The Rise of the Individual in 1950s Israel: A Challenge to Collectivism [Paperback]

In this sharply argued volume, Orit Rozin reveals the flaws in the conventional account of Israeli society in the 1950s, which portrayed the Israeli public as committed to a collectivist ideology. In fact, major sectors of Israeli society espoused individualism and rejected the state-imposed collectivist ideology. Rozin draws on archival, legal, and media sources to analyze the attitudes of black-market profiteers, politicians and judges, middle-class homemakers, and immigrants living in transit camps and rural settlements. Part of a refreshing trend in recent Israeli historiography to study the voices, emotions, and ideas of ordinary people, Rozins book provides an important corrective to much extant scholarly literature on Israels early years.

ORIT ROZIN is a lecturer in the department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University.

Acknowledgments Introduction: The First Years AT HOME AND ON THE STREET Austerity: Desperate Housewives and the Government Austerity and the Rule of Law The Law Enforcement System IN THE CITY SQUARE Austerity Tested: The Local Elections of 1950 The Municipal Election Results and Their Significance From Poll to Poll: The Elections for the Second Knesset The Outcome of the Elections to the Second Knesset SOMEWHERE IN THE TRANSIT CAMP Terms of Abhorrence: How Old-Time Israelis Viewed Immigrants from the Islamic World Parents, Parenting, and Children The Construction of a Collective: Relations between Immigrants and Old-Time Israelis Conclusion Notes References Index