom & adversity of Jewish life, the more intense the recollection of ancestral pride. In the early twentieth century the Balfour Declaration...


Sep 3, 2020

8. Failure of Emancipation We raise important questions in this episode. Were the Jews right to plant themselves firmly on European soil, proud of achieving full citizenship? Or should they have been more attentive to the continuing background noise of anti-Semitism, and taken proactive steps, to defend themselves, or...