I’m not a resident of the United States and I have a couple of question for Z Word readers who do live there: are intelligent people in the US who take an interest in such matters generally unaware that there have always been Jews that opposed Jewish nationhood and, in particular, that some 20th century Jewish intellectuals like Hannah Arendt (when she wasn’t busy making excuses for Martin Heidegger) were scathingly critical of Israel? Has this information been excluded from public debate? Does mentioning these facts here make me courageous? By mentioning them now do I risk the wrath of AIPAC?
Another question for you: is there widespread confusion in the United States of the terms “Jew” and “Zionist”? I mean, if you did a bit of basic sociological research would you find that there were lots of folks in America who would reply “Zionism” if they were shown this picture and asked to identify the religion of the people in it?
I ask these questions because the astoundingly renowned American intellectual Judith Butler thinks that the answer to my questions is - to a greater or lesser extent in each case - “Yes”. I know this because I have just taken the trouble to listen to Ms. Butler’s contribution to a recent debate (scroll down to the audio of her remarks) at NYU by eminent scholars on the question of religion in the public sphere.
“Is Judaism Zionism?” is the opening phrase of the title of her speech. That’s a bit like asking “Is Roman Catholicism Irish nationalism? Or, “Is Buddhism Sri Lankan nationalism?” In each case there are obvious links between the two phenomena but it wouldn’t occur to any serious scholar to ask, even for rhetorical purposes, whether they amounted to the same thing, and if it did they’d have a hard job finding a platform for their musings at a prestigious university.
The second phrase of the title is “Religious Sources for the Critique of Violence”. I mean, who knew that there was a prominent Jewish ethical tradition? Who knew, indeed, that you could be Jewish, religious and critical of the violent, expansionist tendencies of nation states? I don’t want to overdo the sarcasm but the jejune nature of Butler’s talk leaves her wide open to it. It’s also noteworthy how she draws on thinkers like Buber and Levinas to support her argument; religious men, certainly, but not, I suspect, thinkers with a great number of followers among those Jews who are attempting to drag down democracy in Israel. If you want to argue effectively against such people you have to steep yourself in their sources.
Butler is flat against Jewish self-determination. There’s not much else you can safely assert about her thought in this area where - just like in areas where she made her name like gender studies - she displays an enviable ability to say something while at the same time leaving a space to slither back into if asked if that’s what she actually believes. She argues, and this from one of the principle promoters of alterity and anti-essentialism, that there’s just something intrinsically special about Jews that makes them unsuitable for having their own state and that the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict lies in the creation of some sort of bi-national entity in which both peoples can “enact their convergent exiles.” That quote is from memory but it gives you a taste of Butler’s style and, as far as I can judge, doesn’t contradict the substance of her views.
I can really see Israelis and Palestinians queuing up to participate in a joint enactment of their convergent exiles.
“I’m not a resident of the United States and I have a couple of question for Z Word readers who do live there; are intelligent people in the US who take an interest in such matters generally unaware that there have always been Jews that opposed Jewish nationhood and, in particular, that some 20th century Jewish intellectuals like Hannah Arendt (when she wasn’t busy making excuses for Martin Heidegger) were scathingly critical of Israel? Has this information been excluded from public debate? Does mentioning these facts here make me courageous? By mentioning them now do I risk the wrath of AIPAC?”
On the contrary Eamonn, the fact Arendt was critical of Zionism is common knowledge. What isn’t common knowledge is that Arendt was an early supported of Zionism in the 30’s. When she came to the US she became more critical, probably because she wanted to be among the intellectual in crowd.
However, during the 1973 war when she thought Israel would be destroyed she made monetary donations to the extremist organization the Jewish Defense League (not some centrist Zionist organization). Arendt was extremely inconsistent on this issue.
I don’t think AIPAC even notices scholars who are anti-Zionists much less condemn them.
In general, before world war two and the Holocaust there were many anti-Zionist scholars and intellectuals in Europe. Most of them, though, were killed by the Nazis.
Here in the US the publisher of the New York Times was famously and anti-Zionist who wouldn’t allow his paper to print articles about the Holocaust while it was in progress in Europe. (He worked tirelessly to get his own family out of Germany but help doom many other Jews.)
This isn’t much talked about either.
Judith Butler, I didn’t even know she was Jewish till she started attacking Israel and called herself a Jew, views are not new and they are as wrong today as they were when they articulated in Europe and in the US by many intellectuals most of whom opted for assimilation an didn’t even consider themselves Jews.
I’m an American Jew who lives in Berlin and I think that there is a dangerous naivete in many American Jews. They seem to think that virulent, murderous antisemitism is an artefeact of the past. Perhaps they should come out here to the real world, where kindergartens have high walls and armed guards and where I am afraid to allow my chanukiyah to be seen from the street.
As a US resident…
On the contrary, the majority seems to believe that those are the only legitimate Jews and that Jews who support Jewish existence in the Middle East are a recent novelty of the extreme right wing.
Yes, to the same extent that there is confusion between “welfare recipient” and “Nigger”, and between “illegal immigrant” and “Latino”. People clearly use one word to mean the other, but they will use the correct word if you try to pin them down through a manufactured test like the one you suggest. People also routinely use “neocon” to mean “Jew”.
Caveat: I see almost all of this activity online. The people I know offline don’t take an interest in politics of any kind.
For those interested, there is quite a bit on the anti-Zionism of Judith Butler by Cynthia Ozick and Edward Alexander in two chapters of the following book:
Edward Alexander and Paul Bogdanor Eds,The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders (Transaction Publishers, 2006)
Away from Butler, there are some great chapters on Chomsky and Finkelstein as well as many others. The book is both informative and entertaining whilst written in a scholarly fashion and I highly recommend it being read.
Hi Michael Ezra, thanks for the book reference.
I will take a look at it.
Butler is a serial winner of Denis Dutton’s “Bad Writing Award.” Qualifying examples beat anything in Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” So really, it’s impossible to hold her to account for anything she says because she doesn’t really know what words mean.
Jacob,
Thank you. For some other references of things you mentioned in your earlier post.
On Hannah Arendt, you may find Richard Bernstein’s book, Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question (Polity Press, 1996) an interesting read. If the debate surrounding the Eichmann in Jerusalem controversy is of specific interest, then I will plug my own essay,The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics,” Democratiya No. 9 (Summer, 2007)pp. 141-165.
On the New York Times and the Holocaust, there is some information in Alexander and Bogdanor’s book that I have previously referred you to, but I would also suggest Max Frankel’s article, “Turning Away from the Holocasut,” New York Times, November 14, 2001. I also suggest Laurel Leff, “When the Facts Didn’t Speak for Themselves: The Holocaust in the New York Times, 1939-1945,” The Harvard International Journal of Press Politics Vol. 5, No. 2 (2000)pp.52-72. Below is a short extract:
You can in fact read the whole article (excluding some of the end notes) for free on line in Google Books as it is available for preview commencing on page 51 of Robert Shapiro’s edited book, Why Didn’t the Press Shout? American & International Journalism during the Holocaust (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
I hope this has been on some help.
“On Hannah Arendt, you may find Richard Bernstein’s book, Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question (Polity Press, 1996) an interesting read. If the debate surrounding the Eichmann in Jerusalem controversy is of specific interest, then I will plug my own essay,The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics,” Democratiya No. 9 (Summer, 2007)pp. 141-165.”
Thanks Ezra, I have the Bernstein book, but I will look up your essay.
The NY Times behavior during the Shoah was disgraceful and I am surprised that the paper survived that scandal intact.
It still makes my blood boil when I think about it.