Tony Judt
There is a great essay by Jennifer Homans, widow of Tony Judt, in the New York Review of Books, describing his last writing project, Thinking the Twentieth Century, undertaken with Yale scholar Timothy Snyder:
And Tim was careful to insist that Tony not only “talk” the twentieth century, but place himself in its setting. Zionism, for example, they treated as a moment and movement in Jewish thought and gave it its full historical due. It was also Tony’s own first disappointed political love, and he returns over and again to the ways in which his total—deeply ideological—commitment to the Zionist cause as a young man (after he joined a kibbutz and volunteered as a translator for the Six-Day War) and his subsequent disenchantment had allowed him “to identify the same fanaticism and myopic, exclusivist tunnel vision in others.” That phase of his life gave him a kind of historical empathy for the often disastrous ideological certainties of the twentieth century that he then set out to describe and analyze.
I would point out another brief passage in the essay:
There was something about Tim, his seriousness and depth of knowledge, and his Protestant, midwestern morality, that provoked Tony in the best possible ways.
Let’s be clear. Judt was supported most intimately in his agonizing last years by a non-Jewish wife and a non-Jewish scholarly friend, who brought different cultural ways to his life. It was this type of mingled experience, throughout Judt’s adult life, that led him to leap out of the ethnocentrism of Zionism and support a democracy in Israel and Palestine, in the groundbreaking piece of 2003, Israel: The Alternative, which Homans also cites in this essay.
There’s something to Tony Judt and Midwestern Protestant morals. I remember reading an interview with him when he was still alive a few years back, I think by an Israeli woman who describes the setting in which she interviewed him. They spoke of Zionism and Jewishness and how they are increasingly contradicting each other.
Then, abruptly, a student(a young woman) came by. She excused herself but Tony being Tony was always the gentleman, letting her in. As the conservation between the young woman – a Gentile – and the old, Jewish man progressed you could see the emotional bonds he forged. She complained about a boyfriend. A Cambridge intellectual, a physicist.
Tony then warmly remarked, with irony, that he too knew how it is to fall for people that shouldn’t be your type and he specifically mentioned ‘strictly Protestant, midwestern women’ which he often became tangled up with.
Tim probably reminded him of those traits.
I do find it fascinating, because I have a similar relationship.
Midwestern Protestantism is an offshoot of North European Protestantism, or modern Western liberalism.
Persecution of Jews were always greatest historically in Catholic countries and lowest in Protestant nations(even if both instances occured). A good example is England compared to France or to the mixed-Germany(Catholic/Protestant, Central European culture). Or look at Scandinavia.
Liberalism, from John Stuart Mills and many other figures, came from the culture of liberal, North European Protestantism. I think the effect it had on Judt was to sharpen his thinking, his reflections and his moral senses. It’s very principal with strong emphasis on morality and humility. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of the most brilliant liberal intellectuals came from this religious background(culturally if not religiously). It’s connected.
And because of this, Tony Judt who is remarkably similar to Orwell in his combination of a ferocious intellect and deepfelt moral sense of the world and his utter opposition to oppression and injustice. His subtle and fearless disposition. To speak truth to power, even when it’s uncomfortable. Orwell’s 1984 was directed as much to Moscow as it was to his socialist comrades, many of whom were still Stalinist and had quite authoritarian tendencies. Judt’s searing into Zionism was similar. Neither Judt nor Orwell were really popular among their contemparies. Judt wasn’t really a favourite within mainstream liberalism(such as TNR). Orwell was also despised by many, even if many secretly admired his courage, his morality and his towering intellect.
It’s also an irony that both are getting their appreciation once they’re dead. Perhaps they are safer to deal with that way.
Victor Klemperer’s diaries are worth reading. Despite everything that happened to him, he never lost his humanity and compassion.
Judt carried his until the end. That is why he rejected Zionism. The cult is devoid of compassion.
It seems to me that rejecting Zionism is much more effective when you can muster some empathy with Zionists, as human beings. Zionism is not an irrational, monstrous ideology completely out of step with history as we know it. It is rather entirely consistent with a previous era, firmly moored in place as the world has moved on. You don’t serve the cause of liberation by pointing at people and screaming at them that they are simply wrong, end of story, but by opening the doors to transformation that remains internally consistent.
The bridge leading away from Zionism for Jews and Israelis is still very Jewish, and will remain tribal.
Must be especially challenging for a guy like Phil, who is just now emerging from a Siberian shtetl, and is still haunted by all the terrible things the Rabbi told him about the Gentiles.
“his Protestant, midwestern morality, that provoked Tony in the best possible ways.”
ROTFL! Anyway, I tried about three different lines here, and all of them were in such bad taste I gave it a miss. Have we really sunk that low, that a “Protestant, midwestern morality” is a step up? That is awful, truly awful. Of course, the waving wheat, it does smell sweet, when the wind comes right behind the rain! There is that to be said for the mid-west. And just a few more miles toward the sunset, and you’ll never hear a discouraging word, and the skies are not cruddy all day.
thanks, for alerting us to this, Phil. Good it’s online:
I am writing this because I have a few things to say about Thinking the Twentieth Century—things that I believe he would have wanted his readers to know.