Coming to Terms with the Past: Israel

History weighs more heavily on Israel and plays a greater role in public life than is probably the case for any other country. The modern State of Israel was founded in a self-conscious act of continuity with the Jewish states of antiquity and was cast as a revolt against the conditions of minority status and powerlessness during the two millennia that the Jews spent in the Diaspora, or, in the Israeli version, the Exile. The language of the country, the names conferred on places and people, the calendar and rhythm of life all serve to connect the present (and the future) with the deep past. They are also a reaction to a period of history within living memory, the persecution and mass murder of the European, and many North African, Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators.