What Comes After Zionism? – With Dr. Shaul Magid

I was doing basic training and then service in uh in in an army base near Naas and just being around there in the base walking through Palestinian towns having children look at you with hatred you just you you get this sense that you are a dominator that you are dominating

This other people and and they hate you because you’re dominating them you’re controlling their lives and in a certain sense if there was a moment that was a Break um in my own sign of Zionism it was that moment the book is basically trying to decouple the nation state of

Israel from Zionism as an ideology and I asked whether in fact Zionism has done its work I don’t think that Zionism provides the real template for that kind of coexistence that is necessary because the Jews are not going anywhere the Palestinians are not going anywhere and I think this is something that’s extreme

Extremely important today when we’re looking at the student protest when we’re looking at the pro Palestinian movement or the Palestinian solidarity movement where we’re kind of making the claim that all anti-zionism is anti-Semitism is what Jonathan greenblat said I think these are incredibly irresponsible uh remarks to a lot of

People to be anti-zionist is is to is to you know endorse genocide of of juice I’m talking to sha mid he is the distinguished fellow in Jewish studies at Dartmouth College and visiting professor of modern Judaism at Harvard University as well as a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute

Uh he recently published the book the necessity of Exile essays from a distance um which I’m very excited to talk about uh today so shomi thank you so much for uh for giving me your time thank you thank you for having me just I I mentioned this to you before we hit

Record on a personal level uh you know what’s what’s weighing heavy on my mind um is uh the news that’s that’s coming out of Gaza and that’s that’s something that on a personal existential level as someone who has been a uh in in the modern Orthodox Zionist World his whole

Life and went design his schools um it’s something that just just just weighs on me I guess yeah to to sort of frame this conversation start how do you think about what’s going on in Israel today uh what’s going on in is today is is is is horrible and horrifying and

Um with everybody that’s I’m sure listening to this you know I I I wish and pray for the safety of of of all that are there it’s um uh on the one hand shocking um certainly shocking and yet um on the other hand if I could say

I wouldn’t say um there was nothing to say about it being predictable but I think that the the situation in uh in in Israel uh with the you know with the with the the both in the West Bank and Gaza from my standpoint was and not only my standpoint but certainly my standpoint

Was untenable and in a certain sense um something was going to break at some point and uh no one could have expected what happened on October 7th for sure but um on the other hand um the the the realities on the ground did not really um uh speak to anything that was going

To be able to continue um you know indefinitely I I suppose um the question is for us now that we’re already in January um the war is going to end at some point uh whether it’s soon or or later we don’t know but I suppose the question that some of us

Are asking many of us are probably asking is you know what happens when that when the war does end uh in what way will reality change and what way will the situation change and what way will the Paradigm change um will the protests um start up again what does

That really actually mean so I think that um I sit with everyone and um and and think about not only the safety of the people people that are there but also um in what way will October 7th change the the realities um in Israel and I don’t think anybody knows that at

This point yeah I I understood your book I I read your book as sort of being the end sort of describing the end the death of a certain liberal Zionism um and a liberal Zionism that I I very much grew up in and I believed in and I I

Supported um and and you give lots of examples of of sort of why that that’s no longer uh tenable um and and I think to me the sort of the the response to October 7th was was probably the final uh you know clarification of that of

That point but is that is that a fair uh characterization of some of what’s going on in the book yeah I wouldn’t I wouldn’t um I probably wouldn’t articulate it in as as the death of liberal Zionism I think it is um is it is a I speak about the obsolescence of

Liberal Zionism to say two things about it one that um I don’t really see it as being a viable alternative for life in Israel Palestine uh and second I think that there is some in some sense uh many of you know people that identify as being liberal zionists and that are

Unhappy in terms of what’s going on with the government what’s going on with the settlers what’s going on with Ben and smotrich what’s going on with the judicial reforms and would like to kind of get back to some liberal Zionist status quo and and my argument in the

Book is that I I don’t really think that the liberal Zionist status quo ever existed for any length of time I mean there were certain certainly certain periods where the liberal Zionist narrative seemed to be operative but I think they were far and few between and

And I also say that I think that liberal Zionism is an American phenomenon I don’t think liberal Zionism really exists in Israel there is a left in Israel or there was a left there isn’t much of a left anymore but there is there you know there is a left in Israel

But that left in Israel is not really liberal Zionism in in many ways it’s far to the left of liberal Zionism so I think you know liberal Zionism is an American phenomenon it kind of begins with Lewis brandise who makes the famous argument that to be a good American is

To be a Zionist that a liberal value liberal American values and liberal values in um in Zionism of course he lived before the state of Israel are are fairly commensurate with each other so I I I think it is an American reality it’s an American phenomenon it perhaps had its

Institutional um moment uh in the founding of J Street during the Obama Administration but I just don’t think it’s a viable way to think about how life can can can continue to exist in uh in the state of Israel at this point okay yeah I want to come back to this

More I want to I want to sort of flush out what really what we by liberal Zionism and sort of what we mean by why it’s it’s sort of fallen into obsolescence um but before we come back to that um even if we just take a step

Back maybe sort of like a a sort of a foundational kind of question um how how do you think about the relationship between Judaism and the land of Israel I mean I I was raised uh with with you know sort of Israel being very Central to Judaism of course there becomes a a

Mixture a a complex uh question about the relation between the land of Israel and the state of Israel um and and and that takes many different forms um but I’m curious just in in the sort of the most open-ended question kind of way how you think about that uh that

Relationship I think about the relationship in the following way and I do talk about this in the book too um Judaism as we know it when we speak about Judaism we’re speaking about something uh that exists within our the world that we live in Judaism as we know

It was a a a religion that was founded in Exile and it was it certainly had the land of Israel very much um in mind and the second temple and the first temple and the prophets and so on and so forth but but it’s it’s a religion that is

Diasporic the very the very nature of it is diasporic and you can see that in a very various kind of tulic discussions about yav whether they’re historically accurate or not so I think that in a certain sense Israel is a is a diasporic religion I sorry Judaism is a diasporic

Religion that has the land of Israel as the kind of ultimate culmination of its as of it of its aspirations and I think that that in a certain sense um that had existed throughout time I mean e for many of the centuries many Jews didn’t go to the

Land of Israel even when they were able to go to the land of Israel they didn’t some did obviously now Zionism is something that is much much more recent it’s it’s newer from my perspective Zionism is a is a an articulation of Western European nationalism for Jews I

Mean there are people that’ll make make the case that Zionism is itself you know goes back to the Bible or whatever I I don’t really agree with that I think I think the land of Israel and the sanctity of the land of Israel and Zionism as a project of Jewish

Self-determination that emerges in the wake of the failure of the Emancipation to solve the Jewish question is a different phenomenon but of course what ends up happening over the course of time the success of Zionism specifically uh with the establishment for the state meant that in a sense um the land of

Israel and the state of Israel somehow become fused and I I I that’s not something that I particularly uh feel connected with not not not that I’m not connected in some sense to the state but I don’t really believe that the the the the the land of Israel and the state of

Israel are identical and I think making them identical is to my mind problematic so um I I I’m I’m of the opinion that Zionism is a modern phenomenon of Jewish self-determination to solve a particular problem in Europe and to some degree it solved that problem and to another

Degree it didn’t solve that problem but I I I think in the relation the the to to your question about the relationship between between um uh the land of Israel and Jud Judaism obviously um the land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people I don’t really think

That’s a contestable claim um the relationship between the homeland of the Jewish people and the nation state the modern secular nation state of Israel is a more complicated story in my view yeah again I as I’ve said to you I’ve said on this channel in different ways and it

Means different thing to different people I guess but you know growing up in this modern Orthodox Jewish World um I I feel like uh Zionism was so incredibly important that it’s like it’s like hard to even believer explain you know how Central it was to religion you

Know um and just one example of that just one manifestation you know is like there’s this we’re taught to to love Jews and to like and to like really um see the best in Jews and and and talk well of other Jews except for like the anti-zionist juice you know like those

Are like are really seen as Outsiders um in my in my kind of religious world and and and I don’t know can you speak to sort of the way in which it became such a tenant of of religious Faith the modern the modern State yeah this is a

This is a great question and I can speak about it really from the an American context because Israel of course is a different situation because that’s the nation state that people live in but I think that there was probably in the beginning of the 1970s a a a very

Definite educational project of what I call elsewhere the zionis of American jewry where um the the where Zionism becomes in a certain sense not only the companion to but the basic frame around which Judaism is understood I think it’s important to remember that there’s an entire history of anti- Zionism we’re

Not talking about Sim or the ultra Orthodox Jews or the fact that most Orthodox Jews pre before the war were anti Zionist for a variety of reasons but within the American context there was a very strong movement against Zionism that was in some ways dominant until until the

1930s uh or the 1940s and that particular history has been almost totally erased from the story of American jewry now there there I mean there’s a reason why that is uh I suppose and there are interestingly I counted for example uh recently in a review I was writing 10 books in English

That were published in the last two years that were either about anti-zionism or challenging or critical of Zionism 10 books in the last two years so obviously something is changing but I do think that and we can speak to that change but I do think that you’re right that

Certainly within modern Orthodoxy and it’s it’s kind of interesting that how that’s happened um the Zionism has become in a sense the um the frame around which Judaism is is understood now if you go back to the 1960s for example um someone who is now considered

To be the kind of titular head of modern Orthodoxy salic um he was a Zionist for sure but Zionism was not the center piece of his Judaism and you know he even had some ambivalence about uh about its relationship to Judaism and Jewish practice so I think there something has

Become transformed Med within the modern Orthodox world over the past let’s say 40 years whereby there is no room anymore as I understand it within kind of contemporary modern Orthodoxy for any position that is not you know full-on Zionist yeah even if you’re right I I believe you are right about R salovich

It just that’s going to read his heresy to to many people in in my milu because you know his book kek uh is is just considered you know such like a like a Mand reading to like every high school students you know this this metaphor from song of songs about God knocking

And you have to get the door and and that’s of course the metaphor for returning from the land of Israel yeah there’s um there’s an interesting YouTube video that that uh that’s been that was going around recently of of a talk that he gave I don’t know whether

It was in the 70s or probably was in the 70s where he expressed somewhat more ambivalence about use of power and Jewish you know attainment of power and how that was going to play itself out in the state so I I look do do I mean I’ve

Read and I’m sure many of your listeners have read and yes it’s a very powerful Zionist statement but I still think it’s different than what we’re seeing now within modern Orthodoxy and Zionism yeah what what I try to gesture at with my opening uh ramble and it’s something

That on again on a spiritual level I’m wrestling with is this is the sense of of the Jewish text that I was taught of of of the compassionate Jew you know of of uh it’s in the talmud various places it’s it’s in ROM in my Mones in various

Places and and this image and and the way in which I think the the the the marriage of Judaism with the power of the state of Israel um at least in my mind and maybe this will change and maybe this is an immature kind of narrow silly perspective but but that just

Feels so shattered you know and and I feel very disillusioned about that I think I think that’s true and and that’s part of why I wrote about Exile because I think that um thinking that Zionism is the solution or the end or the negation of Exile the Eraser of Exile from the

From the Jewish psyche is precisely something that has the potential to undermine that kind of merciful compassionate attitude which I think really comes from a certain sense of distance from power and I think that the the challenge of of Zionism from a religious perspective from a theological

Perspective is really you know how do you uh manage power and power over other people and still maintain a certain sense of compassion and empathy um toward the other now of course you know you could look at this post October 7th and maybe it looks a little bit

Different since you know we were as a people kind of subjected to a a horrific Massacre but nonetheless I think that that you know people that I consider to be influences on me people like AR M Tamaris back in the 1920s were concerned and ambivalent about Zionism because precisely because

The the acquisition of power is a very dangerous thing and in a certain sense to become political is a an act of self-determination but it also has a lot of serious challenges and and my view is that I don’t think that uh we um we have

Met those challenges in in a way that’s satisfactory yeah to a lot of people to be anti-zionist is is to is to you know endorse genocide of of juice that that’s just sort of a a kind of narrow huzar oriented you know uh perspective I think

That a lot of a lot of people in my world you know seem to share so I want to sort of unpack that a little bit but maybe as to get to that Point um can you talk about because you write about this very beautifully in your book and I

Found these uh sections very affecting your your relationship with Zionism and your you know your your journey and and sort of and and yeah how you how you evolved yeah okay I’d like to come back to that that other question because I think that’s actually an important one I

Think that that that uh anti-zionism is certainly deeply misunderstood by by a lot of by a lot of zionists but we can come back to that so my situation is a little bit distinctive I you know I grew up as a secular Jew in America um I became a balua when I was

19 and then uh studied in Israel and in Brooklyn until I made Aliah when I was about when I was 21 and uh and lived there for a decade I think the distinctive quality about my my you know path to it is that I was not party to the Zion project uh

My era because my um my paternal grandparents were people of the Workman Circle they were socialists they were bundist and so I went I went to a kind of workman Circle summer camp as a child and we never talked about Israel I mean I went there from 1966 to 1974 through

The 67 War through the Yum Kipper war and I don’t remember ever talking about Israel there was never an Israeli flag this was a camp where we studied Yiddish and there was a sense of kind of of yish kite but there was really no there was

No it was not nationalistic at all so I didn’t grow up with that and so in a certain way I when I came to um becoming Orthodox uh it wasn’t from any Zionist perspective and when I moved to Israel it wasn’t because I was a Zionist although I would have considered myself

A Zionist but my my desire to move to Israel was to um to live in in erodes to live in the holy land and and I I fairly quickly became part of like the K world the k Community which was obviously very anti-zionist at that point and it just

My my relationship to the to Israel was never in the early part of my you know Journey so to speak was never really a political one it became so as time went on but um in a certain way I didn’t have to um uh aband I didn’t have to kind of

Like unlearn a particular kind of Zionist education as a child because I just never had it it wasn’t it wasn’t that it was anti-zionist it just it just you know Israel didn’t really mean anything to to my family yeah um and and you tell stories

In the book um maybe you can share them here about the experience of you know Kabal Shabbat uh the the the the Friday night prayer uh looking out um in the West Bank uh over you know the beautiful Judean Hills um and and I think you describe seeing a

Palestinian you know walking in the landscape can you can you can you speak that experience it was it was it was actually in Gaza I you know my then wife and I were were looking to move to a settlement and there were various settlements that we were thinking about

We two we went to a number of them and one of them was atona uh in Gaza which was overlooking kanun at that time and I we went there and it was really you know for anyone that has been to to Gaza because we used to actually go to Gaza

Fairly frequently to the beach um it was to gush katif it was you know it’s a magnificently beautiful place and just the sand the air the you know there’s everything was was was certainly magical from somebody who came from this you know the New York suburbs and I went to

Davin on Kabal chabbat I went to David on on on Friday night and you know looking out the window of the sff of the of the small kind of synagogue it was it was it was magnificent but I happen we know we were looking toward the sunset

And and I happened to see a a um a gazin Palestinian gazin who was just on you know a hor drawn carriage going home from the market or whatever and I realized that that there was something there was something that was missing in that kind of beautiful scenario and what

