I liked your post, even if I might have a different point of view. I appreciate your candor and care in expressing yourself.
I've objected to other posts where I felt the writer was being disingenuous, e.g., claiming that they were not writing about politics then doing exactly that or complimenting the moral clarity of youth as a way of advancing their own political views.
I agree that no one should be telling you what it means for you to be Jewish. I also agree that criticism of the Netanyahu government is not at all inconsistent with condemning Hamas. I also think you ask good questions about the complex political dynamics of American Jewish politics. I hope you continue to write about this topic.
Thanks. The antisemitic association of all Jews with Israel has brutal consequences. In the UK the entire (overwhelmingly non Jewish) political elite enthusiastically supports the current Israeli regime unconditionally - as such they’re both actively silencing dissident Jewish voices and supporting the atrocities in Gaza. White Christian supremacy takes many forms and we need to resist it always.
Very true—also, it means the Tories and more conservative voices in Labour can use "antisemitism" as a cudgel to beat Leftists like Jeremy Corbyn who are critical of Israel's apartheid against the Palestinians.
Seeing the NeoLib likes of Keir Starmer as the face of mainstream Labour angers me greatly, because he strikes me as Boris Johnson with a better haircut and a smoother style of speechifying, but possessing similar policies....
Starmer seems pretty awful. I think the attacks on Corbyn are often in bad faith...but also he does sometimes stumble into antisemitism, I think, in ways I find offputting (I think AOC and Tlaib manage to avoid this, though they don't get much credit for it.)
I hope somebody inside Corbyn's campaign is working with him to keep him from stumbling, because while Corbyn might SAY antisemitic things, I'm pretty sure Starmer would be more than happy to DO antisemitic things!
The Hamas attack, combined with Ilana having family in Israel (I have none) and my having many, many close colleagues in Israel (because of what in particular I do), has drawn me closer to Israel in some ways. And not others. I will say that some rethinking of politics is already happening in Israel. There is some chance that the failures of the Israeli security state in this moment will finally bring Netanyahu down in a lasting way. If it does not, I think one can safely acknowledge that there will not be democracy in Israel any longer, not even among Jews. And perhaps that will change how at least some American Jews feel about Israel. Even on the right in Israel there is clear acknowledgement of the fact that the current government moved troops away from Gaza to protect settlers in the West Bank during the holidays and I think it is becoming clear that Hamas knew this and exploited it. I do think there is a large left-right split among American Jews that mirrors the left-right split in Israel. And if Netanyahu survives this will be amplified. And that left Israeli Jews will continue to leave Israel in larger numbers, an emigration that has already begun before these events and might either amplify or diminish in reaction to them, depending on how this ends. If left Israeli Jews keep leaving, many of them will end up in the United States and that will change what the Jewish community here is and means. I find it really interesting that most American Jews I know don't know many of the secular Israeli Jews living among us as well, or pay any particular attention to their views and beliefs. At least the ones I know are on average much further left than American born Jews. I should go write a letter now recommending that we give one such Israeli Jew a green card.
I think this isn't an uncommon dynamic for diaspora? the Irish diaspora in the US was also kind of blandly radicalized and used as a piggy bank by Sinn Fein in ways that I think were not much appreciated by people actually being gunned down.
But yeah, I think we'd be all a lot better off in some ways if the Israeli left led some discussions rather than the US diaspora Jewish consensus...
Thanks for a thoughtful essay. I’m struggling to understand your assumption that all politics is identity politics. I vote for Democrats and agree with progressive policy positions. The Democratic Party encompasses a multitude of identities; it’s that quality that makes it hard to typify its members and to unify its messaging. I’m female but don’t agree with every female politician, and don’t assume to know or understand what another woman’s identity means to her. I agree that some politics is based on identity, informed by and informing it, which I thought was a great insight in this piece. Extending it to all politics is the point at which I got lost.
well, partisan identities are identities. "I vote for the Democratic party" is a statement about political identity. And the Democratic party appeals (and works to appeal) to voters with particular identities (women definitely being one.)
Doesn't mean you agree with all other people with those identities. But policy appeals, organizing lobbying groups, voting patterns are all closely aligned with identities.
to be clear, I'm not talking about the most radical of the Israeli left. but folks who miss the days when Labor and Likud were the two primary options. and usually would vote Labor. and thought that in the long run there needed to be a two state solution. even if they didn't see a practical path to get there right away. it has always been the real problem for the Israeli left: there have just been very few moments in which a two state solution seemed practically achievable. and at some point, not enough people continue to believe in something that is both obviously necessary and apparently impossible. Yesh Atid is much more centrist and Labor almost failed to make the current Knesset. though Yesh Atid does at least officially also believe in a two state solution. Israeli politics are rather more of a disaster these days than US politics. though at least there they would call a new election if the House could not elect a speaker.
when people here claim that what the US needs is a multi party system I'm always like, "you mean like the UK? Israel? Italy? really?"
