Taking as their province the whole concept of Zionism ‐ its disparate strands, its founders, its organisation, the key persons, and the major events in its eventful history, notably of course, the establishment of the state of Israel ‐ Medoff and Waxman reach back in their introduction to the biblical patriarch, Abraham, who left his home in Ur of the Chaldees, to settle in the Promised Land. People of other faiths and other races notoriously find it difficult to understand fully the ancestral hold Eretz Israel (Land of Israel) has on the Diaspora Jewish communities. “For Jews around the world, the Holy Land and the dream of return were embedded in daily religious rituals and prayers, as well as in law and lore . . . The service at the Passover feast, the Seder, concludes with the prayer ‘Next year in Jerusalem’. These served as constant reminders and sustained the persistent yearning for both being in Eretz Israel and the ultimate messianic redemption”. (Introduction).
The tragedy is, of course, that such a religious attachment to a particular location, especially when it encounters a similar attachment, equally fervent, to the self‐same location, assumes a dogmatic and unrelenting approach, which, in secular and mundane affairs, provokes political, religious and racial hostility. In the struggle that inevitably follows, this is a recipe for disaster as entrenched attitudes, exacerbated by fanaticism on both sides, promote confrontation and do nothing to encourage reconciliation.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the present impasse in Israel, depending obviously on your sympathies and affiliations, this Dictionary is invaluable for its exploration of the inherited baggage one antagonist brings to the conflict. Many of the entries, Bermuda Conference, Haganah, Irgun Zvai Leumi (i.e. the Stern Gang), Lohamei Herut Israel, Menachim Begin, SS Exodus, and others, make for uneasy and/or salutary reading in the UK. Whether the bias of the reviewer, or of the two compilers, is the more askew it is not for the reviewer to decide. But there can be no question that the compilers are better informed. The Dictionary is information‐packed and should be accessioned by all large public reference libraries, and college libraries, covering current Middle East affairs. Five maps; a four‐page chronology; a number of crucial texts including the Basle Program, the Balfour Declaration (an incredibly slight document in view of its significance); the League of Nations Mandate, and Israel’s Declaration of Independence; and a 20‐page bibliography, listed under 11 subject headings, augment the dictionary entries.
Finally, do not be confused by the Fitzroy Dearborn imprint. This Dictionary looks like a Scarecrow Press publication, it is arranged on the familiar Scarecrow pattern, and it belongs to a long‐standing Scarecrow series. It is just that Fitzroy Dearborn is now the UK distributor.