Was missing is what in a certain sense the the Arabs that were were living there were just not part of the story they were not part of the future they existed there the way the Flora and FAA existed there but there was no real recognition from these people who were

Incredibly generous and Incredibly you know forthcoming um and Incredibly spiritual that uh there’s another people there and those people have lives and those people have been living there many of them have been living there since they were you know expelled from from Israel in 1948 or left by their own

Valtion however they left so I I I there was a crack in my Zionism at that moment there was something there was a fissure that opened up that never really closed that said to me there’s something about this project that doesn’t make sense to me given

Where I came from and the world that I grew up in and I stayed with it for years after that but that fissure never really healed it just kind of widened over time and it really kind of came to a a a breaking point when I served in the IDF in

1989 during the first inada and I was schav bnck for those of you people who are a little older and they have kids so they actually go to the Army for a shorter period of time and um I was I was doing basic training and then

Service in uh in in an army base near Naas and just being around there in the base walking through Palestinian towns having children look at you with hatred you just you you get this sense that you are a dominator that you are dominating this other people and and they hate you

Because you’re dominating them you’re controlling their lives and in a certain sense if there was a moment that was a Break um in my own sign of Zionism it was that moment I think that as I think I say in the book you know I didn’t lose

My Zionism at a leftwing protest I lost my Zionism in the IDF during the first in and uh that I I think that’s an experience that’s not you know distinctive to me many people have it and many people can experience that in a different way but I just I felt at that

Point that that this was just not a tenable project you can’t just rule over people indefinitely without them resisting and this was the first in so the resistance was in retrospect pretty um minimal but nonetheless what happened subsequent to that was not really a surprise to me

Yeah that that’s an important part of the book for me I mean I spent so many shabat so many Kabal shabbats you know in the Judean Hills looking over you know in the settlements and and looking over Palestinian land you know and and you know I never had that realization I

I never I never thought thought of it that way um the the the the Palestinian people I I studied in Yeshiva in the West Bank and and seeing the cars of the Palestinian license plates seeing Palestinian people interrogated at checkpoints um you know all sorts of things it never clicked it never clicked

I think in for me there was just a total I I grew up and and I I want to take responsibility and I also think it’s it’s a social thing there was a complete eraser of the Palestinian experience a complete eraser and as I’ve evolved intellectually and and I I I think uh

Understood more about history and understood more about the way in which uh things that we now call evil transpire it seems to me that that the common factor The Core Essence that is just an eraser of another people and I’m now I now I now grapple with sort of

That shame to some extent into that uh that regret and that guilt of you know of of being so blind in that way to you know these people’s Humanity it it I I know and I’m sure a lot of people who who are listening will you know come up with a variety of

Reasons why um uh that a raer is necessary or try to and this becomes the kind of liberal Zionist position that I have such problems with to to minimize it or to say well you know Arabs in Israel really are able to do this or able to do that or they’re members of

The knesset or the judges in courts and all of that is true but nonetheless um there is a a a a group of of millions of people who are being occupied and not only being occupied but being dominated and that’s the price now a lot of people will say well that’s a

Worth it price because Jewish survival is more important and if we have to dominate another people to ensure our survival and our safety so be it I I I hear that um I think that I probably thought that at a particular point in my life um I wonder whether you know in a

Certain sense from my perspective really what happens to Judaism because ultimately for me I’m not really a nationalist I mean I’m in this because I love Judaism and and Torah and nationalism never really spoke to me so um my question I think is what happens to a Judaism when it becomes a religion

That is used as a um as a a tool of domination and power and uh and and in a certain sense what I’m trying to do in the book is say can we think about um the state of Israel without Zionism and I think a lot of people probably will read the book

And think that it’s anti-israel but the book is really not anti-israel and I make that very clear at the beginning the book is basically trying to decouple the nation state of Israel from Zionism as an ideology and ask the question Zionism uh was the ideology that created the conditions and the implementation and

Execution of what became the nation state of Israel and I I think without Zionism it wouldn’t have come to be and I asked whether in fact Zionism has done its work and we should just basically say we have to think of another way where we as Jews can live in the land of

Israel with a significant and growing minority of non-jews that see us as um as stealing their land and and how how that’s going to actually work I don’t think that Zionism provides the real template for that kind of coexistence that is necessary because the Jews are not going anywhere the

Palestinians are not going anywhere and I think that’s kind of where we’re going to come When the Smoke Clears after after the war is these two people are still living here cheap by gel and if we don’t figure out a way as as the dominating Force here as the hamon if we

Don’t figure out a way of of living in in in of living of of figure out a way of coexistence where both parties can feel like they both Collective and individual aspirations are met I think we’re going to Just Produce another you know God forbid October 7th

I don’t think we’re going to produce another October 7th but it’s going to blow up is some other way yeah I mean one of the lessons I learned from October 7th is that there’s no amount of security there’s no amount of walls there’s no amount of uh infiltrating uh

You know Palestinian you know arrests you could do in the middle of the night there’s nothing there’s nothing you could do uh to to permanently just shut up millions of people who who want you know who who who who want uh self-determination it just just this

Vision I think of you know of uh we we We’ll erase the Palestinian narrative we’ll put up a wall so we never have to see them again and we’ll just you know forget about them that’s a that’s a fantasy and it’s a deadly fantasy it’s it’s a fantasy that that will continue

To blow up in our face I mean a lot of people on social media have been trying to use the example of Japan and Germany to say well you know you can bomb people into submission and you know Japan after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Germany after the defeat of the Nazis and the

Destruction of cities like Dresden really brought the enemy to its knees first of all to use an example of hiroshima’s like completely egregious but separate from I mean my wife my wife is uh is is Asian-American and her mother is from Nagasaki and was born a

Year after the bomb so to even use that as an example I think is horrific but in any event I think there are some really important differences first of all there’s an ocean that separates Japan and America and second of all Japan never had claims of American land so

We’re dealing with a very different situation when we’re dealing with Hamas or we’re dealing with Gaza right we’re still going to live right next door and those people have claims on on Palestinian land and that those claims are being denied for a variety of reasons and so I don’t see those

Analogies as really being at all effective I and I think you’re right I don’t think you can bomb somebody into moderation yeah and and analogies that speak more to me are like the analogies of Vietnam and and the American presidents who just destroyed the reputation on this idea that we could

Bomb Vietnam to Viet Kong into submission and you know you read books like the best and the brightest and by halstan and other books by the Vietnam War there was this uh this this uh arrogance in the American Elite that you we’ll just bomb them and they’ll give up

You know but it never works that way because in practice in retrospect we now know that every bomb we dropped uh radicalized the enemy of course you know like of course um so yeah it’s very it’s very heart-rending and um and and and you can even go further it was really

You know the Iraq war that created Isis out of al-Qaeda so it’s just another you can and you can have many many examples can talk about different parts of the world where this is happening in Myanmar in South Thailand I don’t think we can’t we’re not going to bomb our way out of

This situation that’s my view yeah uh so so we we you now you you you spoke to this this distinction between anti-zionism and you know and and and Israel so the way in which um there’s there’s a vision here there’s a there’s a there’s a a position being staked out

Which which I I I subscribe to and uh I think a lot of my friends now at this point uh subscribe to and we you know come to it I don’t think we we put it into words or or we often I don’t think we often care to worry about the label

So much or or to negotiate you know uh the labels in most cases but the sense that you know we we believe in like you said there’s two people who aren’t going anywhere and the goal is to protect that and to protect the people and and one of

The way in which you do that is you let go of this dream of domination and that and that’s ultimately what it’s about um and and again you write about this in the book and I’m going to try to Echo this back as as Faithfully as I can

Because it spoke to me the sense in which you know if if liberal Zionism ever made sense if liberal Zion you you are arguing to some extent that it never did but if it was able to you know be believed as a project you know democracy and Zionism uh human rights liberal

Values of freedom and V Zionism you know we live now after Decades of settlement expansion after uh a nation state law that was passed in 2018 I believe yeah proclaiming uh you know Jewish hemony uh in the land um and uh netanyahu’s judicial reform project to weaken democracy it’s just like how much

More evidence do we need that this is not uh this is not actually a a meaningful project the two-state solution this dream of you know uh a democratic zionis state is just not is just not what we’re getting I also think going to going back I mean I I agree

With you I think going back to um to the beginning I think one of the problems that I have with Zionism is its proprietary um assumption and the proprietary assumption is the land of Israel belongs to the Jews so it’s our land whether you see it as being historically you know historical or

Theological however you understand it and therefore it’s our land and the people that are not Jews who live in that land are really not uh they have no right to be there and we can allow them to be there and we can even give them a country perhaps but it’s all coming from

The Assumption of the uh of this notion of uh propriety that it’s ours and I think I don’t think that liberal Zionism can really get beyond that because I think that’s baked into the very Zionist project I think that’s actually uh a a um uh I don’t think that it’s a viable

Way of thinking for the future I I I consider the land of Israel to be the homeland of the Jews I consider Palestine to be the homeland of the Palestinians so we have two people that are both making claims to a Homeland both of those claims are legitimate I

Don’t consider one to be more legitimate than the other they have to figure out a way of create of of living within that situation where both of those homelands are acknowledged and I I really don’t think that Zionism is the right ideology to do that and I don’t think liberal

Zionism can be successful in doing that so you can ask me well what then and my response is that’s not really what the book is about I I mean the book is not um making an argument for the ways in the new ideological position um there are books like om bals

Hy for Republic and a number of other books that do say here here’s another model whether it’s a Confederate or whether it’s two states or whether it’s one Democratic State really doesn’t matter to me actually and and frankly and I know that a lot of you know a lot

Of people who are listening will not be happy with this but I don’t care whether it’s called a Jewish state or not if Jews can live there as Jews freely as Jews and create a Jewish culture and a Jewish society and live in a Jewish language it doesn’t make a difference to

Me what the state is called um whether it’s called Israel whether it’s called Israel St whether it’s called something else that’s not for me to decide I I I I just think that um the Jews should have a refuge where they can live safely and that is at this point the state of

Israel but if it comes at the expense of having to expel or dominate another people I feel like um I I mean I don’t know what what language to use I I I wouldn’t use the language of I don’t think it’s really a desecration of the Divine name but I