Obviously the US is incredibly fucked up, and I don't know that it would be *more* fucked up if it were a multiparty system, but I think our problems are pretty clearly caused by the fact that we have a lot of fascists and they have disproportionate electoral power, not by a two party system.
I’m doing my best to not click any twitter links, so they can’t monetize me in any way. I know it’s extra work, but it you could find a way to link to content there without going there (like screenshots on a gdrive or nitter.net) or put an indication when a link is to twitter (the Substack app is unhelpful in inspecting links), it’d help. Appreciate all you do, and feel free to say, no.
I just realized a long-click on a link shows me the source, so disregard my request for an indicator. I believe that nitter/screenshot links deprive a fascist-run company of oxygen, but understand the practical limitations
So many good questions and thoughts, I am percolating.
I do have direct ties to Israel but yes I’ve never been there and all, and never will be. Unless and until things got so bad stateside that asylum and/or Aliyah were possible and viable immediate choices in response to an existential crisis stateside. Say that 10 times fast.
So yes. The time to wrestle with this privately, within community, and publicly, is now. All these levels. Now. Before everything is passively baked in.
As an American child of leftish Colombian parents, I keep thinking about how the relationship between the USA and Israel is similar to the USA’s relationship with Colombia (albeit the Colombian violence has much less to do with religion and ethnicity). How the USA favors right wing allies, ultimately entrenching right wing governments that resort to violence to suppress terrorism on the one hand and dissent on the other, plastering them with the same brush. And not just in Colombia but in most of Latin America (and apparently also the Middle East). Right wing regime after right wing regime. I’m so tired of it, and the collateral damage it inflicts on regular people caught in the crossfire between authoritarian thugs and guerrilla terrorist thugs. It’s incredible that it’s been almost a century of this playbook for USAmerican efforts abroad. The American experiment aside, the USA needs to come to terms with the fact that it’s terrible at exporting democracy.
Indeed, plus ça change... or perhaps I should more appropriately quote Garcia Marquez, “‘what did you expect? ... Time passes.’ ‘That’s how it goes, ... but not so much.’”
the US is currently funding a fairly liberal government defending itself from a fascist imperialist invasion, so it's not all bad. often it really is though.
Noah, Jews have been wondering and debating what it means to be Jewish for a few thousand years. Hamas has nothing to do with that ongoing discussion. I also think it’s important to understand that the phrase “Jewish community” does not and cannot embrace the vast majority of American Jews, 75% of whom (see Pew’s studies) do not identify as part of the “Jewish community,” a group defined as Jews who have some formal attachment to a synagogue or other Jewish organization. Finally, having been involved in a massive study of Jewish identity undertaken by Jewish philanthropy, I know that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people and Arab Jews has for years been the most hugely divisive topic between the official Jewish community and the rest of America’s Jews.
Yeah, see, I think this is a really terrible way to think about this stuff. You're telling me I don't belong to an "official" Jewish community because I haven't registered with an org you approve of? What about the longstanding Jewish community of Jewish secular atheists?
Like, I say"maybe in light of this horrific failure of policy, we should consider reassessing our relationship to Israel," and your response is, "well you aren't really in the Jewish community if you make that suggestion." Do you see why that might be a problem? Or at least why it might be pretty offensive? I would never sit here and tell you, "Oh, unless you do x, y and z you're not in the Jewish community." It's just an aggressive and unpleasant thing to say.
Actually, Noah, I said none of that. What I did was offer some information the sum of which says most American Jews, myself included, have felt apart from the organized Jewish community for many years and Israel’s policies toward Palestinians is a big part of that alienation. Those policies failed utterly a long time ago and many of America’s Jews have completed their reassessment of Israel’s policies. That’s all I’m saying. You’re late to the reassessment. Very late.
I should add that I've enjoyed reading your work. I just think you're completely wrong — historically wrong — in the way you are thinking about the situation at the moment.
I still don't have a very good sense of why you think I'm wrong. Because no reassessment is needed? Because Netanyahu's policies were not a failure? Because Israel is not central to American Jewish identity?
While what Hamas did was horrible, and nobody should forget or quickly forgive that? I also said that anybody who thought Hamas's attack was "unprovoked" had their head so far up their ass they'd turned themselves into an ouroboros. Netanyahu and the rest of his Likkud Party has made such a point of treating the Gaza Palestinians like garbage that Hamas doing SOMETHING was as inevitable as it was terrible.
