The exilic stance: a true alternative for the American Jewry?

• In Event: In the Wake of October 7

Abstract

The events of October 7th and the ensuing war in Gaza renewed the interest in what has been for a few decades now a growing intellectual endeavor to rethink" Jewish identity without Zionism.” This tendency manifests itself today in multiple instances; for example, the JVP alternative seder’s attempt to render a reading of the Haggadah that counterbalances the zionist theological emphasis on the plight of the Israelites, but also the proliferation of academic discussion surrounding new important publications, such as in the case of Shaul Magid’s book THE NECESSITY OF EXILE. In this talk, I would like to ask to what extent the exilic stance makes a viable alternative worldview that could serve diasporic Jews as a collective. To put another way, what are the structural conditions that enable, or hinder, the realization of the callings to make an “exodus from Zionism” which public intellectuals, such as Naomi Klein, voice today?

My talk will revolve around the structural limitation imposed on American Jews by Christian-Jewish political theologies. I will start with broader theoretical remarks about the notion of allosemitism as reflected in the works of Freud and Zygmunt Bauman. I will attempt to show how for both of them Jewish particularism, i.e., the belief in being chosen by god, serves an essential element of Jewish identity. In the second part I will rely on the recent scholarships of Liron Mor, Karma Ben Johanan and Ofri Ilany, to show how the choosing of Israel serves American protestantism in establishing an imaginary tie to the biblical Israelites, thus also providing justification for the modern nation state project. Can American jews, as a collective, truly take a step back from Zionism as long as America insists on playing God in its choosing of Israel as its favorite child? What does it mean for American Jews to cut ties with Zionism in such a political context? And, also, can the exilic stance be viewed as internal to the logic of the zionist indecisionist political theology? Or, does the exilic stance rather mark a shift towards a new version of universalist Pauline conception of Judaism?

Author

• dror birger, Cornell University