- Anita Shapira
Anita Shapira ( _he. אניטה שפירא, born 1940) is an
Israel i historian. She is the founder of theYitzhak Rabin Center forIsrael Studies, a Ruben Merenfeld Professor of the Study ofZionism and head of the Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism atTel Aviv University . She received theIsrael Prize in 2008.Biography
Shapira was born in
Poland in 1940, immigrated to Palestine in 1947 and grew up inTel Aviv . She studied general andJewish history atTel Aviv University , completing herPh.D in 1974 under the supervision of ProfessorDaniel Carpi . Herdissertation , "The Struggle for Hebrew Labor, 1929-1939," indicated her interest in the history of the Labor Zionist movement, which was to be a continuing focus of her research. Since 1985 she has been a full professor at Tel Aviv University, serving in 1990-95 as dean of the Faculty ofHumanities . Since 1995 she has held the Ruben Merenfeld Chair for the Study of Zionism, and since 2000 she has headed theChaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel at Tel Aviv University.She has been active in many aspects of academic life in Israel. In 1985-89 she was member of the Planning and Budgeting Commission of the Council for Higher Education in Israel; in 1987-90 she was chair of the board of
Am Oved publishing house, and since 1988 has sat on the board of theZalman Shazar Institute. In 2002-08 she was president of The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Anita Shapira was the founder of theYitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies and its first director in 1996-99.Prizes
In 1977 she was awarded a prize from the Ben-Zvi Institute for her book Hama’avak Hanihzav (The Futile Struggle), and in 1992 the
Am Oved publishing house awarded her a prize, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, for the best non-fiction book, Herev Hayona (Land and Power), the English version of which won the National Jewish Book Award in 1993 in the category "Israel " In 2004 she was awarded theZalman Shazar prize in Jewish History, for her biography ofYigal Allon , and in 2005 she won the Herzl Prize from the city ofHerzliya , for her excellence in research on Zionism. Anita Shapira was awarded theIsrael Prize inJewish history for 2008.Research
Shapira’s research focuses on the political, cultural, social, intellectual and
military history of theJewish community inPalestine (the Yishuv) andIsrael .Her first book, based on her doctoral dissertation, Hama’avak Hanihzav: Avoda Ivrit 1929-1939 (The Futile Struggle: Hebrew Work 1929-1939), deals with the social and political history of theYishuv in the 1920s and 1930s, including the controversies on policy towards theArab population and the conflicts between left and right on the means for achieving Zionist goals.Her second book, Berl: The Biography of a Socialist Zionist,
Berl Katznelson , 1887-1944, was widely acclaimed by the general reading public as well as in academia and was published inHebrew in eight editions. Focusing on a major figure in the Labor Zionist movement, this book portrays the history, society and culture of theYishuv from theSecond Aliyah to the end ofWorld War II .During work on a biography of Yigal Allon, Shapira became interested in the role of force in the Zionist movement, initially inspired by a famous article written by
Menachem Begin during the1982 Lebanon War on “A War of Choice.” This resulted in a book, Herev Hayona: Hatziyonut vehakoah, 1881-1948 (Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948). In her biography ofYigal Allon (2004), Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography, Shapira in fact portrays the development of the entirePalmach generation inPalestine , the first native-bornSabra generation.In this period she also started investigating issues connected to culture and collective memory, as in articles on
Latrun andS. Yizhar ’s short story “Hirbet Hize,” and on the attitudes of Israeli society to theHolocaust and Holocaust survivors. Her book "Hatanakh vehazehut hayisraelit" (The Bible and Israeli identity) seeks to explain why the status of theBible has declined in Israeli identity. Issues of identity, culture and memory are also the focus of two collection of essays, Yehudim Hadashim, Yehudim Yeshanim (New Jews, Old Jews), and "Yehudim, Tziyonim Umah shebeinehem" (Jews, Zionists and Between).Many of her books have been translated into English, German, Russian, and French.
Bibliography
* Berl: The Biography of a Socialist Zionist, Berl Katznelson, 1887-1944/ Anita Shapira , translated by Haya Galai.
Cambridge University Press , 1984, ISBN 0-521-25618-6
* Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 (Studies in Jewish History)/ Anita Shapira ; translated by William Templer.Oxford University Press , 1992, ISBN 0-19-506104-7)
* Essential papers on Zionism / edited byJehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
* Zionism and religion /Shmuel Almog , Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira, editors. Hanover:Brandeis University Press in association with theZalman Shazar Center for Jewish History , 1998.
* Israeli historical revisionism: from left to right / edited by Anita Shapira andDerek J. Penslar . Portland, Ore.:Frank Cass , 2003.
* Israeli identity in transition / edited by Anita Shapira. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004.
* Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography/ Anita Shapira, translated by Evelyn Abel.University of Pennsylvania Press , 2008, ISBN 978-0-8122-4028-3External links
* [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/141996 Tamir Announces Israel Prize Winners for History]
* [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/956894.html Anita Shapira, Benjamin Isaac win Israel Prize]
* [http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/courses01/rrtw/Shapira.htm THE FAILURE OF ISRAEL'S "NEW HISTORIANS" TO EXPLAIN WAR AND PEACE/ Anita Shapira]
* [http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/modern_judaism/v018/18.3shapira.html Zionism in the Age of Revolution]
* [http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/jewish_social_studies/v007/7.1shapira.html Hirbet Hizah: Between Remembrance and Forgetting]
* [http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14393.html Yigal Allon, Native Son A Biography]
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