An in-depth and multifaceted investigation of how Polish Jews, Polish Zionism, and Polish culture influenced Israel’s cultural and political development, as well as of how the Zionist project influenced Jewish life in Poland. From its inception as a political movement, Zionism had as its main goal the creation of a ‘New Jew’ who could contribute to building a Jewish state, preferably in the historic homeland of the Jewish people, where Jews would free themselves from the negative characteristics which, in the view of the ideologues of Zionism, had developed in the diaspora. Yet, inevitably, those who settled in Palestine brought with them considerable cultural baggage. A substantial proportion of them came from the Polish lands, and their presence significantly affected the political and cultural life of the Yishuv, and later the State of Israel. In this volume, scholars from Israel, Poland and elsewhere in Europe, and North America explore different aspects of this influence, as well as the continuing relationship between Israel and Poland, up to the present day.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Israel Bartal, François Guesnet, Antony Polonsky, and Scott Ury I. Before Zionism Hasidic Communities in the Land of Israel in the Nineteenth Century Uriel Gellman Polish Distinctiveness in Jerusalem, Congress Poland, and Western Prussia in the Nineteenth Century Yochai Ben-Ghedalia II. From the Beginnings of Zionism to the Second World War Between Attraction and Repulsion, Disaster and Hope: Jews, Poland, and the Land of Israel before 1948 Łukasz Tomasz Sroka Zionism in Poland, Poland in Zionism Anna Landau-Czajka The Fourth Aliyah and the Fulfilment of Zionism in the Land of Israel Meir Chazan Nalewki Street in Tel Aviv? The Political Heritage of East European Jewry in the Yishuv and the State of Israel Gershon Bacon Between Tłomackie 13, Warsaw, and Kaplan 2, Tel Aviv: The Role of the East European Jewish Press in Shaping Israeli Journalism Ela Bauer Jewish Politics Without Borders: How Ben-Gurion Won the Elections to the Zionist Congress of 1933 Rona Yona A Bridge between West and East: Polish Economic Policy and the Yishuv Katarzyna Dziekan Palestine for the Third Time: Ksawery Pruszyński and the Emergence of Israel Wiesław Powaga III. From the War to the Israeli Declaration of Independence Imagined Motherland: Zionism in Poland after the Holocaust Natalia Aleksiun Between Hostility and Intimacy: Christian and Jewish Polish Citizens in the USSR, Iran, and Palestine Mikhal Dekel Mordecai Tsanin: Yiddish Orphanhood in Israel and Afterlife in Poland Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska IV. From Israeli Independence to the End of Communism Art and Society between Poland and Israel: The Life and Work of Henryk Hechtkopf  Hanna Lerner Yom-Tov Levinsky, Jewish Ritual, and Exile in Israeli Culture Adi Sherzer Israel Expunged: Communist Censorship of the Polish Catholic Press, 1945–1989 Bożena Szaynok Homeland, State, and Language: The Integration of Polish Jews into Israel Elżbieta Kossewska The Polish Exodus of 1968: Antisemitism, Dropouts, and Re-emigrants in Nowiny i Kurier Miri Freilich V. From the End of Communism to Today Home as a Place of No Return: Journeys to Poland in the Writings of Child Survivors and the Second and Third Generations Efraim Sicher Israelis? Poles? Blurring the Boundaries of Identity in Contemporary Israeli Literature Shoshana Ronen Other Family Stories: The Third Post-Holocaust Generation’s Journey to Poland  Jagoda Budzik Neuland, or the Displacement of an Ideal: Israel in the Work of Eshkol Nevo Alina Molisak Israel and Poland Confront Holocaust Memory Yifat Gutman and Elazar Barkan Index**