Zion and State: Nation, Class, and the Shaping of Modern Israel

Zion and State explores the origins of the struggle between the left and right in Israel and the Zionist movement. Mitchell Cohen traces the emergence of Jewish nationalism and modern Jewish political ideologies in the late nineteenth century, the birth of Zionist political parties at the time of Theodor Herzl, and the genesis of Israeli politics through the first fifteen years of Jewish statehood.

Analyzing the political battles of the 1920s and 1930s, Cohen shows how the Zionist Labor move...