Tony Judt had barely left this world when the Jerusalem Post lashed out at him with a nasty editorial on August 8. Clearly, Judt has never been forgiven for writing in 2003 in the New York Review of Books that Israel lacked legitimacy because of its structural Jewishness and deserved to be replaced with a “a single, integrated, bi-national state.” Heresy is unforgivable; and to call for the downfall of the Jewish state is heretical, because the ostensibly secular state of Israel has to see itself as the guarantor of Jewish survival, spiritual and physical alike. Anytime a Jew with an audience, i.e., an intellectual, critically examines this relationship, the alarm bells go off. Another existential threat! So Tony Judt was a dangerous man when he was alive and will be so as long as the memory of his deed remains.
I am happy to say that I am in his good company. According to the Post, Judt’s “categorical rejection of Zionism put him in a class with other contemporary Jewish intellectuals of the Diaspora such as Jacqueline Rose, Michael Neumann and Joel Kovel, who have chosen to single out Israel for opprobrium that is rarely, if ever, directed at other countries that choose to adopt unique religious or cultural-based nationalities.” Accordingly, our views constitute “a recipe for national suicide for the sovereign Jewish entity.” In other words, we, too, pose existential threats to the Jewish state.
I feel obliged to reply, not to speak in Judt’s place, nor in the expectation that he would have agreed with what I am about to write. We never met nor were we political comrades, Tony being a self-declared social democrat and I, well, several degrees to the left of that. Nor have I met Jacqueline Rose and Michael Neumann. But categorical rejection of Zionism is a common ground I am pleased to share. So here is a brief account of what I take to be the reason for giving a lot of attention to Israel vis a vis the other awful countries, and why I want to bring down the Jewish state itself rather than settling for eliminating one or more of its human rights abuses.
The Jewish Question
The Post’s editorial person starts from the premise that people like Judt, Rose, Neumann and I are doing something that, as Jews, we should be ashamed of: singling out Israel and calling for the end of the Jewish state. (I’ll return below to the rather heated way this latter allegation is framed.) The assumption here is that Israel is for all the Jews and all the Jews should stand behind Israel, because it is self-evidently good to have an organic-national relation to Judaism.
I see things oppositely. I was born into a Jewish family and through this, share in a colorful history that has produced a lot of contributors to civilization, played an ambivalent yet fascinating role in the development of Western society, and suffered a good deal over the centuries for its “otherness.” All of this I keep in mind and have no disposition to deny. So I am a Jew. That’s nice, and that’s all it is. But as for the extension of this identity fragment, whose only common ground across history is a religion, into an organic nationalism which needs a state to set itself on the ground, this is another thing entirely. If you will forgive me a little Biblicism, it is an abomination and a desecration. I share this view with many fellow Jews, including the Neturai karta, whom I have joined at many a demonstration, and whose resoluteness and integrity I admire. I don’t care for their religion, however, or any variant of the Jewish faith. I think that Judaism got trapped in the first century CE by rejection of its prophet Jesus’s call to make the religion universal rather than tribal. As a result—a result made far worse by Christian persecution—the Jewish faith has never really been able to transcend an inward focus on the community of Jews, that is, the Jewish “People.” The jokingly offered and endlessly repeated query as to whether something is “good for the Jews” is, to my view, the sign of a profound and spiritually damaging ethnocentricity. Thus when the possibility opened up to make this People into a nation, a power-grabbing nation in league with imperialism and given a militarized state by its imperial patrons, many Jews fell into line (including most of my family), and especially insofar as they had been handed the all-purpose justifier provided by the history of anti-Semitism and its culmination in the monstrosity of the Shoah.
For me, however, Jewish nation-building proved a time to part ways—an extended time, I might add, and no epiphany. As the Jewish state has continued to tear its brutal path through the history of our time, and chiefly, through the lives of its indigenous victims, I simply see no other place to stand than in utter opposition to the endless chain of its crimes and lies—and with this, to the very construction of “Jewishness” that has enabled this and become canonical for so many, and in the United States especially, essential for the sustenance of the Israeli abomination. So to follow along with the above-mentioned identity construction, I am still a Jew and neither can nor wish to erase the fact, but no longer consider myself Jewish. Thus, following the great Isaac Deutscher, a “non-Jewish Jew.” I think a lot of Jews are these days wrestling with the same dilemma. Needless to add, there are other ways of addressing it besides mine. In any event, I wish them good cheer: life is a lot better once that dreary burden is laid down.
So to the editorial person of the Jerusalem Post, I would say, paraphrasing a certain President: Ask not what Israel can do for the Jews, because all answers to this question have become corrupted by the militarized and racist state Israel has become. Ask rather what Jews can do to earn forgiveness for the wrong turn taken in their history and for all the suffering their precious state has imposed. And lay off criticizing Jews who are stepping forth to “single out Israel.” There are going to be lots more of them. Remember, each person only has one identity and has to live with it.
