TY - JOUR
T1 - Between Nationalism and Internationalism
T2 - Robert Weltsch and the Colonial Dilemma in World War II Palestine
AU - Kabalek, Kobi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Association for Jewish Studies 2024.
PY - 2024/4
Y1 - 2024/4
N2 - This article proposes that the marginality of World War II in the historiography of Zionism and Israel is based on a historical perspective that shaped contemporaries’ evaluation of reality and framed postwar historiography. Through the wartime writings of Robert Weltsch, I argue that this historiographic absence draws on a dilemma: Should Britain’s colonized populations continue their fight for independence from British rule during the war or support the empire in the world conflict against the Axis? The dilemma expressed a tension between the colonial aspects of the Yishuv and its reliance on the British Empire, on the one hand, and its anticolonial struggle for independence from the British, on the other. This article examines the Yishuv’s wartime dilemma using the distinction Weltsch made between a narrow perspective, which he associated with World War I’s legacy of self-determination, and a broad international view.
AB - This article proposes that the marginality of World War II in the historiography of Zionism and Israel is based on a historical perspective that shaped contemporaries’ evaluation of reality and framed postwar historiography. Through the wartime writings of Robert Weltsch, I argue that this historiographic absence draws on a dilemma: Should Britain’s colonized populations continue their fight for independence from British rule during the war or support the empire in the world conflict against the Axis? The dilemma expressed a tension between the colonial aspects of the Yishuv and its reliance on the British Empire, on the one hand, and its anticolonial struggle for independence from the British, on the other. This article examines the Yishuv’s wartime dilemma using the distinction Weltsch made between a narrow perspective, which he associated with World War I’s legacy of self-determination, and a broad international view.
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U2 - 10.1353/ajs.2024.a926058
DO - 10.1353/ajs.2024.a926058
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85192744430
SN - 0364-0094
VL - 48
SP - 77
EP - 99
JO - AJS Review
JF - AJS Review
IS - 1
ER -