Ya. RABKIN. JEW AGAINST JEW. JEWISH RESISTANCE TO ZIONISM. Translated from French. by the author with the participation of A. Kushnir. Moscow: Text, 2009. 521 p.
(Chase Collection)
Author of the book, Prof. Professor of the History of Science and Jewish History at the University of Montreal, a former Leningrad resident who emigrated to Canada in the early 1970s, devoted his work to defending anti-Zionist Jewish Orthodox ideology. Ultra-Orthodox rabbis consider the State of Israel to be the antithesis of Judaism, because it was created by human hands, and not by the moshiach (Messiah), whose arrival Jews expect. The State of Israel and Zionism, in their opinion and in the opinion of the author, are the true enemies of Judaism, destroying everything truly Jewish.
Ya. Rabkin claims to be a scientific monograph, but the terms and assessments he uses are so approximate and vague that they betray the author's commitment to a completely different discourse - propaganda or Messianic. Evidence of the academic nature of his work should obviously be the fact that its author is very generous, almost in every paragraph, quotes and references to authoritative sources, which, however, very often have more than an indirect relationship to the topic. They include general observations by prominent Israeli historians who have no connection with anti-Zionist ideology at all, and critics of Zionism such as the philosopher Hannah Arendt and left-wing historians better known as "post-Zionist". Thus, the ultra-Orthodox point of view on Zionism is artificially "inflated", becoming more representative and reasoned.
The author is prone to strong conclusions and pathetic statements based on controversial theories: "A recent book by Tel Aviv University historian Shlomo Sand, titled 'How and When the Jewish People Were Invented', proves that Jews are from different countries... they have nothing in common with each other. Except for religion... [The Jewish people], in his opinion, were "invented ...
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