Limmud NY 2015

While we often think of Israel as a country driven and divided by rigorous devotion to ideology, there is another tradition in which ideologies have been transformed by confronting new and especially undesirable realities. This phenomenon will be examined through reviewing Ben-Gurion’s changing relationships to borders, Diaspora Jewry, and the organization of Zionist society.

What guidance can a largely diasporic Jewish corpus offer today's Israeli military? This session mines Jewish tradition for responses to the relatively new reality of asymmetric/guerrilla warfare in the Middle East, while placing these responses in context of contemporary Israeli debate.