The history of twentieth century British-Jews, Stephan E. C. Wenderhorst’s book shows, offers valuable insights to the understanding of British history. In his extended review of the book, Arie Dubnov examines the way in which Wenderhost’s book, which he characterizes as an attempt to re-frame the story “glocally”: that is, moving beyond older form of communal history Wenderhorst allows us to recognize the specific conditions of British politics and society that shaped the national transformation Britain’s Jews while at the same time it pushes us to re-reconsider British Jews as historical actors participating in a quintessentially transnational arena.
Given the prevalence of contemporary common wisdoms about the incompatibility of Zionism with the main tents of liberal political thought, the book offers a welcome remainder that such an unbridgeable gap never emerged.
Read the full review in Britain and the World, Volume 7, Issue 1:
http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/brw.2014.0124
Arie Dubnov is a Senior Lecturer in the School of History, University of Haifa, Israel. View his profile on Academia.edu