But there is much more . . .
Though every theocracy and/or ethnocracy is appalling and should be opposed by all folk of good will, the peculiar case of Israel has a far wider radiation and so deserves “singling out,” as the Post puts it, irrespective of the religious/ethnic issue. This has to do, of course, with the nightmarish relation between Israel and the United States, and the shadow it casts over the present world. By the time I first became aware, during the Vietnam era, of US imperialism as a malignant force, Zionists had been insinuating themselves into the American political process for twenty years, since Harry Truman’s political orphanhood gave them the opening. But there was nothing “special” about this, except that the Jewish state depended for its existence upon its great benefactor. It took a while for the creature spawned by this embrace to mature, chiefly through the growth of AIPAC and the entry of ultra-Zionist neoconservatives into state and civil society. With this, however, it must also be said that the beast had mutated; hence one can no longer talk about the United States and Israel as separate political entities. Now we have a second Zionist occupation, of our civil society and state alongside the occupation of Palestine, and necessary for the occupation of Palestine to continue. For reasons of space we need to set aside the intricate matter of who wags whom, or the astounding degree to which the normalization of Zionism has blunted outrage, even among leftists of great repute. Consider only some of the fruits of this creature:
• the degree to which US foreign policy is configured to give Israel its impunity, one small instance being Obama’s recent threat to Turkey that he would cut off military contracts unless it lays off Israel for the Mavi Marmara incident; meanwhile the US reinforces Israeli military superiority with the latest in free ultra technology for its F-16 fighter fleet;
• the shameless debasement of our Congress, with hundreds of elected officials doing the bidding of a foreign power, again to whitewash the Mavi Marmara murders, thereby granting impunity once again;
• the plague of Islamophobia now raging, inflamed by fury over the “Ground-zero Mosque,” and more generally, over the terrors stirred up by 9-11. But who pauses to reflect upon that awful day and the fact that it provided the one incontrovertible instance of highly suspicious involvement by a foreign state in the havoc, namely, the most odd finding of five “moving men,” who turned out to be Mossad agents filming from New Jersey the collapse of the towers while jubilantly giving each other high fives, who were released back to their home country after 71 quiet days in FBI custody, and whose “employer” moved very hastily back to Israel, after stripping his office of all evidence? How did they know to be there, cameras primed, at that time? Why were they so happy? No point in asking. The propaganda machine has constructed mass consciousness so as to obscure any thinking about the matter, which no longer exists so far as official political culture goes. Such questions are highly impertinent. After all, one does not want to “single” Israel out. That would be anti-Semitic, wouldn’t it? This Reichstag Fire leads in another direction, that of the Islamic Threat.
• and then, mere war, as in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and now the latest looming danger, the Persian menace. That this mainly exists in the mind of the Zionist Power Structure, here and in Israel, is anything but reassuring, given the authority of that mind. Suppose, then, that the exquisitely positioned pundits and opinion-makers get their wish of precipitating us into a bombing war with Iran, Israel’s #1 existential threat, and Iran bombs back. This could be a new Board Game: there goes the global economy; and there looms, as ever, our friend and ally’s “Samson Option” using its nuclear arsenal that nobody is to know about, but that has, in the meantime, totally wrecked any efforts to bring nuclear proliferation under control thanks to universal knowledge of the bad faith of the United States for its complicity over the years under the influence of a certain “lobby” . . .
In sum, if you care about the baleful influence of the United States in the world you cannot set Israel aside as an isolated issue. This is the precise opposite of “singling Israel out.” It is, rather, a demand to integrate Israel within the manifold of imperial/economic/military power, and taking the steps necessary to bring this power under rational control.
Signing off to the editor of the Post, who is unquestionably unimpressed with these arguments.
What are trivialities like ethnocide, racism and war weighed against the sovereignty of the Jews? For Jews were once merely a “People,” but now, having achieved the greatness of nation-statehood, have become, hurrah!, a “sovereign Jewish entity,” doubtlessly pleasing Yahweh no end. And it is this triumph that Tony Judt and people like myself would spoil with our “recipe for national suicide.”
I’ve got to hand it to the Jerusalem Post for forcing me out of my self-imposed exile from psychoanalysis (well, it is the Jewish Profession) with this frankly hysterical statement, which is bundled, typically, with a manipulative, guilt-tripping threat: if you people don’t stop doing that, we’re going to kill ourselves! Freud pointed out that every delusion contains the germ of a historical fact. In this instance it is the legendary event of 73 CE, when the Sicarii, a Jewish sect active in the wake of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, hurled themselves from the cliffs of Masada mountain to avoid capture by the Legion. An archeological museum now occupies the site, which has become deeply inscribed as a symbol of Zionist resolve and desperation.
