THE JEWISH STATE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURY. Anthology of modern Israeli social and political thought. Collection of articles edited by A.D. Epstein. Jerusalem: Gesharim; Moscow: Mosty kul'tury Publ., 2008, 422 p. Specialists in the history of the State of Israel and Zionism, as well as anyone interested in this topic, have at their disposal a fairly diverse body of literature in Russian. These are works translated into Russian by prominent Zionist ideologists of various trends, as well as works by some Israeli politicians and political scientists. However, as A. Epstein, the author of the anthology, quite rightly points out in the preface to the peer-reviewed publication, "only a few [of these works] are devoted to the present day of the State of Israel" (p.8), which celebrated its 60th anniversary in May 2008. The peer-reviewed publication is a collection of works translated from Hebrew and English by a number of prominent contemporary Israeli political scientists and their young colleagues on key issues of modern Israeli society and the Middle East conflict. The journal is published in English and Hebrew by the Shalem Research Center in Jerusalem. The very sections of this anthology allow us to speak about the breadth and diversity of the analyzed issues: "The Jewish State on the world map: Zionism at the beginning of the XXI century", "Jewry, Judaism and Zionism: paths and crossroads", "Israeli society in the face of an ideological crisis", "Israel and the Palestinian Arabs: in the labyrinth of conflict". A significant part of the articles included in the anthology focuses on numerous internal problems of the Jewish state. The ideological and political confrontation between the religious and secular sectors of Israeli society, the relations between the various communities of the countries of origin, the dominant principles of the country's economy, problems in the field of education, and many other issues that neither the founder of political Zionism, T ... Read more