Israel Studies

Ottolenghi, Emanuele.
The Question of Zion (review)
Israel Studies - Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 2006, pp. 194-203

Indiana University Press

Emanuele Ottolenghi - The Question of Zion (review) - Israel Studies 11:1 Israel Studies 11.1 (2006) 194-203 Jacqueline Rose, The Question of Zion, Princeton University Press, 2005 208 pp. Introduction A Princeton University Press (PUP) Release announcing Jacqueline Rose's book, The Question of Zion, instructively informs its potential readers and reviewers that Rose, while exposing Zionism's "apocalyptic jargon" and the "messianic zeal" that drove Jewish nationalism, is also to be credited for pointing out "the dissident Zionist writers of the early twentieth century, including Hannah Arendt, Theodor Herzl, and Gershon Sholem, who, even before the founding of Israel, called into question the establishment of a Jewish state at the expense of the legitimate rights of the native Palestinians." Defining Herzl as a "dissident writer" or Arendt as a "Zionist writer" is a bit like calling Sigmund Freud a "dissident psychoanalyst," Alexander Hamilton a "dissident founding father," or Karl Marx a dissident Marxist. Also Sprach PUP? Or a sign that the Ivy League is not what it used to be? No matter. While the reader may be left to wonder who should lose their jobs at the prestigious publishing house for this little oversight, one should not judge this book by the blissful ignorance of PUP's public relations personnel, which perhaps is just a welcome indication of how this book made it into print. In fact, their little stretch of imagination is reality...