And now, this attack has given them the opportunity to double down on their mistreatment of Gaza Palestinians....
part of the problem with Jewish identity (and you don't apparently share it, nor do I imagine there are not others who share your thoughts); from an historical context and beginning with the revolt of Jeroboam, Jewish identification is an identity more tied to a place. Throughout every diaspora, the Jewish identity was formulated about Jerusalem. I am not Jewish, but I did take several classes at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinatti. My overall field of study was theological history and I find Judaism as unique. Jerusalem is not a holy place in the sense of other religions where adverts go to worship; it is taught as a place God gave the Jewish people to live, and whether a Jewish person continues to identify with the religion is irrelevant to whether he may still identify with the place. For centuries this has been the theme, and for centuries Jewish people have fought to control that piece, or long to live in that people. Judaism has maintained its identity not as much as a religion, but as identified to a place that has bound them together. After the final diaspora in 70 A.D. until the late 1900's, the identity of Judaism could have been absorbed into the cultures into which it scattered. They could have practiced their religion and moved into the wider culture without confining themselves apart from the community. They segregated themselves and brought attention to themselves by their segregation and refused to assimilate into wherever, they learned the language, they became cultural icons, some became influential, and some like you, didn't really consider themselves Jewish. Some like the Wittgenstein's tried to convert and then seemed to loudly proclaim their Judaic roots and practice the Christian religion or no religion. Hitler ignored them as not being Jewish although I don't believe as some have suggested it was because Ludwig and Hitler had been primary school classmates in Austria.
The proclamation and identity as Jewish is a chosen separation "God called them" and belief in God does not always dispel them from the notion of being called. Consequently they havebeen persecuted for centuries, not just the Ashkenazi, but even prior, the Alexandrian Jewish school where the first collection of Jewish scriptures was compiled, saw them exiled three times. I doubt the Persians sent them back to Jerusalem just because they were model citizens, but quite the opposite, they were so disruptive and he wanted to get them the hell away. And I suppose that's when the Jewish religion (the dietary rites, etc) I suppose, so even prior to the founding of what is contemporaneously thought of as the Jewish religion, there was a defining of their identity. It's not unique in history, we still have Basque identity in Spain, other identities were wiped out altogether like the Teutons---but they fought for a place and died in a place or they migrated. There is a large contingent of Basque settlers in the area of northern Nevada. They are proud of their Basque heritage, they hold Basque festivals, there are several Basque restaurants. But they don't separate themselves from the community anymore than I live in an enclave of Irish Americans.
The point is that overall Judaism is more about identifying with a place than it is with a religious or ideological perspective. For you this does not seem to be the case and Judaism is merely your heritage, but for many many Jewish people the place itself is the identity
I think there’s a flipped concept in your bases for reasoning about political action. Is all politics about shared identity outside Party identity? Isn’t there a politics involving shared interests that forges a shared identity: the political party or movement that advances the interests? Unions are a great example. Workers share interests, not identities. They forge an identity around those interests.
creating the politics is creating the identity. people have a range of possible shared interests or bases for solidarity. until you identify and create an identity around those interests, though, you don't have politics—just potential politics, perhaps.
think of it this way; who's a worker? There's not an obvious answer. Do freelance sloggers like me count? Starbucks workers, or just coal miners? Sex workers and immigrants? (I say adamantly yes). Middle-managers? Cops? (fuck no.) But you see the point. The politics is in defining the identity and in figuring out who you're standing in solidarity with and on the basis of what common experiences/interests.
Cornelius Castoriadis: Prominent post-Marxist, post-Freudian Greek/French polymath, wrote under a pseudonym in 1968 because he was afraid of losing his day job as an economist with the OECD. The Imaginary Institution of Society is probably his best-known work. Legein is distinguishing-choosing-positing-assembling-counting-speaking; teukhein is assembling-adjusting-fabricating-constructing, and they’re in constant struggle with one another.
It's not clear to me it's a wave. anything at elite schools gets reported on a lot, and a lot of people have an interest in demonizing college students.
having said that...antisemitism is a scourge everywhere, and the pro Palestinian movement...has not always been careful to root it out, which can result in real ugliness in times of crisis.
A thoughtful piece, expressed with welcome clarity.
thank you!
I liked your post, even if I might have a different point of view. I appreciate your candor and care in expressing yourself.
I've objected to other posts where I felt the writer was being disingenuous, e.g., claiming that they were not writing about politics then doing exactly that or complimenting the moral clarity of youth as a way of advancing their own political views.
I agree that no one should be telling you what it means for you to be Jewish. I also agree that criticism of the Netanyahu government is not at all inconsistent with condemning Hamas. I also think you ask good questions about the complex political dynamics of American Jewish politics. I hope you continue to write about this topic.
robertsdavidn.substack.com/about (free)
This.