I hope the Israelis don’t follow this example. Maybe they should keep in mind that the Sicarii were more extreme than even the Zealots, and by some accounts were common bandits, as much opposed to other Jews as they were to Rome. Nonetheless, the imminence of mass catastrophe, however induced, remains active in the Zionist imaginary, where it is stoked by propagandists of the Shoah, so that 1938 is made to eternally return.
There is another, much more deeply rational approach to history, which is to understand it in depth, encounter it, learn its lesson, actively transform it, and, by so doing, let it go. For Israel—and Jews everywhere, and indeed, everyone affected by the conquest of Palestine—the lesson is not really that complicated. It is to face the truth that the Zionist epoch has been a dreadful mistake, for the Jews as well as Zionism’s victims, and that they will have to do what grown-up people do who realize they have been wrong, if they want to have a decent life and rejoin the human race.
Namely, undergo a change of mind and heart. Is that too much to ask?
“Clearly, Judt has never been forgiven for writing in 2003 in the New York Review of Books that Israel lacked legitimacy because of its structural Jewishness and deserved to be replaced with a “a single, integrated, bi-national state.” ”
His close friends reiterate that he said “maybe” it should be replaced, “if things continue as they are going”, which is something quite different from overt advocacy for single state.
Do you have some evidence that he meant advocacy?
I think that perhaps you and post got his reasoning innaccurately.
I’m surprised that you hold the dogmatic view that Jewish Jews should not have a safe haven.
The reason for the need for a state (the need rather than the idea) is for literal protection. The communal Zionists that merely settled in the region were physically assaulted, NOT protected by their neighbors from ideologues that didn’t bother to distinguish between “good Jews” and evil Zionists.
Its the same reason that early agricultural communities constructed walls. It would be wonderful if that were unnecessary, but it would be naive fantasy to say so.
I agree with you about the self-destructiveness of excessive zealotry, but that does not ultimately conflict with the idea of a state.
And, I agree with you that Israel and Israelis should acknowledge their wrongs, but their self-association itself is not one of those.
The Jerusalem Post is a rag. I should know – I used to work for them. It’s representative of immigrant Israelis who don’t read Hebrew. It belongs in the category of American Jewish newspapers, not Israeli ones.
Kovel’s analysis is, of course, excellent. However, his smug rejection of his own Jewishness will weaken his position with other Jews. It’s not his job to offer an alternative to modern, Israel-centered Jewishness, but taking it all the way back to the 1st century will make him easier to dismiss.
Why, Elliot? “but taking it all the way back to the 1st century will make him easier to dismiss.”
Why is that so, if taking it all back to the 1st C is the basis of the claim for the land?
You could argue that 2,000 years of Rabbinic Judaism were a mistake but that’s not going to convince Rabbinic Jews.
As for the merits of Kovel’s argument, why stop at the 1st century? The first Jewish return to the land dates 600 years before that, and the narrative of return is even older than that.
Kovel openly admits that he does not see himself as part of Jewish tradition and that will make him easier to dismiss.
I consider myself to be one of Isaac Deutscher’s “non-Jewish Jews”, having been born to Jewish families from Lithuania, East Prussia (as it was in the 19th century) England and Australia, and my parents, one born in Australia and one born in South Africa, and I do not practise any religion because I am an atheist of long standing. This doesn’t make me “not Jewish” – I don’t deny or refuse my ancestry!
I ponder on the meaning to many of us of the word “Diaspora” and what its relevance is in a situation where we are internationalists who don’t consider Israel as the “homeland” or the place we are able or willing to “return to”.
It is enough to ponder the criminality of having lived in South Africa where I was born and lived for 50 years, and in Australia for over 30 years, with both countries involved in illegitimate conflicts in Angola and Namibia (then South West Africa) during the apartheid years and currently the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with their ongoing tragedies.
Why would one want to be part of an illegitimate war in Palestine as well, and which no one outside the region has tried to stop once and for all.
I have never denied that I am Jewish but do deny that I have anything to do with Israel, the so-called Jewish state!
It seems it is too much to ask for a change of heart and mind while so many around the world support the zionist apartheid state, Jews and Christians alike!
Mannie De Saxe, Melbourne, Australia
An alternate take on Jewishness and Zionism from the Satmar rebbe: link to ynetnews.com
the ‘singling out’ persecution complex is particularly juvenile. when one’s political analysis begins and ends with, ‘is it good for us?’, and when one trumpets the uniqueness of one’s contributions to culture, the sciences, or more humbly, ‘humanity’, then one has set the stage to be ‘singled out.’ praising the brighter qualities of a particular subset is permissible, even required, but to point out the negative is racism, anti-semitism, etc.
and thanks for raising the 9-11 question. i have no definitive idea who did what to cause 9-11, and my confusion certainly wasn’t cleared up by the 9-11 commission, but chomsky and other public intellectuals have done their level best to quash any inquiries that might smell a bit conspiratorial. you see, according to him, every event is the result of a systemic problem and can easily be discerned by a close reading of the NYT or some position paper. in other words, he overstates his case that the US is a democracy, it simply isn’t functioning well in that capacity.
