This study examines the role of messianism in Zionist ideology from the birth of the movement through to the present. It shows how messianism is not just a religious or philosophical term but a very tangible political practice whichhas shaped Israeli identity.

Part of Palgrave's Modernism and... series, Modernism and Zionism explores the relationship between modernism and the Jewish national ideology, the Zionist movement, which was operative in all areas of Jewish art and culture.

We claim that Zionism as a meta-narrative has been formed through contradiction to two alternative models, the Canaanite and crusader narratives. These narratives are the most daring and heretical assaults on Israeli-Jewish identity, which is umbilically connected to Zionism. The Israelis, according to the Canaanite narrative, are from this place and belong only here; according to the crusader narrative, they are from another place and belong there. On the one hand, the mythological construction of Zionism as a modern crusade describes Israel as a Western colonial enterprise planted in the...