Think it it’s it’s it’s a knife that strikes at the heart of Judaism yeah you know I’ve had similar conversations with with family members and and and you know uh I I I I can I can put myself in that place of you know being on the receiving end of of anger

You know um for for sort of articulating uh similar similar Concepts and and and the response in that anger is you know you’re you’re inviting another Holocaust you know six million Jews and this that’s what they want to do to us now and there’s this invocation of the

Jewish trauma um and and that’s very very deeply in and we can be sympathetic I mean a lot of this conversation might feel unsympathetic to to people who are espousing right-wing views but I think it’s important to also you know be be very sympathetic towards that I mean

There is a lot of uh pain and suffering and Trauma that that’s very very deeply embedded and deeply enged I mean I just want to I just want to interrupt you one second because I think you I think you’re right the trauma is real and the trauma is there I

Think one way of looking at it is there’s there are two ways of looking at the Holocaust one is to looking looking at it as the standard and the other is to looking at it as the exception and I think that for a lot of people the Holocaust becomes the

Standard and that in fact Jews are always perpetually living in 1938 I don’t you know I’ve spent a lot of time working on the Holocaust and I’ve written a fair enough fair amount of bit about it and I don’t see the Holocaust as the standard I see it as the

Exception it is a it is a horrific genocidal exception and this is not to say that there hasn’t been anti-Semitism before but the idea that the history of Judaism or the history of the Jewish people is the history of anti-Semitism that then comes to its climax with the

Holocaust I just don’t see Jewish history that way and I’m not the only one but I know that a lot of people do and if you see Jewish history that way if you see Jewish history as as as as in a certain sense the same as the history of

Anti-Semitism then um a particular kind of I don’t know what to call it right-wing reactionary view of of of of Zionism is um I suppose um you know logical look I wrote a book on Mayana I mean I spent a lot of time with that particular worldview and that’s the way

He saw things anti-Semitism was eternal it was not anything that could be resolved the only thing that Jews can do to protect themselves from anti-Semitism is deterrence and management and in a certain sense that’s the way a lot of people see the state of Israel yeah I

Think I think I don’t know I wonder if maybe um I’m sort of stuck in a in a kind of a middle view where we’re certainly I don’t believe like like many people people do that there’s like a Divine ordination you know from Heaven that you know we’re going to be

Continuously uh the subject of anti-Semitism um as like a a rule of nature but you know I think to you know Hannah AR’s understanding of anti-Semitism and the origins of totalitarianism where there’s something that seems to be unique about the positioning of Jewish people as a distributed population across the world

That also has unique customs that are very ritualistic that make them distinct that make them look different and talk different and act different and um at point in history although things like this can obviously change and go up and down with history but you know are doing very well economically and financially

Are deeply embedded in economic systems um you know makes them ripe for for a Target you know at like like my Jewish conspiracy theory friends like they point to the Freemasons you know what I’m saying but if you’re not Jewish then you have the Jews as like the

Alternative to the Freemasons you know what I’m saying right right you you know you know Hannah AR is somebody that as you know for having read the book is somebody that I’m thinking with all the time and I think she’s one of of the most astute political theorists

Certainly among Jews in the 20th century but I think even wider than that and and she she she has in in in the in the in the origins of totalitarianism half of which is about totalitarianism half of which is about anti-Semitism and in her long essay on anti-Semitism that she wrote in the

1940s she she really pushes back very strongly against what she calls Eternal anti-Semitism she sees anti-Semitism as historically situated and it is the product of a variety of historical phenomena that um that uh implicates the Jews and that is beyond the Jews that creates the recurrence of this thing

Called udas in German or Jew hatred or anti-Semitism and and I really I do follow her here I mean I’m not somebody who is denying anti-Semitism but I’m somebody who is rejecting the concept that uh of it rejecting the notion of its Eternal nature and that we have to

See it within a historical context and and therefore there can there ever be a world without anti-Semitism probably not but there could be a world where anti-Semitism isn’t something that threatens the Jews and I think this is something that’s extremely important today when we’re looking at the student protest when

We’re looking at the pro Palestinian movement or the Palestinian idity movement where we’re kind of making the claim that all anti-zionism is anti-Semitism is what Jonathan greenblat said JL I think these are incredibly irresponsible uh remarks to to say that nobody really has nobody can actually have a

Critique of of Israel and its policies without being subject to the accusation of anti-Semitism I mean in a certain sense there’s something almost anti-zionist about that because one of one of the things that Zionism wanted to do was that the Jews should be a people like all other people right right that

Was the whole notion that was what the dream was that we would no longer be an abnormal people we would be a people like everybody else and if you’re people like everybody else and if you’re State like everybody else and you act in the way you do you can be

Subject to a deep form of criticism and that’s just something that you have to deal with but to say that if you criticize the nation state of Israel because of its you know it’s dominant to the Palestinians or occupation or whatever you want to say you say that that’s anti-semitic it it almost

Abnormalize the state in a certain way it’s almost in opposition to Zionism yeah and and also when when you know going back a piece you know going back uh something we were talking about earlier when when this’s this nerk invocation of genocide this nerk invocation of Jewish trauma a part of me