Neturei Karta is a subset of Satmar. It’s remarkable how, after initially vigorously opposing Zionism, almost all the Hassidic Jews have warmed to Zionism (there’s nothing more attractive than success). Satmar is notable for holding out. But then they are the most unassimilated Jewish group in America too. And, of course, they resisted change in pre-Holocaust Europe too. The more tradition-bound Jews were, the less likely they were to try to seek a new life in the West or Palestine.
Ever since the Neturai Karta attended events in Iran questioning the holocaust, the Satmar have had very very little to do with the Neturai Karta.
They are NOT communally, organizationally, theologically related. Their only commonality is an interpretation of messianic times as requiring God initiating the process, invoked through fulfillment of the commandments, rather than arbitrary human initiation.
Zionists like to dismiss Neturei Karta as a fringe group
Right on cue.
Merely correcting obvious falsehoods.
Don’t use the Satmar or Neturai Karta theology as a shield for your personal political beliefs.
Their views are very very different from yours.
DO NOT accuse people of making false statements they have not made. I have reported your comment as abuse.
The issue is not my beliefs and certainly not yours. The issue is the position of Judaism on Zionism and the fact that different traditional strains of Judaism have always regarded Zionism as anti-Jewish. The fact that they are different only underscores this.
Satmar is a hasidic sect while NK belongs to the earlier, more traditional line. The Satmar rebbe considers it a sin for a Jew to live in the Zionist state while NK believes that they were in Jerusalem long before the Zionist interlopers.
But Satmar is more promiment, more influential. Joel Teitelbaum was chief rabbi of the Edah Haredis. It is therefore not credible to dismiss its anti-Zionist position, as Zionists like to dismiss Neturei Karta as a fringe group.
Reported for abuse?
Elliot stated that the Satmar and Neturai Karta are allies. That is false. The Satmar intentionally and conspicuously disassociate from the Neturai Karta.
Zionists: “Divide and conquer” isn’t just a slogan for them, it’s a way of life.
Yeah, heaven forbid that Neturai Karta visit the country in the Middle East with the second largest Jewish population, huh.
To Zionists, some Jews just aren’t “Jewish” enough. As the descendant of German and Polish refugees… yeah, I know where that sort of rationale springs from.
Zionists like to dismiss Neturei Karta as a fringe group, an anomaly, but you can’t really dismiss Satmar.
The Satmar have a few hundred thousand adherents. They are very insular. I knew a few only because my father did business with some, and we periodically were invited to their celebrations, and once for dinner.
The Neturai Karta’s objection to Zionism is religious in orientation, but includes politics prominently. The Satmar avoid politics, as do most of the chasidim.
RW – in other words, on the key issue of Zionism, Satmar and Neturei Karta are indistinguishable. Satmar commands more respect because of their numbers and because unlike NK they are not a one trick show and they don’t do the kind of political theater that NK is known for.
They are entirely different. The Satmar do not engage a political orientation, even a moral orientation, for opposing Zionism. They are strictly opposed to it on theological grounds.
The Neturai Karta express overtly political statements frequently, as you noted, which is understood as distorting their spiritual credentials.
Among chasidim, Zionism (pro or con) is not their emphasis, not “key”. Their emphasis is on spiritual transformation of the Jewish people through the performance of religious observance, conformity to the precepts of Torah as clarified/interpreted by rabbinic scholars who are similarly immersed in and adherent to Torah in all respects that they are aware.
“The Neturai Karta express overtly political statements frequently, as you noted, which is understood as distorting their spiritual credentials.”
False. Neturai Karta express statements based entirely on religious doctrine.
“Their emphasis is on spiritual transformation of the Jewish people through the performance of religious observance, conformity to the precepts of Torah as clarified/interpreted by rabbinic scholars who are similarly immersed in and adherent to Torah in all respects that they are aware.”
Are you aware that the Torah forbids the Jews from returning to Israel?
A quote in Song of Songs prohibits it.
Other parts of the written Torah and Jewish tradition encourage it.
Thats why the theological debate occurs, that there are different sources that contribute to different conclusions.
In all cases, the prerequisite to the study is immersion in Torah, not utilization of Torah quotations for personal political ends.
The same prohibition against using Torah as a screen for personal ambition, is the most useful counter to right-wing neo-religious.
Its also the most useful counter relative to the Koran, which has similar admonishments against using scripture to justify personal hatreds or agendas.
