In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel

From the late nineteenth century through the post-Holocaust

era, the world was divided between countries that tried to expel their Jewish

populations and those that refused to let them in. The plight of these

traumatized refugees inspired numerous proposals for Jewish states. Jews and

Christians, authors and adventurers, politicians and playwrights, and rabbis

and revolutionaries all worked to carve out autonomous Jewish territories in

remote and often hostile locations across the globe. The would-be founding

fathers of these imaginary Zions dispatched scientific expeditions to far-flung

regions and filed reports on the dream states they planned to create. But only

Israel emerged from dream to reality. Israel's successful foundation has long

obscured the fact that eminent Jewish figures, including Zionism's prophet,

Theodor Herzl, seriously considered establishing enclaves beyond the Middle

East.

In the Shadow of Zion brings to life the amazing true

stories of six exotic visions of a Jewish national home outside of the biblical

land of Israel. It is the only book to detail the connections between these

schemes, which in turn explain the trajectory of modern Zionism. A gripping

narrative drawn from archives the world over, In the Shadow of Zion

recovers the mostly forgotten history of the Jewish territorialist movement,

and the stories of the fascinating but now obscure figures who championed it.

Provocative, thoroughly researched, and written to appeal to

a broad audience, In the Shadow of Zion

offers a timely perspective on Jewish power and powerlessness.

Visit the author's website: http://www.adamrovner.com/.

© 2014 NYU Press (E-bog): 9781479845811

Udgivelsesdato

E-bog: 12. december 2014