![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Through oral testimony from the major figures in the discipline, this article traces the narrative- and intellectual history, and development of the discipline of Israel Studies in the United Kingdom, using the three universities – Oxford, SOAS, and Sussex – that have dedicated Chairs in the field. It further seeks to seek to locate the discipline of Israel Studies both practically and ideologically in the minds of the scholars interviewed, and within the greater intellectual canon. It concludes that the discipline of Israel Studies in the UK has entered a new phase, in which a new generation of scholars is happy to shed any Zionist “agenda,” and meet Israel on its own terms, thereby normalizing the study of Israel.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. George Mandel, “Obituary: Noah Lucas,” The Guardian, March 6, 2009. Interview with Martin Goodman, 29 Oct 2021.
2. Report of the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1990–1991, pp. 45–6. https://www.ochjs.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/AR-1990-91.pdf, accessed April 22, 2014.
3. Lucas, The Modern History of Israel.
4. Interview with Martin Goodman, Oct 29, 2021, and Derek Penslar, Dec 16, 2021.
5. Ibid.
6. See, inter alia, Shlaim, “Britain and the Arab-Israeli War of 1948,” and Collusion Across the Jordan.
7. Rogan, “The Middle East Centre, 1987–2007,” 14. I am grateful to Eugene Rogan for kindly providing me with a copy of the book.
8. Nicholls, The History of St Antony’s College, quoted in ibid., 112.
9. Ibid. Aron Shai – at that time Rector of Tel Aviv University – resurrected the program in 2014.
10. See Rogan, “The Middle East Centre,” 17.
11. Interview with author, August 2, 2021. See: Shindler, Ploughshares Into Swords? and Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream.
12. Interview with author, August 2, 2021.
13. Interview, August 2, 2021.
14. Shindler, The Triumph of Military Zionism and A History of Modern Israel.
15. See note 13 above.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Pears Foundation website, https://pearsfoundation.org.uk/, accessed April 22, 2024.
19. Yair Wallach, https://soas.academia.edu/YairWallach, accessed April 22, 2024.
20. Wallach, A City in Fragments, back cover.
21. Yair Wallach, e-mail to author, November 3, 2021.
22. Interviews with Roger Goodman August 17, 2021, Eugene Rogan, September 14, 2021, and Avi Shlaim, September 23, 2021.
23. See “Shimon Peres at Oxford University,” https://youtu.be/MbT2Z4dh-KA, accessed April 22, 2024.
24. Interview with Roger Goodman, August 17, 2001.
25. Interview with Eugene Rogan, September 14, 2021.
26. Interview with Roger Goodman, August 17, 2021.
27. Ruth Deech, e-mail to author October 13, 2021.
28. Interview with Avi Shlaim, September 23, 2021.
29. See note 26 above.
30. Sandisiewe Mbhele, “Meet Michael Lewis, SA-born Billionaire Who Married Princess Diana’s Niece,” The Citizen, July 27, 2021, https://www.citizen.co.za/entertainment/celebrity-news/2581225/michael-lewis-married-princess-dianas-niece/, accessed April 23, 2024.
31. Interview with Roger Goodman, August 17, 2021, and “Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies,” Oxford University Gazette, Vol. 148, p. 491, May 24, 2018, https://governance.admin.ox.ac.uk/legislation/stanley-lewis-professor-of-israel-studies, accessed April 23, 2024.
32. See note 26 above.
33. Ibid.
34. “Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies,” 491.
35. See note 26 above.
36. Interview with Derek Penslar, July 20, 2021.
37. “Professor Derek Penslar to join department at the first Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies”
38. See note 36 above.
39. Ibid.
40. Penslar, Jews and the Military, quoted at https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691138879/jews-and-the-military, accessed April 23, 2024.
41. Penslar, Theodor Herzl, inside front jacket.
42. Interview with Martin Goodman, October 29, 2021.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop.
46. “Yaacov Yadgar,” https://oxford.academia.edu/YaacovYadgar, accessed November 9, 2021.
47. Interview with Yaacov Yadgar, August 11, 2021.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Yadgar, Sovereign Jews and Israel’s Jewish Identity Crisis.
52. Interview with David Tal, September 23, 2021.
53. Ibid., and “Yossi Harel Chair of Israel Studies,” https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/jewish-studies/israel-studies, accessed April 23, 2024. See, for example, Tal, War in Palestine and The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, 1945–1963.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Derek Penslar, “What is Israel Studies,” Inaugural Lecture, June 3, 2014. I am indebted to Derek Penslar for providing me with a copy of his lecture.
57. Ibid.
58. Interview with Colin Shindler, August 2 2021.
59. Interview with Derek Penslar, July 20, 2021.
60. Sara Hirschhorn, e-mail to author, November 10, 2021.
61. Interview with Avi Shlaim, September 23, 2021.
62. Interview with David Tal, September 23, 2021.
63. Interview with Eugene Rogan, September 14, 2021.
64. Ibid.
65. See note 61 above.
66. Interview with Yair Wallach, August 10, 2021.
67. Interview with Yaacov Yadgar, August 10, 2021.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. See note 59 above.
72. Ibid.
73. See note 61 above.
74. Sara Hirschhorn, e-mail to author, November 10, 2021. I would also categorize myself, and colleagues such as Sara Hirschhorn and Johannes Becke, similarly.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Peter Bergamin
Peter Bergamin is Lecturer in Oriental Studies at Mansfield College, University of Oxford, and Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Peter specializes on the British Mandate for Palestine, with a particular interest in Maximalist-Revisionist Zionism.His first monograph, The Making of the Israeli Far-Right: Abba Ahimeir and Zionist Ideology (I.B. Tauris, 2020), focused on the ideological and political genesis of one of the major leaders of pro-Fascist, Far-Right Zionism, in the 1920s and 30s. He is preparing a manuscript that focuses on the role of Jewish anti-British resistance in Britain’s withdrawal from the Palestine Mandate. His current research looks at Anglo-Jewry in the first half of the Twentieth Century, using the British Zionists Paul and Romana Goodman as a case study.