So it is in the Torah, Witty, but you simply choose to ignore it.
Wow. What an article, Mr. Koval. You might be interested in these two pieces, if you haven’t read them already:
“Explaining the Long — and Largely Untold — History of Jewish Opposition to Zionism ” [it is long, but it's fascinating]
link to acjna.org
And
“Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident” by Gabriel Kolko (since you mention the Jewish Profession)
link to antiwar.com
it seems the ideology of zionism and its goal was and is to continue to control what it means to be jewish… it is refreshing to see someone who wants their identity back without the burden zionism has placed on them and the world by extension.. i hope jewish people everywhere are able to recognize how zionism sent them down a dead-end road to which they must eventually do a 180 on… it is great to see people like you speaking out on this..it is also great that phil and adam have worked towards the same goal of liberating anyone interested in doing the same.. thanks
my hope is that jews won’t do a 180 but will instead forge a multitude of new paths from the point they have the realization zionism was a gross, perverted mistake … you can’t unlearn, so using the lessons, all jews everywhere should forge new paths of jewishness that fit the modern world – orthodoxies of every type everywhere are just pieces of old china waiting to be knocked off a shelf
when jews came to Palestine to form a state the critical error was attempting to make it “jewish”
Wow.
the Israel issue will not be solved by Jews alone, it also requires work from Christians. The current support in various Protestant sects (mostly non Episcopalian fundamentalist) can be traced back to the Reformation in the 16th century.
The issue for them is validation. The very last line of the most important of the 4 Gospels, Mathews ends with Jesus saying; I will be with you always until the end of the ages”. So the Achilles Heel of Protestantism (not Anglicans or Episcoplians) is where was he for 1500 years. If you view Christianity as growing from an acorn in CE40 to the tree it is today, Protestantism is a branch looking for its acorn.
The acorn they found is Israel, it is why they spend so much time on the Old Testament and giving unconditional support to Israel. Without finding a way to somehow include them into the other sects who can trace their roots back to the original followers, such as the Armenian, Russian, Greek Orthodox, Syriac, Coptic, Chaldean, Nestorian, Anglican as well as Catholic, this issue will not be solved.
And to give you an idea how important this is, the whole issue of Creationism taught in schools can be traced back to an attempt in the 18th and 19th Century to create a “Principia” for the Bible to validate that it is literally the “Word of God”. The leading exponent was William Paley’s Natural Theology, and his model of the Watchmaker. After being shot down by Darwin, and even being responsible for catalysed atheism among honest believers, and with the preponderance of science behind the Theory of Evolution, fundamentalists they will not let go of the literal truth of the Bible model. The search for justification to that last line in Matthew is jermaine to their existence. Without the mainline religions from around the world knocking some theological sense into them, Israel will have to exist or they will not.
‘I think that Judaism got trapped in the first century CE by rejection of its prophet Jesus’s call to make the religion universal rather than tribal.’
Yes. Then Christianity mirrored the error by deifying Jesus, appending the Old Testament to the New (despite the two being wholly incompatible), and leaving its hapless believers to sort out the resulting cosmological dog’s breakfast.
Thus the vast exalted edifice of Judeo-Christian culture is founded on the quicksand of incomplete, overtly defective scriptures.
Ugh. I’m headin’ for Peru to join the ayahuasca worshipers. The Promised Land lies within!
Well, then that’s where Muslims come into the story. To complete the circle. A universal religion and no deifying of any Prophets. Best of both worlds.
LOL Witty isn’t the only one who can come up with slogans. :)
Dear Mr. Kovel:
While I found your piece a fine one in terms of explaining your ideology I also found it interesting how resentful you seem to be about the Jerusalem Post saying that same constitutes a recipe for Israel’s national suicide. Indeed from your opening paragraphs it can seem that this is what triggered you to write in the first place, with you then prominently raising it all over again in the body of your article.
After all, given all that you have written here, if all or even a strong majority of Israeli jews were persuaded by you this would *indeed* mean the national suicide of Israel as it is presently constituted. (Generally speaking, as a state for jews essentially.)
Clearly, while I didn’t exactly spot you saying so, it seems that along with Tony Judt you do instead believe in something along the lines of ““a single, integrated, bi-national state,” right? Or at least no state at all except for a single, global and universal one.
So why did this kind of apparently accurate Post analysis rile you?
My own suspicion is that the reason lies in your own semi-or-sub conscious recognition of just how widely and deeply and strongly the Zionist idea exists in the jewish mind, and thus how revolutionary your own views are. And I further wonder whether this ought not give you reason to pause a bit: Here you have this idea—Zionism—which very well *might* be realizable without it also meaning any too huge an injustice to others (relatively speaking), that has sustained the jewish people for over two thousand years, particularly through what can seem serial episodes of terrible torment.
