Introduction

Most of the chapters in this book were written over the past five years, but I

have been engaged with Israel for over half of my life. While in graduate

school during the 1980s, I began to probe the points of connection between

three overlapping yet distinct targets of historical study: modern Europe,

modern Jewry, and the state of Israel. My exposure to the first and second

had come when I was an undergraduate, especially while studying for a

year in Berlin. Not long thereafter I spent several months in Israel, learning

Hebrew and working at Ma’agan Michael, one of the most beautiful and prosperous kibbutzim in the country. A rite of passage for Jewish adoles-

cents of a previous generation, the kibbutz was, for me, a transformative

experience.