The Jewish State: Israeli History from Mandate to October 7

Eight 90-minute live sessions, Sundays from August 2 to October 18, 2026, pausing for the High Holidays. Taught by Uriel Zehavi. The course moves chronologically from the British Mandate to the morning of October 7, tracking a single through-line: how a people returned to sovereignty, what they built, what challenged them, and what collapsed on the day the long pause ended. Students finish with a working understanding of Israeli strategic history: the political Zionism that made the state possible, the wars that established and tested it, the peace processes that were supposed to end the conflict and did not, the decade of containment that preceded October 7, and the return of history that followed. The reading list is drawn from the Mitzpe Press catalog — required reading doubles as a permanent reference shelf.