So why does it have to vanish completely? And, speaking realistically, do you really think that an aspiration that has commanded such a long and deep place in the jewish heart can—or should—be replaced by some ultimate idealistic goal that can at least sound somewhat Nirvanish and Utopian?
If, for example, Israel was to withdraw from the West Bank and a two-state solution were found that saw Israel living in peace with all its arab and moslem neighbors, would you still object to it? Would you still be willing to discard the very real and *presently existing* happiness of the Israelis for what you see as the greater but still theoretical, far-future happiness of everyone once the world reached the ideal formation you believe it should have?
In any event, in addition I wonder where you believe you obtained your (admirable) universalist outlook. While I see that you perceive your jewish upbringing as perhaps having some small effect on you, it’s always struck me that just such a universalist outlook has been somewhat of a hallmark of jewish thinking, no?
RE: “So I am a Jew. That’s nice, and that’s all it is. But as for the extension of this identity fragment, whose only common ground across history is a religion, into an organic nationalism which needs a state to set itself on the ground, this is another thing entirely.” – Joel Kovel
MY COMMENT: Stunning post. But…but…but…why in the world would you want to give up your “birthright”*? That’s so irrational! (lol)
*h/t Marty “Macho Man” Peretz
Memorable quotes for Gone with the Wind (1939):
SOURCE – link to imdb.com
“…one can no longer talk about the United States and Israel as separate political entities.”
Excellent point which I try to emphasize, to wit: US/Israel. We are at least partially responsible for everything that Israel does.
Finally, I recommend Joel Kovel’s book, OVERCOMING ZIONISM (2007).
It is one of the principles of Israel, surely, that those who consider themselves Jewish should concentrate their attention on Israel, single Israel out. If some Jewish people consider that there are serious moral problems in the world, and that Israel poses some of them, then by Israel’s own standard principles those people should single Israel out for critique or opposition.
It is equally reasonable for those who are connected with the problem through some other link, such as Christianity or concern about the alliances of the United States, to concentrate their attention in the same way.
It is utterly absurd to suggest that the only serious way to address moral problems is to address them all at once. Seeing that selection is inevitable, you can select the problem to which you feel closest with as much justification as the problem which is objectively the worst, which is in any case a very debatable status.
Clearly Joel Kovel has lost his senses.
O’ Lord, forgive us for not giving up the ghost in the time of Paul, so that two thousand years before nationalism became unfashionable in some parts of Western Europe we could have made sure the name Israel would only be mentioned by those who eat the wafer and dilute the unity of God.
Good to know that Kovel has joined Gilad Atzmon’s side, not only anti Zionist, but now also anti Jewish. Hope his anti Zionist brethren figure out that maybe he deserves somewhere to publish his hatred of everything Jewish, he certainly paints you with an anti Jewish brush. The only good Jew to Kovel, someone who wishes that the Jews had stopped being Jews a long time ago.
If Kovel were someone who, like me, wishes that the Jews had stopped being Jews a long time ago, surely he wouldn’t call himself a Jew. And he does, even though he calls it an “identity fragment, whose only common ground across history is a religion”. Though since he adds, ‘I don’t care for their religion, however, or any variant of the Jewish faith‘, I am at a loss to understand his claim to be a Jew.
But where is his “hatred of everything Jewish”? He doesn’t say anything against gefilte fish, Yiddish literature, or Maimonedes.
He does not care for the Jewish religion, but we are constantly told there is more to Jewishness than religion.
He hates the Zionist ‘organic nationalism which needs a state to set itself on the ground‘, the ‘inward focus on the community of Jews, that is, the Jewish “People.” ’, the “profound and spiritually damaging ethnocentricity’, ‘the endless chain of [Israeli] crimes and lies—and with this, to the very construction of “Jewishness” that has enabled this’, and ‘the nightmarish relation between Israel and the United States’.
But what’s not to hate there?
WJ, you miss the points Kovel made, as you are wont to do, when it come to zionism. What he is saying – if I understand correctly – is that not only has zionism betrayed Judaism big time, but that the depth of the betrayal is so great, the violation of the best universalist principles contained in Judaism so complete, that one must wonder whether it is even possible to support Israel – with all the horrors it continues to commit – and remain jewish with any meaning. And that’s because if Israel has indeed become central to being jewish, and Israel is a god-awful criminal state, then the only way to expunge the ugliness from one’s person is to relinquish “jewishness” itself.
This is not about “hating” things jewish, it’s about trying to wash off the sleaze that oozes from that state called Israel and the contamination it has spread to America. Maybe you don’t feel sleazy through association with that country, but many do, and you’d do well to wonder why and how some come to feel ashamed of the slime propagated in their name. People like me, OTPH, may just sense the uncomfortable feel of a dark undertow – of which you seem to be oblivious.
