'Memory is not only a filter; it has also a regrettable way of reflecting the needs of the present''. In this comparative political treatise, Zeev Sternhell seeks to challenge longstanding myths surrounding the founding of modern Israel. His stance on this demythologizing work is partially connected to the post-Zionist intellectual movement, which challenges the prevailing truisms of Zionist historiography, trying at the same time to put them in a historical context and explain them. As an advocate of this new approach, the writer moves away from the conceptual and widely accepted "myths" that view Zionism as a socialist-democratic movement of national liberation.
Idith Zertal, a leading member of the new generation of revisionist historians in Israel, presents through her analysis the way in which Israel's collective memory of death and trauma was created and re-produced, and how it has been processed, coded and put in use in Israel's public space, particularly during the half century which has lapsed since the destruction of the European Jewry. This book offers a new perspective on Israel, its history and the construction of national identity.
Authors: Evangelos Diamantopoulos, Costas Faropoulos, Maria Kourpa, Iris Pappa, Charitini Petrodaskalaki, Aliki Sofianou
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