Here is Judith Butler, interviewed by Udi Aloni in Haaretz, and speaking about the strict construction of Jewish identity and how that process must be taken apart so that people in Israel/Palestine can live together. Note that in the second half of the interview, Butler makes a very strong BDS call.
I grew very skeptical of certain kind of Jewish separatism in my youth. I mean, I saw the Jewish community was always with each other; they didn’t trust anybody outside. You’d bring someone home and the first question was "Are they Jewish, are they not Jewish?" Then I entered into a lesbian community in college, late college, graduate school, and the first thing they asked was, "Are you a feminist, are you not a feminist?" "Are you a lesbian, are you not a lesbian?" and I thought "Enough with the separatism!"
It felt like the same kind of policing of the community. You only trust those who are absolutely like yourself, those who have signed a pledge of allegiance to this particular identity. Is that person really Jewish, maybe they’re not so Jewish. I don’t know if they’re really Jewish. Maybe they’re self-hating. Is that person lesbian? I think maybe they had a relationship with a man. What does that say about how true their identity was? I thought I can’t live in a world in which identity is being policed in this way….
I have to say, first of all, that I do not think that there can be emancipation with and through the establishment of a state that restricts citizenship in the way that it does, on the basis of religion. So in my view, any effort to retain the idea of emancipation when you don’t have a state that extends equal rights of citizenship to Jews and non-Jews alike is, for me, bankrupt. It’s bankrupt.
That’s why I would say that there should be bi-nationalism from the beginning.
Or even multi-nationalism. Maybe even a kind of citizenship without regard to religion, race, ethnicity, etc. In any case, the more important point here is that there are those who clearly believe that Jews who are not in Israel, who are in the Galut, are actually either in need of return–they have not yet returned, or they are not and cannot be representative of the Jewish people. So the question is: what does it mean to transform the idea of Galut into Diaspora? In other words, Diaspora is another tradition, one that involves the scattering without return. I am very critical of this idea of return, and I think "Galut" very often demeans the Diasporic traditions within Judaism….
there has to be a cultural movement that overcomes hatred and paranoia and that actually draws on questions of cohabitation. Living in mixity and in diversity, accepting your neighbor, finding modes of living together. And no political solution, at a purely procedural level, is going to be successful if there is no bilingual education, if there are no ways of reorganizing neighborhoods, if there are no ways of reorganizing territory, bringing down the wall, accepting the neighbors you have, and accepting that there are profound obligations that emerge from being adjacent to another people in this way.
So I agree with you. But I think we have to get over the idea that a state has to express a nation. And if we have a bi-national state, it’s expressing two nations. Only when bi-nationalism deconstructs the idea of a nation can we hope to think about what a state, what a polity might look like that would actually extend equality. It is no longer the question of "two peoples," as Martin Buber put it. There is extraordinary complexity and intermixing among both the Jewish and the Palestinian populations. There will be those who say, "Ok, a state that expresses two cultural identities." No. State should not be in the business of expressing cultural identity….
Well, the Jews would be afraid of losing demographic majority if voting rights were extended to Palestinians. I do think that there is the fundamental question of "Who is this ‘we’?" Who are we? The question of bi-nationalism raises the question of who is the "we" who decides what kind of polity is best for this land. The "we" has to be heterogeneous; it has to be mixed. Everyone who is there and has a claim – and the claims are various. They come from traditional and legal grounds of belonging that are quite complicated. So one has to be open to that complication.
There is a lawsuit underway in Israel to force the government to establish an “Israel nationality” as opposed to Jews, Arabs, etc.