As I grew up secular in Israel I can’t say I understand what Judaism is, as very little of that came across the education system I went through. What education we received in israel was of being brain-washed into a sense of supremacy, with Judaism as justification, one that repeated often enough acquired meaning. The secular israeli may say they are jewish. But do you honestly think that means anything to them other than being able to claim allegiance to some long history that can be used (or twisted) to rationalize anything one wants to do? When you are an israeli (and I can only speak for the secular ones) you live in a state of dreadful clarity. Even now I find it scary just how clear I was once about Israeli might and Jewish right. Scary, because I now realize that, in combination, these can – and are – used to justify the most heinous actions against others, and the most obnoxious interchanges among themselves.
Like Kovel, I find myself apt to shed Israeliness, because it’s become so soiled over the years. Strangely enough, I find many elements of Judaism kind of interesting now, maybe because jewish intellectual and spiritual life in the US is new to me, being that it is, in many ways the antithesis of the excessive baggage carried from Israel.
I find many elements of Judaism kind of interesting now, maybe because jewish intellectual and spiritual life in the US is new to me,
I found that to be the case in Manhattan when I lived there, compared to the hardened unitary stance of the Israelis I met.
MRW, it probably appears different because the hardened attitudes of Israelis are just a reflection of those who get inoculated into a cult, with an aggressive middle eastern twist. Makes for attitudes that are knee-jerk defensive, ready to bristle at the mere mention of the ‘wrong’ subject/opinion, long on lecturing (which quickly turns to hectoring for the more aggressively inclined), but most typically, very short on listening. All of which I no doubt displayed myself once (which is why I am extremely grateful for the blesings of others’ short memories). The thing that jumps at me now – which I find profoundly different from what I encounter among jewish Americans, is israeli newcomers’ (including tourists) strange lack of curiosity about history of others. Whoever the “others” may be, Indians, Mexicans, Tejanos, Canadians, Blacks, Jewish americans, what not. And that last group, the jews, Israelis are most decidedly not curious about. Nothing to learn there, right? just some silly soft diaspora types who make for useful idiots with goblets of money. It’s like israelis arrive to this country already equipped with full knowledge of the history and religions of all other humans. Time does seem to soften the hard edged attitudes for some, and, to be sure, there’s a big difference between young and older. Plus there are exceptions as naturally nice people are found among israeli expats as among any other group. Can I generalize or what?
The new comments policy is discouraging, don’t you find? I think they’ll probably find it necessary to replace with something else that allows conversations to take place again (not that there ever was enough time to comment, for some of us….).
BTW, those were good references you gave above. Keep providing, will you?
When Kovel spoke at this spring’s Left Forum he suggested that non-believers on the left are missing out on something when they separate themselves from religious people who carry with them the power of faith that non-believers lack. Faith is the only thing that keeps many people going over the long haul to achieve great and good things that otherwise look, in fact, unattainable to the logical minds of non-believers.
For another look at a person not unlike Kovel, a Jew who is a non-believer but still considers herself to be a Jew, check out the interview with Judith Shulevitz, author of The Sabbath World on WBAI’s Beyond the Pale program.
link to beyondthepale.org
What comes through in this discussion is the Jewish tradition of always siding with the oppressed, never with the oppressor. Indeed, the reason that right now more and more Jewish-Americans feel estranged from Israel is that the siege of Gaza evokes memories of the Warsaw Ghetto – in most people, not only Jews. And for those who know not the Warsaw Ghetto, other memories, perhaps, of equivalent horror stories – genocide in the Americas, the Black Hole of Calcutta, the Armenian genocide, slavery and its Middle Passage. What’s the commonality in these historical events? Only that invariably the enormity of said horrors (especially if witnessed while they’re unfolding) elicits a sinking feeling in the stomach, whereupon, in a moment of clarity, “What if I’d been there & that explosive hit me”. Which is what drives people (non-Jews included) to support the Palestinian people in their struggle to regain the land that Jewish settlers stole from them. Zionists try to counter this “natural” tendency to side with the victim by first of all juxtaposing the Holocaust in an effort to make it central to the discussion, not the siege of Gaza, as well as by demonizing Palestinians & all things Muslem/Arab. The Zionists were getting away with it, too, until not quite two years ago when desperation drove them to attack Gaza. As for the inability of Zionism’s supporters to identify with the target of Israeli oppression, the Palestinian, this can be attributed to the effectiveness of Zionism in dehumanizing its adherents.
There is an air of ‘left-wing Jews for Jesus’ about Mr.Kovel’s remarks, which is very interesting but which would manage, I would think, to touch every raw Jewish nerve that there is. I suppose, as a Christian who thinks that Zionism is a moral disaster, that many Jewish Zionists must for their part think of anti-Zionism as yet another trick for converting them to Christianity.
