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Israel Studies 9.2 (2004) iv-viii



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Introduction

The state of Israel and Israeli society are heavily invested in modern techno-scientific culture. It is not accidental that the main protagonist in Altneuland, Herzl's famous Zionist utopia of 1902, was a scientist. The Zionist movement has always perceived science and technology as central instruments in its ambition to create a new society in the Land of Israel. Neither was it accidental that the first and fourth presidents of Israel, Chaim Weizmann and Ephraim Katzir, were famous scientists.1 From its beginning, science and technology were perceived as central to Israel's identity—in the 1920s, long before its independence, Jewish settlers established a research university in Jerusalem, and an advanced technical institute in Haifa.

The reasons why science and technology became fundamental to Israeli society are multiple. First is the traditional Jewish respect for learning, which manifested itself in the modern era not only in the study of holy books but also in the study of nature. Israel's geo-political situation also had an effect—as Israel is a small country with a small population relative to its Arab neighbors, it has had to compensate by developing advanced military technologies. Israel is a country almost bereft of natural resources that had to absorb immense waves of immigrations. Consequently, Israel has placed special emphasis on science and technology, creating an advanced educational and scientific infrastructure that has proved critical to the nation's survival and prosperity and central to its cultural identity.

The wide support Israeli society bestowed on science and technology has produced extraordinary returns. Among the many nations that have gained independence following World War II, Israel has been the only country that reached a per capita income level approaching that of the long-independent Western nations. Israel has become a world leader in agriculture, biotechnology, genetics, medicine, mathematics, computer science, aeronautics, nuclear research, and numerous other fields. Israeli scientists can be found in leading universities and research institutes around [End Page iv] the world. By recent estimates, one-third of worldwide innovations in communications technology have been developed by Israeli scientists. After Silicon Valley, and perhaps the high-tech corridor near Boston, Israel hosts the biggest concentration of technology companies in the world. The Israeli army is one of the most technologically advanced armies in the world and its research and development units serve as a key platform for Israeli technological innovation in general

In spite of being fundamental to Zionist ideology and to national identity and prosperity, Israel's long affair with science and technology has attracted relatively little scholarly attention. Neither the history of Israeli science and technology nor their social, economical, political and cultural implications have been systematically studied. This lack of scholarly attention cannot be attributed to a lack of Israeli expertise in history, philosophy or sociology of science. Indeed, Israel's passion with science and technology has also manifested itself in the liberal arts, by way of extremely lively fields of history, philosophy and sociology of science. Israel is a powerhouse in these fields, with programs in six universities, dozens of scholars, and several hundreds of graduate students. Alas, none of these have produced a significant body of scholarship on the long-standing relations between science, technology and Israeli society.

One important reason for this neglect is the universalistic ideology of science. It is widely held that science belongs to all humanity; that its values, methodology and achievements belong to humanity at large; or at least to Western culture, with which the Israeli elite identify. Accordingly, the local aspects of Israeli science and technology have been conceived as a parochial problem, one which could provide neither intellectual satisfaction nor international attention. Under this credo, the history and philosophy of science and technology have become projects of escapism in Israel. Much scholarly work has been produced through the years on everything from the Greeks to Quantum mechanics; on Israeli science and technology, very little. The result has been somewhat paradoxical: a prosperous intellectual community that is detached from its larger milieu, a community interested in science and technology but not within...

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