Avinoam J. Patt examines the relationship between the two most significant events in modern Jewish history. Is there a causal relationship between these two events, separated by only three years? Was the creation of the state of Israel made more or less likely by the Holocaust? This book carefully considers this question, not just from the perspective of historical causality, but also with regard to its major political implications. How did Zionist political leadership respond to the threat of Nazism in the years leading up to World War II? What efforts did leaders of the Yishuv make to rescue European Jews during World War II? And in what ways did the aftermath of the Holocaust help or hinder the Zionist effort to create a Jewish State after World War II?

Avinoam J. Patt argues that the State of Israel has always existed in an uneasy relationship with the Shoah. On the one hand, Israel was faced with the challenge of taking in hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors as new citizens of the state, many of whom were discouraged from sharing their traumatic wartime experiences with their fellow citizens. On the other hand, the destruction of European Jewry and the failure of Western democracy to protect the Jewish minority in Europe seemed to vindicate the Zionist worldview. Israel and the Holocaust documents this tension and analyses the changing nature of Israel's relationship to the Shoah, revealing that it only seems to strengthen with the passage of time.