At least since the Epistle to the Hebrews, presumably first century, we’ve had the argument over ‘supersessionism’ – what form of religion should take over now that the sacrifices of the Temple have ceased? Must it be ‘universal’? Are ‘ethnic’ and ‘universal’ in mutual conflict, as Joel suggests? Has the persistence of different forms of religion been useful for the human race or rather destructive? Are we prone in religious maters to ‘narcissism of small differences’? Even if we see no future for religion at all we can ask the same questions in terms of ideology.
Good comment, MHughes.
Jesus’ universal messages are clearly rooted in Rabbinic tradition, and to the extent that Paul took things quite a bit further, Judaism gave early Christianity (and later Islam, as well) a run for its money as a universal faith. See eg. Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People.
MHughes976, scroll up and read the article about the History of Jewish Opposition to Zionism I link to for Mr. Koval. You wont think that anymore.
I entirely see what you mean, MRW, and have read the ‘Long History’ at your suggestion before. Also there’s Jacqueline Rose’s Q of Zionism, which expands on the same story. There is indeed something astonishing, stupefying about the way in which Zionism went from a bit of a fantasy with a following among the radical Christians of 188o, with hardly any Jewish sympathy, to having such dismayingly massive support among Jewish people now.
Thinking on this and reading Piterberg’s Returns of Zionism I noticed his mention of one Jewish thinker of a few generations before Z who had argued that Jews were better off without Palestine and their old kingdom – ‘good riddance’.
As I read that I began to think that you could say (controversially) that the Christians were the first group to emerge within or from Judaism to suggest that the kingdom was superseded. (Things are complicated, of course, by the fact that some Christians say the exact opposite.) Trying to get some empathy with Zionists – I do try, feel I should try as hard as I can – it struck me that for Jewish people to say ‘We don’t need the old kingdom any more’ could seem like saying ‘The Christians were right all along’. But it’s natural for Jewish people to want to maintain their distinctness from the Christian majorities in the West.
I realise that this is rather convoluted thinking on my part. But how are we to explain the remarkable conversion of Jewish people to something that for a long time seemed, in traditional Jewish terms, to be nonsense? It wasn’t just Hitler, surely?
MHughes976, I think you bring up interesting points vi-a-vis Kovel’s take vs Christianity’s diversion from Judaism. I do, however, have a different perspective: it’s quite possible that what we are seeing is the early stage of a splitting off of Judaism into two distinct streams: one centered around Israel as zion-incarnate, the other with a more abstract/spiritual interpretation of what zion means in a universal context. Such a split would be very different than the manner in which Christianity came about although there would be – as you note – similarities. The key difference – I think – will be in the details separating the Christian concept of ‘supercedism” vs the new aspect of “transcendence”. Superficially they may be similar, but the details will set them apart. It may even be that the new Judaism which would firmly regard zion as a state-of-mind would be closer to the way Buddhism views Hinduism or Shintoism with their reluctance to relinquish gods or ancestors. Complicated for sure.
The coming divergence I foresee will likely have many other new curious – even surprising – elements. For example, the “jews” of Israel may end up closer in spirit – and practice – to the Judeans of old, more like modern day Maccabbis, a direction they seem bent upon already, as many have already pointed out. While the “New New Jews” will view themselves as an organic part of “The Liberal West”, seeking to combine the more humanistic/spiritual traditions of 2 millenia-worth of erudite Rabbis and Jewish scholars with liberal/politically humanistic teachings, as exemplified best (IMO) by the late Howard Zinni.
Though the details of The Great Split are still not fully visible to me, the one thing I am certain of is that it’ll be accompanied by great strife, possibly even with violent shades. the places to watch are both Israel and the US, because this could be one earthquake with two epicenters.
It’s nice to see the dancing Israelis in there; this makes it just a little bit harder to claim that everyone who asks questions about 9/11 is a raving nazi:
The element that I find lacking in Kovel’s analysis is that Israel, Zionism, could be the expression of that universalism in place, in real community.
That its not Zionism that it is in error, but the application of Zionism.
We ARE a people, not just a religion, not a race, not a singular ethic. How we live as a people is important, how we relate to each other, and how we relate to others.
The glot is both the fruit of global universalism and also the fruit of global commercialism. Class analysis doesn’t change that, as the political decision process is similarly permanently and intimately corrupted.
Those that prefer to be residual Jew, endeavoring to be assimilated into the glot, is their choice. Those that prefer to be Jewish Jew, whether religious and/or nationalist, that is also their valid choice, so long as they do so in as humane a way as is feasible.
When Jewish Jews (nationalist or religious) are attacked, they like all other nations, deserve respect for defending themselves. They deserve criticism for excess, but not for defense.