Feels like what’s going on is like is like what what’s called sometimes in like internet parl like telling on yourself you know like what I understand about history what I understand about evil what I understand about atrocity is that it’s traumatized people perpetuating a cycle of trauma on

Someone else like like the the Germans you know coming out of like incredible trauma and then and then and then being evil because of that you know and so I think this knee-jerk reaction to say we’ve been traumatized is not really the defense that some people think it is

Yeah I mean there’s a famous there’s a famous kind of model that I I think it’s a mear said about or maybe it was uh uh uh I think it was AAR that basically said it’s a kind of postc colonial notion that the persecuted really just want to become the

Persecutors and and in in a sense you know there is a way in which there’s truth to that not only in in in the case we’re talking about but I think in in postcolonial thought in general that in a certain way yeah those that are persecuted like you leave their

Persecuted status and what they want to do is they want to persecute those that persecuted them and I think that in that sense um you know I think that Israel and the Palestinians are trapped in that model that each one want each one feels persecuted and responds to that

Persecution by wanting to become the persecutor so you know on on some level I can understand a very right-wing reactionary Zionist position that says okay it’s a zero sum game so it’s either us or them so if it’s going to be us or them it’s

Going to be us I mean I can sympathize with that I don’t necessarily think that that is the equation but if you live with the notion that that is the equation that a zero some game which I think Israelis are more and more uh inclined to do after October 7th I think

What you do is you come out of a situation by saying um you know we have to get rid of the Arabs because the Arabs are not going to agree to live with us and then you just come back to Mayor KH yeah I I would just say I mean

Again I can only speak to myself I can only speak to my own narrow intellectual program but like you know study atrocities just study history and you will see that same equation come up again and again you know every everything every atrocity is predicated on this idea it’s oh we have no choice

It’s us or them you know and and and I think if you do that work and I think and this is my my suggestion that if you if you if you see that pattern play out through history you become very skeptical of that thinking and you become very cautious about applying that

Thinking uh in your own political problems you know it’s very interesting because I think one we coming back to the question of anti- Zionism which you raised um part of the part of the part of the some of the positions of of anti- Zionism was basically

That if and this is coming both from the liberal camp and the ultr traditional camp that if you politicize Judaism if you create a nation state if you make Jews politically empowered they will become like the other nations but not in a good way in other words um uh they

Will become dominators they will become warmongers they will become those that basically as you said see it as a zero some game that in fact from their position and again I’m talking about reform and Ultra Orthodox that maintaining a depoliticized status really better enables Judaism to be alike to the

Nations to actually be different to create a different model of what it is to be a collective in the world now I think that that position lost most of its credibility with the shaah I think in a certain way what the shaah did was solidify ified Zionism as

The only alternative because I think that Jews just basically um gave up believing that living in Exile was what God wanted them to do I mean I think I think Zionism is based on a on a on a significant disbelief in a covenantal paradigm of um Exile and they

Just said we don’t want to do it anymore and we’re no longer willing to wait for the Messi we’re just going to do it ourselves which is totally understandable on given the given the historical realities that those people were living in but I think there’s a

There’s a um there’s a byproduct of that of that disbelief even though it’s been folded back into religious Zionism that oh know this really is the Messianic era but I think before the rise of cookie and religious Zionism there were many zionists that just said I just want to

Abandon the Messianic idea who cares who needs it let’s just actually go someplace where we can be safe and I think that what’s so fascinating about that is that so many Orthodox Jews were against Zionism precisely for that reason and then what happened is that Orthodox Judaism conformed to that

Reason and made it itself Messianic or Messianic without a messiah so I think you know the the emergence of the cookie and Paradigm which is really the religious Zionism that is operational today I mean we’re not talking about the religious Zionism of rhus or Herzog we’re talking about the

Religious Zionism of cook is really the the result of trying to recalibrate a Jud a Messianic Judaism in a political movement that to some degree was the abandonment of the Messianic idea yeah you know I just wanted to maybe share a few a few verses that I think

You know I think Judaism has such a powerful language around I talked about compassion earlier Mercy but just um respecting the rights and the and the the the humanity of of the stranger you know um the the the Bible is so filled with you know protecting the gar The

Stranger because you were one strangers in the land of Egypt and and of course in the Orthodox World a lot of that’s been sort of uh rolled over with you know uh to mutic interpretation of like The Stranger Within the Jewish camp but that’s clearly not the the meaning of of

Those verses um and so just just as as we close down here just like some some verses that you know I’ve been I’ve been I’ve been thinking about like um from from Exodus uh you know don’t don’t oppress The Stranger for you were one strangers and then skipping a

Bit if you were to to oppress him if he calls out to me if the stranger the oppressed stranger calls out to me I’m going to hear his call and I will get angry and I will kill you I will Smite you with the sword and your wives will become widows

And your children will become orphans um you the whole book of Jonah is this idea of God telling Jonah to go to the Assyrians so they can repent this non-jewish enemy of Israel and and the subtext of that story is that when they repent they’re then going to rise up in

Power and and conquer the Northern Kingdom of Israel you know but the whole but and Jonah tries to you know escape from that mission and God says to Jonah you know these are my children the the people of Assyria this non-jewish nation they’re my children as well and I

