Air University Review, July-August 1977
Dr. Lewis B. Ware
I HAVE come to believe-at least since the publication by the great psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson of his superb biographies of Luther and Gandhi-that there is much to recommend the complementariness of history and psychology. Dr. Jay Gonen's book, A Psychohistory of Zionism,* is another among recent studies that confirms my original prejudice. Only I am chagrined as a professional historian that psychologists tend to write better history than historians write psychology. If I were to venture an answer for this phenomenon, I might be forced to conclude somewhat enviously that psychology possesses a more precise set of theoretical constructs with which to explore certain relationships that concern both our disciplines: especially those between symbols and their elaboration as discernible historical patterns.
*Jay Y. Gonen, A Psychohistory of Zionism (New York: Mason/ Charter, 1976, $15.00), 374 pages.
From the theoretical point of view, Dr. Gonen does not hide the fact that he is applying a Freudian bias to the study of Zionism. This is as it should be since, of all the theorists of modem psychology, only Freud has managed to combine a rigorously scientific view of man's inner relationship to his universe with the flexibility of interpretation required to render artistically man's world-view in terms of symbols. To this end the author undertakes his study with a number of discrete, yet subtlely interrelated essays which attempt to show the evolution of the Zionist world-view as an antidote to negative Jewish ego-symbols that have long determined the problematic nature of the relations between Jewish and non-Jewish society. In particular, Dr. Gonen devotes his attention to the symbolism of the schnorrer (the beggar), the luftmensch (the dreamer), and the goy (the Gentile).
To schnorr, says the author, is to beg from Jew and Gentile alike at the expense of the schnorrers dignity and self-esteem. In the hierarchy of negative Jewish ego-symbols, the highest form of schnorring is the kind of begging which the Court Jew, the stadtlan, does with the Gentile authorities on behalf of the Jewish community. But, as the author points out, the prestige that the stadtlan receives from Jews in no way compensates for the resulting deprivatidh of his own psyche. Similarly, the schnorrer can also be a luffmensch, the pathological dreamer of grandiose dreams, who hopes that by some miraculous intervention his fantasies of power and independence vis-à-vis non-Jewish authority will be realized and, in so doing, release him from the burden of self-hatred.
Central to the characterology of both schnorrers and luftmenschen is that in the wider context of Jewish history in the Diaspora the real enemy remains forever the goy, not the acquiescent Jew. And in the constant struggle against the Gentile's anti-Semitism, many of the Gentile's values are assimilated to the Jewish character. It is to this assimilation and its deleterious effects on the Jewish psyche that Zionism responds as a political, social, and cultural program that holds out psychological redemption to an entire people. Dr. Gonen's task, therefore, is to trace psychologically the working out of this redemptive process through Zionism from its historical inception to its final expression in Israeli nationhood.
If I were to criticize this admirable book, I would do so on exactly this point: that Dr. Gonen does not treat the historical process as well as he treats certain isolated historical instances. Consequently, the book lacks an overall focus on the development of the interrelationship between symbols and their sociopolitical expression as implied in the appearance of a new and unique Israeli people with its own world-view. Hence, it might have been more accurate to call the book a psychosymbology rather than a psychohistory of Zionism. Be that as it may, these minor criticisms ought not detract from the worth of this compelling, well-written study for all serious students of Middle Eastern affairs.
UNFORTUNATELY, the same recommendation cannot be made for Moshe Dayan's autobiography, Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life.* Though not badly written, the book is even in presentation and, like most books of its type, is meant by the author to be an apologia pro vita sua. Only on rare occasions, when General Dayan is not engrossed in justifying his policies, does he give the reader some insights into his role in the shaping of Israel's contemporary history.
One such occasion is the tripartite negotiation between Israel, France, and Great Britain that led to the 1956 Suez Campaign. Dayan, Ben-Gurion, and Shimon Peres played dominant roles in these talks, and the author is at his best when analyzing the political motives of each partner for securing President Gamal Abdel Nasser's downfall after the Egyptian leader nationalized the Suez Canal. The hitherto unknown story of these discussions makes fascinating reading and lends credence to the book as a historical document, even if the author eschews proper use of citations and source methodology.
*Moshe Dayan, Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life (New York: William Morrow, 1976, $15.00), 640 pages.
However, it is not the historical Moshe Dayan that this reviewer sought in his autobiography but Dayan, the elusive man. The author himself is not prone to self-revelation. Nevertheless, a sensitive reader will uncover, with careful scrutiny of the text, some personal characteristics that shed light on Dayan's thoughts and self-perceptions. Of interest are three important personal inclinations: first, Dayan romanticized the Bedouin; second, he sentimentalized the life of the kibbutznik; and third, he revealed an overwhelming passion for the pursuit of archaeology.