RE: There is a lawsuit underway in Israel to force the government to establish an “Israel nationality” – potsherd
SEE: The Nation Of Israel? Wait And See., By Bernard Avishai, TPM Cafe, 02/28/10
(EXCERRPT) Back in 2005, I called attention to a curious petition, filed the year before with Israel’s High Court of Justice. The petitioners were thirty-eight citizens of Israel, most of them Jews but a number of them Arabs: businesspeople, professors, entertainers, writers, jurists; a past minister of education, a past head of the air force. Their petition enjoined the court to order the Ministry of Interior to inscribe them as “Israeli” in the Registry of Population…
…as I wrote then, the petitioners were asking the state to recognize an inclusive, earned form of nationality, coterminous with and redundant to citizenship. They believed that fifty-five years after Israel’s founding–when two-thirds of its citizens had been born in the country, and half of those are third generation–the experience of Israel itself must be determinative of national identity. More important, they wanted to close the door on discrimination against individuals on religious or racial grounds…
…On Wednesday, the High Court will announce a new decision in this case…
SOURCE – link to tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com
You said it Judith: “State should not be in the business of expressing cultural identity….” And I would add: policing it.
“State should not be in the business of expressing cultural identity….”
But all states do it – living, breathing and actively encouraging one or more forms of cultural identity. When I first came across the Jerusalem branch of the One Secular Democratic State movement, I was immediately won over by their view of bi-nationalism as anathema. As attractive as the idea of a supra-cultural state may be (a territorial diaspora?) however, a single state in I/P would somehow have to recognise and promote the two dominant cultures – Hebrew-Jewish and Palestinian Arab – (granting the greatest possible freedom of cultural expression to all) in order to meet the basic needs and desires of both groups. Anything else, particularly in the context of Israel-Palestine, would be unnatural and counter-productive.
I dont think “bi-nationalism as anathema” is what she meant as cultural identity, Shmuel, quite the opposite. No?
MRW,
I was actually agreeing with Butler, that the path to “deconstructing the idea of a nation” must necessarily run through bi-nationalism in I/P. The one-staters I came across were rather dogmatic about striving for a non-nation state from the very outset, and so rejected the very concept of bi-nationalism.
So the New One-State Israel would do the same thing with Palestinian Arab culture as they did with Jewish and Hebrew “culture”? Not a pleasant thought.
How’s about the new one-state just deals with its citizens as individuals, instead of asking a person’s Rabbi or Mullah what they should do about or with him?
“Anything else, particularly in the context of Israel-Palestine, would be unnatural and counter-productive.”
That’s one of the most damning statements about the area I’ve ever heard. Are you saying that they have lost the ability to act as individuals and can only act as their superiors tell them is in their “cultural” interest?
I must be misunderstanding your comment.
Mooser,
For a start, recognising two dominant cultures is fundamentally different from recognising a single dominant culture. Secondly, recognising and promoting cultures does not necessarily mean following the Zionist model.
It may be another “pond” thing, but countries like Italy or France actively promote various dominant “local” cultures, with little impact (in most cases) on individual freedoms.
Zionists often use the fallacious argument that Israel is Jewish “like France is French”. A single secular democratic state in I/P however, could be Jewish-Arab just as Belgium, for example, is Flemish-Waloon. (France also promotes various national cultures, but has a single dominant culture).
Shmuel, yeah, it’s a ‘pond’ thing. The only culture that our govt can get away with promoting here is Native American. The rest is against the law, and the Constitution. Parades are OK. Nothing more.
I completely forgot that France does it, and Canada as well.
“I am very critical of this idea of return, and I think “Galut” very often demeans the Diasporic traditions within Judaism….”
I thought I was the only Jew in the world who thought that! That’s very nice to read!
Man’s existence is (or should be) a diaspora, which puts a homeland wherever you are at.
And the pretense that Jews in America are in a diaspora is pretty damned embarassing, taking things as they are. Do they have five-bedroom custom built houses and gelt-edged annuities in the diaspora? And intermarriage? I doubt it.
Mooser, the word “galut” in Hebrew has kind of a built-in derogatory connotation, and it is usually used as such in ordinary speech. As in “yehudi galuti” – which should translate as “diaspora jew”, but actually conveys a “wet dish-rag” meaning. It conjures up images of a sad-looking, ghettoized, persecuted and meek person, not in control of their own fate, in short a weakling. “Galut” is closer in actual meaning to “exile”, though even the latter does not quite do justice to the negativism that permeates the former. Though many do so, the words ‘diaspora’ and “galut’ should not really be used as synonyms, because of diverging sub-text – one is neutral the other disparaging.
