The Altalena: Israel’s (Almost) Civil War

Unpacking Israeli History

Unpacked

Judaism, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just a month after its establishment, the State of Israel was on the brink of civil war, with two of its greatest leaders — David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin — facing off in the ultimate power struggle. Noam Weissman unpacks an event that continues to reverberate through Israeli society to this day. Join him as he asks how the Zionist dream nearly imploded and who deserves the credit for ending one of the biggest crises in Israeli history. ~~~~ The Unpacking Israeli History Podcast series is sponsored by Andrea and Larry GillThis episode is sponsored by Jack and Ellen Kahan Zager in honor of Ala and Yoske (z”l) Brosh ~~~~ Learn more about Unpacked: https://jewishunpacked.com/about/ Visit Unpacked on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/unpacked Teaching about this topic? Check out our relevant educator resources here: https://unpacked.education/video/the-ship-that-almost-sank-israel/ ~~~~ Sources: Daniel Gordis, Menachem Begin, The Battle For Israel’s Soul Anita Shapira, Israel: A History Itamar Rabinovitch, Yitzchak Rabin Dan Ephron, Killing a King ~~~~ Unpacked is a division of OpenDor Media

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Noam Weisman, and you're listening to unpacking Israeli history,
0:04.0	the podcast that takes a deep dive into some of the most intense,
0:07.6	historically fascinating and confusing events in Israeli history.
0:12.0	All that in just about 20 minutes.
0:14.7	Yala, let's do this. We the people of Israel people of Israel.
0:25.0	We will be not Israel.
0:27.0	We, the people of Israel, are prepared and anxious to meet the representatives of our neighbors without any preconditions.
0:36.0	There are people in Israel elsewhere say it's impossible to make peace within the Arabs and Israel of the Jewish people.
0:45.0	I think they're home.
0:47.0	I'm more of a non-fiction guy than a fiction guy.
0:52.0	I love history and biographies. I love the world of thought and ideas and I love
0:56.3	being able to say, here are new things I now know because of what I read. But ever since the
1:02.3	COVID-19 pandemic, I've sort of expanded my horizons and I've been reading a bunch of fiction.
1:08.0	My favorite book, the one that I can't seem to get out of my head, is John Steinbeck's East of Eden. If you haven't read it or if you haven't read it in a while,
1:17.8	make sure to pick it up and spend some precious time with it. The theme or the motif of sibling rivalry recurs throughout.
1:25.0	First, it's with Adam and his brother Charles, and then Adam has two sons, named Cal and Aaron.
1:31.0	Playing off the first instance of Fracicicide, that is a brother killing a brother in the Bible when Cain killed Abel. See the theme of see names and name names there? Steinbeck tells the story of brothers fighting Brothers, which is what he calls the symbol story of the human soul.
1:48.0	Normally, when we think about the concept of the original sin, certainly more of a Christian concept than a Jewish one, we think of Eve and Adam.
1:57.2	But Steinbeck forces us to reconsider this idea and instead basically highlights the sin of brothers fighting brothers
2:04.2	siblings fighting siblings which is what really drives society even today
2:09.2	this is at the heart of the story of the Altolena, in which Israeli brothers, Jewish brothers,
2:16.2	fought each other, almost causing a civil war.
	...

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