Governing Israel: Chosen People, Promised Land, and Prophetic TraditionTransaction Publishers - 207 pages Israeli politics and policymaking reflect themes long imbedded in Jewish culture. The concepts of Chosen People and Promised Land, and their meaning in Christian as well as Jewish religious traditions, assure that Israel is perpetually in the international spotlight. They also impose a sense of distinctiveness on the Israeli population. Some Israelis trumpet their country's accomplishments with unrestrained superlatives. Social critics accuse Israel of having the worst of the world's conditions. In this they reflect another trait that seems to have been inherited from the ancients: the prophetic tradition of extreme self-criticism. In reality, much of what occurs in Israel is similar to what occurs in countries that share its characteristics: democracy, western culture, and an advanced level of economic development. Such an idea may seem bizarre alongside headlines about suicide bombings and the country's aggressive defensive posture. This misses what is normal about Israel. In Israel policymakers weigh benefits and costs of various options, and generally choose something moderate, just as they do elsewhere. But this reality does not dim the rhetoric of politics, where hyperbole frequently seems more evident than rational discourse. Sharkansky discusses three central issues in Israeli public affairs: religion, national security, and social policy. He describes how policymakers relate to these issue and themes. Major problems may not be solved, but they are managed in a way that is tolerable. It is in this trait that Israel resembles other western democracies. In sum, biblical themes affect Israel's political rhetoric more than they affect the way officials actually work out their problems. Pragmatic coping with worldly realities generally overcomes emotional expressions that convey ingredients of spirituality. Ira Sharkansky, born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts, has been professor of political science and public administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1975. He is author of several works, including Coping with Terror: An Israeli Perspective, Politics and Policymaking: In Search of Simplicity, and The Political Economy of Israel, the latter available from Transaction. |
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... Hebrew Bible. Biblical themes of the Chosen People, Promised Land, and the style of the prophets appear in Israeli politics, even if they are not the only influences on the country, and even if they do not necessarily affect the nature ...
... Hebrew Bible have given those labels sacred meaning.1 For modern Israelis, they affect the way they view themselves. Their country's failure to live up to aspirations means it is intolerable.2 Political activists express their ...
... Hebrew prophets were concerned largely with predicting the future. Related to this is the parsing of prophetic text to predict the coming of Jesus. Jewish scholars admit that the prophets were concerned with the future, but emphasize ...
... Hebrews-Israelites-Judeans-Jews (the name changes with the period of biblical history)? Here as elsewhere, the Hebrew Bible provides no clear answers to the questions we ask of it. Jewish commentators put the emphasis on the weakness of ...
... Hebrew Bible is not clear. At various points it offers a land and a future of many people, but it also says that the people “will be strangers in a country not their own.”11 The Bible provides one demonstration after another of how ...
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Governing Israel: Chosen People, Promised Land and Prophetic Tradition Ira Sharkansky Limited preview - 2017 |
Governing Israel: Chosen People, Promised Land and Prophetic Tradition Ira Sharkansky No preview available - 2017 |