Apollonians, Jews turned into the only Apollonians in a world of Mercurians (or rather, the only civilized Apollonians in a world of Mercurians and barbarians). They were still strangers—but this time they were welcome (to the Westerners) because they remained remote. During the quarter of a century following World War II, Israel was everyone’s fantasy of youthful vigor, joyful labor, human authenticity, and just retribution. It was the only place where European Civilization seemed to possess a moral certainty, the only place where violence was truly virtuous. Apartheid South Africa, which also saw itself as the defender of a small ethnically pure tribe guided by manifest destiny, governed by democratic institutions, committed to making deserts bloom, and surrounded by unruly and prolific barbarians, was increasingly seen as an impostor and an embarrassment. Israel, which provided a home for Holocaust survivors while continuing to embody a genuine grassroots revolution by a nation brutally victimized by Europeans in Europe, was a righteous reproach to the “civilized world” and perhaps a guarantee of its future redemption. The most important institution in Israel was the army; the most admired heroes were generals; and the most celebrated profession was paratrooper (and the most celebrated paratrooper in the 1950s was Ariel Sharon). One of the most popular books was Aleksandr Bek’s Soviet war novel, The Volokolamsk Highway (1943–44), which describes how a fatherly Russian general, who combines utter simplicity with an innate knowledge of the “mystery of war” (very much in the tradition of Tolstoy’s Kutuzov), and a young Kazakh lieutenant, with the “face of an Indian” carved out of bronze “by some very sharp instrument,” transform a motley collection of patriotic men into a cohesive, invincible unit. Their main weapon is “psychology.” In one of the novel’s key passages, the lieutenant approaches a recent recruit who has not yet mastered the art of fighting or understood the true meaning of patriotism. “Do you want to return home, embrace your wife, and hug your children?” “This is not the time . . . We’ve got to fight.” “Right, but what about after the war? Do you?” “Of course I do . . . Who doesn’t?” “You don’t!” “What do you mean? “Because whether or not you’ll be able to go back home depends on you. It’s all in your hands. Do you want to stay alive? If so, you must kill