Classic Socialist Zionism and the Emergence of Radical Socialist Zionism in France in the 1960s

Abstract

The awakening of Jewish identity that followed the 1967 war and the student rebellion of May 1968 brought on a major metamorphosis in the socialist Zionist Left in France. Left-wing Zionist groups at this time found themselves facing off not only against the traditional Marxist Left, with its at best ambiguous and at worst hostile attitude to Jewish nationalism, but also against a stridently anti-Zionist New Left. The result was the emergence of a new revolutionary Zionist Left that grew out of the politicization and radicalization of the younger generation during the struggle against the colonial wars in Algeria and Vietnam. Its principal agents were two members of Israel’s Marxist-Zionist Mapam party, Simha Flapan and Ely Ben-Gal, who were dispatched to Paris. Their and the party’s impact on Zionism in France at this critical juncture in the history of the New Left has long been underestimated.