From the psychological point of view, Dayan's inclinations are not only relevant but applicable in the main to many Israelis. Romanticizing the Bedouin allows the Israeli to simplify the relationship between Jew and Arab by putting the relationship on the level of paternal stewardship. In this way all Arabs are reduced to the simple, noble unsophistication of the Bedouin whose virtues must be protected from contamination by civilization. If all Arabs Can be psychologically Bedouinized, they may therefore be stereotyped, rendering all their actions immediately intelligible to the stereotyper. In the process, the Arab's personality becomes to the Jew static, fossilized, and thoroughly predictable. Thus, Arabs are viewed as a depersonalized collectivity which, in the interests of Jewish self-defense, must be preserved intact. This attitude, adopted by many Israelis, reflects a typical colonial response to a colonized people which, by justifying the colonizer's w:I1shakable belief that only he "understands" the native, permits the relationship between the patron and client to be viewed in black-and-white terms. Dayan, for one, seems to be happy among Arabs only when he is 'sharing a nomad's desert hospitality.
Dayan is his most expansive when he recollects how wonderful it was to be a young kibbutznik" tilling the soil long before he attained a position of national responsibility. In the Zionist hierarchy of values, the colonization of Palestine is equated with the redemption of the Jewish people from rootless cosmopolitanism and degradation in the Diaspora. Collective development of the land, in particular, is meant to restore to the Jews psychological self-esteem and encourage, through a common effort, confidence, reliance, and devotion to the cause of selfmastery. The first generation of Palestinian-born Jews, to which Dayan belongs, was socialized to these values. The outcome was to create, as Dr. Gonen points out, a "cute but thorny" sabra who saw little profit in intellectualization. Rather, the sabra prefers practical solutions, is impatient for success, and possesses the chutzpah to impose his solutions on the environment. In essence, Dayan, the sabra is reacting to the negative image of the passive, acquiescent Jew of the Diaspora.
Last, we remark Dayan's passion for digging up the remnants of ancient Israelitic civilization. Once again, were we to refer to Dr. Gonen's evaluation, we would discover that here is another aspect of the same phenomenon: in the evolution of all young nationalisms there exists a felt need to recreate a continuity with the past. Zionism, being no exception to this rule, looks back to a Golden Age when Jews lived a Jewish life in Palestine in order to justify the role Jewish nationalism has played in giving this ancient mythical unity modern political expression. In the course of events, history is rewritten to accommodate old and new perceptions, and myths are resurrected or reinvented. More important for Zionism is the pervasive power of such mythmaking in overcoming the hold that the Diaspora exercises on the Jewish mind. In discovering a vibrant Jewish civilization that ruled in Palestine, Israelis reinforce a sense of self-mastery necessary for the continued survival of the state while, simultaneously, they become better equipped psychologically to cope with the negative ego-symbols generated by life in exile.
DAN KURZMAN'S book, The Bravest Battle,* exhibits many of the same attitudes. It claims to be an authentic narrative of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, where a handful of Jewish resistance fighters went to a certain death defending their coreligionists from inevitable deportation to the infamous Nazi extermination camps. The story exposes an appalling human brutishness which all of us would do well to understand. Sadly, Kurzman's rendition of this tragic episode inhuman history only serves to cheapen its moral value for the reader. His writing is, first of all, profoundly a historical and, . second, is designed to promote the story of the uprising for propagandistic purposes. this is readily apparent from the novelistic style of the book; the author provides the resistance fighters with improbable dialogues as he attempts to reconstruct the day-to-day fighting through the eyes of the participants. Since the vast majority of the fighters died in the ghetto and the documents on which the author's account is based are rarely cited, the overall effect is a travesty of fact that detracts from the gallant and heroic example of these men and women.
(New York: Putnam's Sons, 1976 $10.00), 386 pages.*Dan Kurzman, The Bravest Battle: The 28 Days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
In order to intensify his narrative Kurzman indulges in unacceptable stereotyping. The Germans are portrayed as pure Nazi types, Prussian in demeanor, Teutonic in looks, and slaves to Hitler's racial theories while the Jews tend to be Semitic in appearance, passive and weak in character, and quick to compromise for one more day of life; all, of course, except the resistance fighters, who are the only ones to grasp the magnitude of the situation. The author's intent is to prove that Jews are not cowards. Moreover, they can demonstrate superior military prowess against insurmountable odds. His story is, therefore, meant to project an image of the Jewish people as capable of defending itself against persecution, the ancient expression of which is the Masada episode in Jewish history when a group of Hebrew zealots chose to die rather than surrender their mountain stronghold to the Roman army. Masada has, consequently, become the rallying cry of Jews in the face of Arab threats of annihilation and a justification for Israeli militarism.
Perhaps a more telling manifestation of the Masada complex is to be found among the members of the Jewish Defense League in the United States, whose slogan "never again" indicates Jewish determination to resist to the last drop of blood the destructive impulses of the Gentile world. The major flaw of Kurzman's book is that he succeeds in making free use of all these potent psychological symbols not in the interests of advancing historical understanding of Jewish history and human compassion for the sufferings of the Jews but to encourage the hardening of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews into mutually suspicious and inflexible attitudes.
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Dr. Lewis B. Ware (Ph.D., Princeton University) is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History and a member of the Documentary Research Branch, Air University. He has taught and done research at the University of Tunis and in Cairo, as a Fellow of the American Research Center. Before coming to Maxwell, he was on the staff of New York University and served as a consultant to the International Research and Exchange Commission. Dr. Ware is a prize-winning amateur photographer.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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