This book is an attempt to analyse the evolution of territorial orbit of the Jewish national identity through three seminal events in the Jewish history, namely diaspora, emigration to Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel. Parallel to it, this work seeks to analyse how space and memory as constituents of Jewish identity are refashioned in each stage in nationalist history, mustering up three overlapping areas of humanities and social science, viz. geography, memory and identity. It also examines community’s relations with geography and memory and their bid to create space and narratives to serve the purpose of the present. 

Thanks to the collage-like appearance of many political as well as sociological themes, the nationalist history of Jewish people has been a brilliant theme for vigorous academic study. It is of course a rallying point for three or more disciplines; primarily of politics, then, of course, of sociology, history and anthropology.

Academic works on Jewish nationalism in general and Zionism in particular are seen in abundance. The multitude of political as well as social features of this nationalism has attracted many scholars. However, the conventional characterisation in terms of basic choices between modern and traditional, secular and religious, universal and particular fail to measure the extent of dynamism and creative interplay of various interesting processes involved in it. Moreover, there are not many studies adequately dealing with evolution of these nationalisms from the angle of space and memory that are inseparably bound up with it.   

M.H. Ilias completed his doctoral research in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Currently, he is teaching politics and international relations at Kunjali Marakkar Centre for West Asian Studies, University of Calicut, Kerala. His works include India-West Asia Relations: Understanding Cultural Interplays; Spectrum of Islam: Question of Plurality in Contemporary Islamic Debates and Kerala Muslims: Between Globality and Globalisation (forthcoming).

He has recently been awarded the Ford Foundation Fellowship for Post-doctoral Research at Oxford University.