The Nation and Israel

After reading this week's cover story about American Jews and Israel, I was curious about how The Nation covered Israel's story, especially in its formative years. Not surprisingly, it has been consistently thoughtful and thorough. Here are just three examples. The first is a report and analysis of the 1917 proclamation by the Right Honorable Arthur James Balfour, the First Earl of Balfour and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (the Brits may be clueless when it comes to fine food and dentistry, but they sure know how to come up with titles), which put a semi-official imprimatur on Zionism and set the stage for what has been nearly a century of conflict. When Israel was born in 1948, The Nation's editor, Freda Kirchwey, was a sympathetic witness. Kirchwey was a marvelous reporter, and she traveled to Israel in the midst of the war to see what was going on for herself. She ended up filing a remarkable five-part series on the nascent country's struggle to survive against incredible odds. Part two was Kirchwey's report on why the Arabs fled Jaffa in 1948, a question that remains highly contentious today. Since so many of Israel's current troubles have arisen from its treatment of the Palestinians, I also took a sampling of the magazine's coverage of the Six-Day War, when Israel's territorial gains soon became a millstone. Stanley Wolpert was in Tel Aviv after the war, and he filed this prescient report, predicting many of the political and military challenges that still haunt Israel, and really the entire region.

Have a question about any aspect of The Nation's archives or its history? Drop me a line at jeff.kisseloff@gmail.com To be notified of new posts to this blog, follow me on twitter @jeffisme.

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