Daniel Mahla – författare

A Continent Apart explores how Israelis imagined Europe during the second half of the twentieth century. Israel's diplomatic and economic ties with Europe have been well documented, but far less attention has been paid to how it has been perceived, debated, and reframed by the Israeli public.Drawing on newspapers, popular media, travel literature, and cultural events, author Daniel Mahla uncovers the multiple and often conflicting meanings Israelis have assigned to this elusive construct—as historical wound, geopolitical actor, cultural model, and moral mirror. From media representations of Europe's ideological fault lines to international sports controversies, the Eurovision Song Contest, and tourism, Mahla illuminates how Israelis encountered Europe not as a distant abstraction but rather as a lived and emotionally charged experience. Rather than treating Europe as a fixed geographic or institutional entity, this book approaches it as a symbolic field: an imagined space shaped through Israeli struggles over identity, belonging, and modernity.Bringing political discourse into conversation with popular culture, A Continent Apart offers a new perspective on the relationship between Israel and Europe—a deep struggle over contested meanings and national orientation.

A Continent Apart explores how Israelis imagined Europe during the second half of the twentieth century. Israel's diplomatic and economic ties with Europe have been well documented, but far less attention has been paid to how it has been perceived, debated, and reframed by the Israeli public.Drawing on newspapers, popular media, travel literature, and cultural events, author Daniel Mahla uncovers the multiple and often conflicting meanings Israelis have assigned to this elusive construct—as historical wound, geopolitical actor, cultural model, and moral mirror. From media representations of Europe's ideological fault lines to international sports controversies, the Eurovision Song Contest, and tourism, Mahla illuminates how Israelis encountered Europe not as a distant abstraction but rather as a lived and emotionally charged experience. Rather than treating Europe as a fixed geographic or institutional entity, this book approaches it as a symbolic field: an imagined space shaped through Israeli struggles over identity, belonging, and modernity.Bringing political discourse into conversation with popular culture, A Continent Apart offers a new perspective on the relationship between Israel and Europe—a deep struggle over contested meanings and national orientation.

During the first half of the twentieth century, nationalizing processes in Europe and Palestine reshaped observant Jewry into two distinct societies, ultra-Orthodoxy and national-religious Judaism. Tracing the dynamics between the two most influential Orthodox political movements of the period, from their early years through the founding of the State of Israel, Daniel Mahla examines the crucial role that religio-political entrepreneurs played in these developments. He frames the contest between non-Zionist Agudat Yisrael and religious-Zionist Mizrahi as the product of wide-ranging social and cultural struggles within Orthodox Judaism and demonstrates that at the core of their conflict lay deep tensions between rabbinic authority and political activism. While Orthodoxy's encounter with modern Jewish nationalism is often cast as a confrontation between religious and secular forces, this book highlights the significance of intra-religious competition for observant Jewry's transition to the age of the nation state and beyond.

During the first half of the twentieth century, nationalizing processes in Europe and Palestine reshaped observant Jewry into two distinct societies, ultra-Orthodoxy and national-religious Judaism. Tracing the dynamics between the two most influential Orthodox political movements of the period, from their early years through the founding of the State of Israel, Daniel Mahla examines the crucial role that religio-political entrepreneurs played in these developments. He frames the contest between non-Zionist Agudat Yisrael and religious-Zionist Mizrahi as the product of wide-ranging social and cultural struggles within Orthodox Judaism and demonstrates that at the core of their conflict lay deep tensions between rabbinic authority and political activism. While Orthodoxy''s encounter with modern Jewish nationalism is often cast as a confrontation between religious and secular forces, this book highlights the significance of intra-religious competition for observant Jewry''s transition to the age of the nation state and beyond.