Israel & Zionism

A judge’s testimony.

Rejecting eight decades of rejection.

Can the haredi conscription crisis be resolved?

Why the U.S.-Israel relationship endures.

What will become of Hamas’s underground fortifications now that the fighting has stopped.

The biblical emphasis on prohibiting the mixing of grape seeds with other crops highlights the fruit's special role in Jewish tradition.

A verse expressing longing for Jerusalem and a psalm describing the return to Zion together capture the emotional and spiritual range of the Psalter.

Why do the songs of the Psalms draw to a close by speaking of a "new song?"

Psalm 122 gives us David’s vision of Jerusalem.

A psalm about the importance of memory is an apt one to study on Yom Hazikaron, Israel's Memorial Day.

How the State of Israel became a robust democracy, an economic powerhouse, and a true home for the Jewish people.

Dr. Polisar analyzes the strategic reality in which Israel has functioned during the last four decades and its successes and failures in that time.

How Israel's victory in the Yom Kippur War laid the groundwork for the most important peace agreement in its history.

Dr. Polisar explores how the Six-Day War transformed Israel's reality, the War of Attrition, and birth of the U.S.-Israel alliance.

In the Sinai War and the Six-Day War, Israel acted decisively to defend itself against its Arab neighbors and lay the basis for long-term security.

How Israel—led by David Ben-Gurion—overcame its early challenges and laid the foundations for a thriving society and state.

Dr. Polisar breaks down the causes and consequences of Israel's victory in the War of Independence, as well as its Declaration of Independence.

Dr. Polisar analyzes the decisions made within the Land of Israel and outside it that revived the prospects for a Jewish state after it seemed impossible.

Arabs escalate violence against Jews as the British try to appease them. Meanwhile, Jews build the institutions that could serve as the nucleus for their state.

Efforts to move to the Land of Israel and build a state accelerate just as Zionist diplomacy pays off with the Balfour Declaration.

How Theodor Herzl became Zionism's chief diplomat, institution-builder, and ideological visionary.

Dr. Polisar explores how the Jews revived the Hebrew language, developed the Zionist idea, and began to resettle the land beginning in the early 19th century.

How did the Jews overcome seemingly impossible odds to establish a state whose accomplishments are described as miraculous even by secular people?