I think the word “gola’ is a bit closer and ‘tfutzot” could be closer still. Though again, I always understood the first to convey ‘separation” or whereas the second implies ‘outsideness’, again, not quite neutral. Maybe Shmuel knows a better, more modern word in Hebrew that could be used to describe “diaspora”? My familiarity with the language has gotten quite rusty and is certainly out of date.
Danaa,
There is the lexical meaning of “galut” (exile), the connotations of the Yiddish word “golus” (suffering and messianic longing – but also physical comfort and safety), and the connotations of the Israeli word “galut” and the adjective “galuti” (wet dishrag, victim, snivelling, obsequious, “luftmensch” – or greedy, material “macher”). I believe Butler was objecting to the negative concept of “galut”, seeking to attach positive value to diaspora existence.
“Golah” is a little less negative, but still implies a temporary state that must be rectified. “Tefutzot” is indeed close in lexical and etymological terms, but also has a connotation of something sad and unnatural, in need of “ingathering” (both in traditional liturgy and in modern usage). The word “pezurah” is probably the most neutral, and although generally applied only to other diasporas today – Palestinian, Irish, Italian, etc. – was once applied to the Jewish diaspora as well.
Thanks Shmuel. I think “pezurah” is the word I was looking for. Interestingly, it was not provided under ‘diaspora” in either of the two dictionaries I looked in – one that’s quite dated, but another that’s newer. Which supports what you say about the usage as something applied mostly to others (nowadays). This linguistic casualty may be just another interesting statement about the way israel views itself — as a kind of a whirlpool. The problem with whirlpools is that they may pull things in alright but under in the end they go.
RE: “Man’s existence is (or should be) a diaspora, which puts a homeland wherever you are at.” – Mooser
MY CONTRIBUTION: “Home is where the heart is.” – widely used idiom
Mooser: I thought I was the only Jew in the world who thought that!
We’re in good company, Mooser: Hermann Cohen, George Steiner, Edgar Morin, Judith Butler. And on Purim to boot – the diaspora festival par excellence.
“We’re in good company, Mooser: Hermann Cohen, George Steiner, Edgar Morin, Judith Butler”
And none of them could pick up the phone? From the cost of a post-card they’ll go broke? They couldn’t drop me a line, so I wouldn’t feel like Mr. All-Alone?
Would have eased my mind considerable!
Or maybe I should have gone to the Chabad (We’re Chabad, we’re nationwide!) Rabbi and his wife for the “definitive” answer.
There’s a certain beauty about the idea of ‘human life as diaspora’. And I suppose that the Feast of Purim assures us non-Jews that if we ‘delight to honour’ the Jewish people in our midst they will delight to bring us benefits and wisdom. Perhaps this balance was nearly struck in belle epoque Europe before everything went wrong.
There’s a certain beauty about the idea of ‘human life as diaspora’.
George Steiner is very eloquent on the matter.
link to prospect.org
Imagined Israel
A new book makes sense of why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeats his errors.
Gershom Gorenberg | February 26, 2010 | web only
“I grew very skeptical of certain kind of Jewish separatism in my youth. I mean, I saw the Jewish community was always with each other; they didn’t trust anybody outside..”
I thought anyone who said that sort of thing was automatically ananti-semite or a self-hater.
“But I think we have to get over the idea that a state has to express a nation. And if we have a bi-national state, it’s expressing two nations”
Can someone please tell me what a nation is if it is not a sovereign state?
Where I live, the nation is the Commonwealth of Australia. The state (non-sovereign) is Queensland.
For a few years I lived in a place where the nation was the United States of America. The states were Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Those sort of nations I understand. But what are the other kind?