Mozart in the Desert

This chapter examines the fraught dynamics preceding and immediately following the birth of the Jewish state of Israel following the conclusion of World War II, and the participation of Americans such as Leonard Bernstein in the celebration of that birth. These pages also introduce the concept of dual loyalty, or tension that American Jews felt questioning whether to identify first and foremost with the USA or the Jewish state, which was settled, in part, by premising American support for Israel on stopping the pressure for American Jews to immigrate to the newly defined state. The chapter concludes with an account of Bernstein’s symphony tour of an Israeli countryside on continued war-footing. Israel becomes fully an American cause.