How is Israeli society formed? (1–2)

Published on August 3, 2025, an article titled “A Dialogue in a Synagogue about the Agonies of the People of Gaza” was released. Among the details mentioned in the article, I noted that I gifted two books to the head of relations at the most prominent synagogue in Basel: one by the Palestinian-American Rashid Khalidi, and the other by the Israeli Tom Segev. Both books were in German. My choice of these two books stemmed from the fact that I had previously read Khalidi’s work, while for Tom Segev, I had read an interview published in the Israeli newspaper *Haaretz* on April 4, 2025. I was deeply moved by Segev’s interview because it reveals aspects of Israeli history that are not easily accessible. The interview spans approximately 24 pages, in which the author criticizes Israeli brutality in Gaza, describing it as a war of extermination. In the interview, Segev discloses the historical roots of his family, explaining how he was raised believing his father had fled a Nazi camp in Germany in 1935 along with his mother, whom he had met at university. His father was killed in Israel’s “War of Independence” in 1948, when Tom was three years old. However, his sister, Jutta, revealed a truth that overturned his convictions and his faith in the Israeli state. She disclosed that his father was a Jewish leftist, not a Zionist, and that he fled to Israel out of fear of Nazi persecution, but he had not escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. In fact, the camp his mother claimed his father had escaped from was established by the Nazis in 1936, whereas his father had emigrated to Israel in 1935. The second lie revealed by his sister was that his father had not died fighting in the “War of Independence,” but rather while climbing a water pipe to reach the roof of a house to deliver food to his comrades. His mother had fabricated this final lie so she could receive a monthly pension on the grounds that her husband had died fighting Arabs. These two lies shook Segev’s convictions regarding his family’s history and Israel’s history. The interview notes that his sister Jutta could not bear living in Israel and returned to Germany in 1960, regaining her German citizenship.

In truth, I tried to find one of Tom Segev’s works in English at a bookstore in Basel, but unfortunately, I did not find it. He has more than one book that I would have liked to purchase for reading and as a reference on Israeli history, but they were all in German. However, last April, I was in New York visiting my daughter, Latifa, and I often spent time at the Strand Bookstore on Broadway and another one near the United Nations building. One day before my return to Kuwait, I was at this bookstore, where I asked for specific books by Tom Segev but could not find them. As I exited the store, I began looking at books displayed on tables outside the store at bargain prices, when my eyes fell upon Tom Segev’s book *The Seventh Million*, which was translated and published in English in 1993. It was priced at three dollars, which was two dollars less than the price of a cup of coffee. I took it with joy and began flipping through it in the bookstore’s café while chatting with the friendly waitress. After paying five dollars for the coffee, I paid three dollars for the book. I left the store heading to the hotel, overwhelmed with happiness because I had acquired an important book by a distinguished Israeli historian, who had the courage to declare that the war in Gaza was a war of extermination, and whose reputation was built on exposing the falsity of Israeli history.

The first chapters of the book, which exceeds 600 pages, focus on how Israeli society was formed, particularly regarding Jewish migrations to Palestine, the beginnings of the society’s establishment, and the challenges it faced—not only from the conflict with the Palestinian people or Jewish-British disagreements during the Mandate period—but also on how peoples of various nationalities managed to integrate with one another to form the Israeli people. It also focuses on competition among political movements within the Zionist movement, particularly the rivalry between the Mapai and Histadrut organizations on one side, and Likud and the right wing in general on the other. It also highlights migrations from Germany and Austria, and their insistence on retaining their German language and culture, in contrast to the majority formed by migrations from Eastern Europe. Thus, during the period from 1931 to 1945, migrants from Germany and Austria resisted integration into Israeli society, which they found different and backward. This group insisted on speaking and publishing in German, looking down on the idea of accepting Hebrew as their national language. In this regard, it is worth noting that when the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology was established in Haifa in 1923, there was competition between Hebrew and German, and Hebrew was chosen as the language of instruction at the institute. German and Austrian Jews insisted on having their own shops, libraries, and newspapers in German. However, as a result of social, political, and economic pressures, they were forced to learn Hebrew.

Dr. Hamed Al-Humoud