The Time of the “Pre”: Revisiting “The Time of the ʽPostʼ in Israeli Sociology” (vol. 26, 2005)

The accepted periodization marks the beginning of Israeli sociology in 1948, when the first department was established at the Hebrew University, or in 1951, when Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt became the department’s chairperson. This periodization calls for revision. This essay suggests that Israeli proto-sociology had already emerged with the beginning of modern Jewish emigration and settlement in Palestine in 1882. It deciphers three arenas in which the harbingers of sociology worked: the ideological arena of the Zionist organic intellectuals; the governmental arena of the experts; and the academic arena of the professors of sociology. The essay argues that the ideological identification of the discipline with Jewish colonial nationalism began already in the era of settlement (1882–1948).