Care about them as much as you cared about the tree that was destroyed you know um and and then the last one you know from Amos uh you know God says to the Jewish people H you’re like the the the Kim I took the Jewish people out of

Egypt mik the Philistines from Kaur mikir you know and the Aram Nation from K there’s a sense in the Jewish texts if you know where to look it’s not it’s obviously not everywhere of a universalism of an understanding of the human rights and the Dignity of of the

Non-jewish Nations even our enemies um and to see that so absent in uh the modern religious project uh of Orthodoxy is is is so heartbreaking ye I mean I I mean I hear you and there are many other verses um that one could quote and you know libich

Was is great at bringing up all these kinds of verses about um about precisely what you’re saying on some level on some level this becomes the the the price of of of the politicization of Judaism now I I understand how people will come and say oh yeah but they weren’t talking about

The enemy they were talking about the neighbor and you know the Palestinians are not neighbors the Palestinians are enemies that of course Kahana made famous many many decad you know many years ago I I just think that um we could take all of those verses and

We can sit down with a kind of you know we can we can go to gion and sit down in the B midash there and you know the Ros Isa the ramim can give all kinds of interpretations of th those verses that will fit within the Paradigm of the

Religious Zionist narrative that’s what Jews have done for thousands of years right we just keep reinterpreting the tradition over and over again I do think that to some degree uh what the certainly the religious Zionism that has become that that has emerged in the settlements is strangely a kind of Neo biblical

Post-pre and almost to some degree not anti- rinic but rinic resistant tradition and the the Neo biblicism is basically a a a Judaism that is landbased based that is about conquest and we can go to the book of yahushua and we can go to various other places and that’s the Judaism is that

The the the religious Zionist Judaism of today and this is not the religious Zionism of rev cook I me rev cook was from a whole different world and had a whole different you know historical context but um where it is today is is is a Judaism of a kind of zero some game

It’s us or them they are the enemy this is our land they have no right to be here and they they they are our guests at best if they are willing to submit to the conditions that we uh that we offer them um I think that’s where we are and

I and from my perspective I think there’s there’s a lot of damage that’s been done to precisely the kind of universalistic resonance of uh of Judaism of the profets and that’s the choice that we made and perhaps we made it because the world forced us to make it through oppression through persecution through

The Holocaust but I think that there’s time to um it may be time to rethink that are you optimistic or pessimistic um I’m pretty pessimistic not as a person by the way I’m pretty optimistic as a person be I’m pessimistic because I think that um one of the things that

October 7th did in the collective Jewish psyche is it it embedded more deeply into that psyche that um that the Palestinians are only the enemy and therefore the only way to protect ourselves is to get rid of them and I think that we’re going to see we see

That happening already um and if it’s not getting rid of them it’s certainly um subjecting them to a level of domination that will only you know explode in the future so when somebody asked me at a at an event we did here at Harvard after the war you know what’s

The solution that’s kind of the classic example my response was in the present Paradigm there really isn’t a solution the whole Paradigm would have to change and it doesn’t seem like the Israeli electorate is in the mood for that it doesn’t seem like the government is in

The mood for that and it doesn’t seem like World jewelry frankly is in the mood for that so I think we’re for a really you know a very kind of complicated rough ride for a while until until something changes and I’m not really sure how that’s going to happen I

Think that one of the things that I tried to introduce in the book as as as one possible you know beginning is to rethink the concept of Exile from from a negative to a positive that Exile does promote a sense of not yet what roseni called the not yet or

Um or humility or compassion and that abandoning Exile and gersam Shalom said this in his interview in the early 1970s with mukur he said that abandoning Exile is a very precarious thing and the anti Zionist understood that much more than the zionists did this is gersam shalam

Who himself was a Zionist so I think that to rethink the category of Exile is something that can be useful not only for Jews that live in the diaspora but for Jews who live in the land of Israel for JE who live in the state of Israel I

Have a chapter on R shagar who has an essay called religious post Zionism where he basically does say we need to actually reintroduce Exile into sovereignty or we’re just going to become an ethnocentric chauvinistic people and I think I think Exile is I’m

I’m hope I hope to be able to kind of in the book introduce the category of Exile or something that could be part of that equation of rethinking what the future can be yeah sh m i uh I’m fearful for the uh the blowback I’m going to get from this

Uh post conversation I say that tongue and- cheek but I I I’m incredibly grateful um for your time and and and for the book and look I I I will just say it in closing to to to to your listeners um I I understand and and and

Sympathize with where a lot of you are coming from but we really have to think our way out of this we we’re stuck in we’re stuck in a cycle of violence and that’s really what it is that we’re not going to be able to um to get out of

Through violence and I think that’s something and by Violence by the way I don’t even I don’t mean only physical violence I mean domination I mean occupation and and I think it’s important to state that from my perspective occupation is itself an act of violence yeah and so we really have

To think about another way and I think we can do it yeah sh thank you so much for your time thank you so much for your book and for this wonderful conversation uh I I’m I’m incredibly grateful and I would recommend it to anyone uh interested in in these themes and topics

Thank you thank you very thank you very much I appreciate it