ABSTRACT: This paper explores the role of Jewish-American immigrants in establishing the prominent West Bank settlement of Efrat (1973-).  It is a case-study from my forthcoming book City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement since 1967 (Harvard University Press) that examines the participation and discourses of the over 50,000 American-Israelis who live in the occupied territories today. Drawing on archival materials, the periodical press, and interviews never before brought to light, this article both explores the untold history of this settlement as the product of a dynamic and shifting quadrilateral relationship between American-Israelis, the Israeli government, the native Israeli settler movement, and local Palestinian communities. This cultural-intellectual history of U.S.-Israel relations highlights how and why Jewish-American immigrants imported liberal values and rhetoric drawn from their activism in social movements of the 1960s in the United States into the illiberal settlement project since the 1967 war.

SPEAKER: Dr. Sara Yael Hirschhorn is the University Research Lecturer and Sidney Brichto Fellow in Israel Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies and Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford. Her research, teaching, and outreach activities focus on the Israeli settler movement, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the relationship between American Jewry (and diaspora Jewry) and Israel. She is currently working on a forthcoming book entitled “City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement Since 1967,” (Harvard University Press, 2016). Apart from her scholarly activities, she is a op-ed columnist for Haaretz and a frequent public speaker, consultant, and writer on Jewish/Israel related affairs.

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