Anita Shapira
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Anita Shapira (Hebrew: אניטה שפירא, born 1940) is an Israeli historian. She is the founder of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, a Ruben Merenfeld Professor of the Study of Zionism and head of the Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism at Tel Aviv University. She received the Israel Prize in 2008.
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[edit] Biography
Shapira was born in Poland in 1940, immigrated to Israel in 1947 and grew up in Tel Aviv. She studied general and Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, completing her Ph.D in 1974 under the supervision of Professor Daniel Carpi. Her dissertation, "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 of Humanities. Since 1995 she has held the Ruben Merenfeld Chair for the Study of Zionism, and since 2000 she has headed the Chaim 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 the Zalman Shazar Institute. In 2002-08 she was president of The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Anita Shapira was the founder of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies and its first director in 1996-99.
[edit] 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 the Zalman Shazar prize in Jewish History, for her biography of Yigal Allon, and in 2005 she won the Herzl Prize from the city of Herzliya, for her excellence in research on Zionism. Anita Shapira was awarded the Israel Prize in Jewish history for 2008.
[edit] Research
Shapira’s research focuses on the political, cultural, social, intellectual and military history of the Jewish community in Palestine (the Yishuv) and Israel. 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 the Yishuv in the 1920s and 1930s, including the controversies on policy towards the Arab 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 in Hebrew in eight editions. Focusing on a major figure in the Labor Zionist movement, this book portrays the history, society and culture of the Yishuv from the Second Aliyah to the end of World 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 the 1982 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 of Yigal Allon (2004), Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography, Shapira in fact portrays the development of the entire Palmach generation in Palestine, the first native-born Sabra generation.
In this period she also started investigating issues connected to culture and collective memory, as in articles on Latrun and S. Yizhar’s short story “Hirbet Hize,” and on the attitudes of Israeli society to the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors. Her book Hatanakh vehazehut hayisraelit (The Bible and Israeli identity) seeks to explain why the status of the Bible 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.
[edit] 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 by Jehuda 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 the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1998.
- Israeli historical revisionism: from left to right / edited by Anita Shapira and Derek 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 978-0-8122-4028-3
