{"id":16134,"date":"2010-12-15T13:13:13","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T13:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=16134"},"modified":"2010-12-17T09:14:30","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T09:14:30","slug":"jews-judaism-and-jewishness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=16134","title":{"rendered":"Jews, Judaism and Jewishness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gilad Atzmon \u2013 Gilad.co.uk December 15, 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since Israel defines itself as the \u2018Jewish state\u2019 we are entitled to\u00a0consider what the word \u2018Jewish\u2019 stands for.<\/span><\/p>\n

I tend to differentiate between three distinct (yet occasionally\u00a0confusing) categories.<\/span><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jews – the people<\/span><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Judaism – the religion<\/span><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jewishness – the ideology<\/span><\/p>\n

During\u00a0my study of Zionism, Jewish politics, ‘identity politics’ and culture, I have managed\u00a0to avoid embroiling\u00a0myself in the complexity involved with the first category —\u00a0I do not deal with Jews as\u00a0a\u00a0race<\/em>\u00a0or an\u00a0ethnicity<\/em>.\u00a0 I also generally avoid dealing with Judaism (the religion). In fact, I am the first to admit that the only Jewish collective to support the Palestinians, are groups that exist within\u00a0the Torah Jews. That\u00a0such groups support Palestinian\u00a0self-determination and autonomy\u00a0is proof enough that aspects of religious\u00a0Judaism can be interpreted as emphasising ethical precepts.<\/span><\/p>\n

However —\u00a0I am very critical of what I view as ‘Jewish ideology,\u00a0and I am also critical of\u00a0what I consider to be ‘Jewish identity politics.’<\/span><\/p>\n

‘Jewish ideology’ is basically an amalgam of\u00a0racially orientated exclusive arguments.\u00a0 It is fuelled by assumptions about ‘ethno’-centric supremacy, and\u00a0ideas\u00a0such as \u2018choseness<\/em>\u2019. Being a tribal setting then,\u00a0Jewish ideology defies equality. It also opposes universalism. The followers of that ideology tend to believe that they are somewhat different and even better (chosen<\/em>) than non Jews. And much Jewish political activity is a formulation, and expression\u00a0of a tribal exclusive club that demands a\u00a0\u2018Jews only\u2019 entry card.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is important to note that Jewish ideology and Zionism are not entirely the same —\u00a0In fact, Zionism\u00a0should be\u00a0seen as\u00a0just\u00a0one manifestation<\/em>\u00a0of Jewish ideology. Though Israel is\u00a0the\u00a0fruit<\/em>\u00a0of the Zionist project —\u00a0it is\u00a0vital to realise that\u00a0Zionism does not drive Israeli politics or ideology.\u00a0 In fact, Zionism is largely a Diaspora Jewish discourse.<\/span><\/p>\n

While early\u00a0Zionism presented itself as a promise to \u2018resolve theGalut\u00a0<\/em>\u2019 (Diaspora) by\u00a0\u2018transforming\u2019 the Diaspora Jew into an \u2018authentic civilised\u2019 human being —\u00a0it is\u00a0important to remember that the last few generations of Israelis have been born in Zion\u00a0(Palestine) and are, therefore,\u00a0not\u00a0entirely shaped\u00a0by Zionist ideologies. From a Zionist perspective, the modern Israeli is then,\u00a0a \u2018post-revolutionary\u2019 subject.\u00a0 And indeed, I myself, amongst millions of\u00a0other Israelis,\u00a0joined the Israeli army\u00a0because\u00a0we were Jews<\/em>\u00a0—\u00a0not because we were Zionists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israelis do, however,\u00a0follow what I\u00a0define\u00a0as\u00a0Jewish ideology —\u00a0They practise and perform\u00a0a number of\u00a0different measures that are there to maintain Jewish exclusivity on the land.\u00a0\u00a0 When 94%\u00a0of Israeli Jews supported IDF’s murderous\u00a0tactics against Gazans at the time of\u00a0Operation Cast Lead, it wasn\u2019t\u00a0 Zionism that motivated them. It was\u00a0the total lack of empathy with other human beings. It was\u00a0blindness towards others. It was supremacy and\u00a0chauvinism; or, in other words, it was the ugliest homicidal manifestation of\u00a0their\u00a0choseness<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost every aspect of Israeli politics, whether it is the \u2018unilateral disengagement\u2019 or the loyalty oath, can be grasped as an attempt to project and protect Jewish exclusivity on the land (instead of trying to resolve the\u00a0Galut<\/em>)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You may note that I neither refer to Jews as a racial or ethnic group; nor am I directing my critique towards Judaism, the religion. And whilst Jews can indeed succumb to what I define as\u00a0‘Jewish ideology’, (and many of them do)\u00a0it is\u00a0valuable to bear in mind\u00a0they can also be its most virulent \u00a0enemies: Obvious examples are \u00a0Jesus, Spinoza and Marx, and one can also\u00a0include Israelis such as Israel Shahak, Gideon Levy and others.\u00a0It is also\u00a0pertinent\u00a0to mention that some early Zionists such as Nordau and Borochov were also strong opponents of Jewish ideology and culture —\u00a0For them, Zionism was a necessary attempt to amend Jews. They believed that once dwelling on \u2018their promised land,\u2019 what had hitherto been perceived as ‘Jewish tendencies’, (such as ‘non-productive\u00a0inclinations’), would disappear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It should be obvious that I am\u00a0in total support of the universal and ethical\u00a0ideas that are coupled with the ODS (One Democratic State) and SOIC (State of its Citizens). I would be also be the first to endorse and explore any form of reconciliation\u00a0between the indigenous people of the land (Palestinians) and the new comers (Israelis).<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, I believe that\u00a0 for any possible and intelligible discussion to take place –we\u00a0 surely must be able to freely explore the true nature of the ideology that drives the Jewish state, and Jewish politics around the world. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We must find a way to admit to ourselves that the Jewish ideological, political and cultural discourse is a tribal discourse:\u00a0it is foreign to universalism and ideas of true equality. Also, we need to realise that\u00a0the Israeli notion of \u2018shalom<\/em>\u2019 (peace) is interpreted by Israelis as \u2018security for Jews\u2019 instead of reconciliation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unless we are brave enough to confront these issues, and discuss them freely, the pro- Palestinian movement is trapped in a futile discourse on the verge of self-indulgence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Israel defines itself as the \u2018Jewish state\u2019 we are entitled to consider what the word \u2018Jewish\u2019 stands for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16134"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16278,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16134\/revisions\/16278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}