This is the right time. Thank you and continue.
Thanks. The antisemitic association of all Jews with Israel has brutal consequences. In the UK the entire (overwhelmingly non Jewish) political elite enthusiastically supports the current Israeli regime unconditionally - as such they’re both actively silencing dissident Jewish voices and supporting the atrocities in Gaza. White Christian supremacy takes many forms and we need to resist it always.
Very true—also, it means the Tories and more conservative voices in Labour can use "antisemitism" as a cudgel to beat Leftists like Jeremy Corbyn who are critical of Israel's apartheid against the Palestinians.
Seeing the NeoLib likes of Keir Starmer as the face of mainstream Labour angers me greatly, because he strikes me as Boris Johnson with a better haircut and a smoother style of speechifying, but possessing similar policies....
Starmer seems pretty awful. I think the attacks on Corbyn are often in bad faith...but also he does sometimes stumble into antisemitism, I think, in ways I find offputting (I think AOC and Tlaib manage to avoid this, though they don't get much credit for it.)
I hope somebody inside Corbyn's campaign is working with him to keep him from stumbling, because while Corbyn might SAY antisemitic things, I'm pretty sure Starmer would be more than happy to DO antisemitic things!
The Hamas attack, combined with Ilana having family in Israel (I have none) and my having many, many close colleagues in Israel (because of what in particular I do), has drawn me closer to Israel in some ways. And not others. I will say that some rethinking of politics is already happening in Israel. There is some chance that the failures of the Israeli security state in this moment will finally bring Netanyahu down in a lasting way. If it does not, I think one can safely acknowledge that there will not be democracy in Israel any longer, not even among Jews. And perhaps that will change how at least some American Jews feel about Israel. Even on the right in Israel there is clear acknowledgement of the fact that the current government moved troops away from Gaza to protect settlers in the West Bank during the holidays and I think it is becoming clear that Hamas knew this and exploited it. I do think there is a large left-right split among American Jews that mirrors the left-right split in Israel. And if Netanyahu survives this will be amplified. And that left Israeli Jews will continue to leave Israel in larger numbers, an emigration that has already begun before these events and might either amplify or diminish in reaction to them, depending on how this ends. If left Israeli Jews keep leaving, many of them will end up in the United States and that will change what the Jewish community here is and means. I find it really interesting that most American Jews I know don't know many of the secular Israeli Jews living among us as well, or pay any particular attention to their views and beliefs. At least the ones I know are on average much further left than American born Jews. I should go write a letter now recommending that we give one such Israeli Jew a green card.
I think this isn't an uncommon dynamic for diaspora? the Irish diaspora in the US was also kind of blandly radicalized and used as a piggy bank by Sinn Fein in ways that I think were not much appreciated by people actually being gunned down.
But yeah, I think we'd be all a lot better off in some ways if the Israeli left led some discussions rather than the US diaspora Jewish consensus...
Thanks for a thoughtful essay. I’m struggling to understand your assumption that all politics is identity politics. I vote for Democrats and agree with progressive policy positions. The Democratic Party encompasses a multitude of identities; it’s that quality that makes it hard to typify its members and to unify its messaging. I’m female but don’t agree with every female politician, and don’t assume to know or understand what another woman’s identity means to her. I agree that some politics is based on identity, informed by and informing it, which I thought was a great insight in this piece. Extending it to all politics is the point at which I got lost.
well, partisan identities are identities. "I vote for the Democratic party" is a statement about political identity. And the Democratic party appeals (and works to appeal) to voters with particular identities (women definitely being one.)
Doesn't mean you agree with all other people with those identities. But policy appeals, organizing lobbying groups, voting patterns are all closely aligned with identities.
to be clear, I'm not talking about the most radical of the Israeli left. but folks who miss the days when Labor and Likud were the two primary options. and usually would vote Labor. and thought that in the long run there needed to be a two state solution. even if they didn't see a practical path to get there right away. it has always been the real problem for the Israeli left: there have just been very few moments in which a two state solution seemed practically achievable. and at some point, not enough people continue to believe in something that is both obviously necessary and apparently impossible. Yesh Atid is much more centrist and Labor almost failed to make the current Knesset. though Yesh Atid does at least officially also believe in a two state solution. Israeli politics are rather more of a disaster these days than US politics. though at least there they would call a new election if the House could not elect a speaker.
when people here claim that what the US needs is a multi party system I'm always like, "you mean like the UK? Israel? Italy? really?"
Obviously the US is incredibly fucked up, and I don't know that it would be *more* fucked up if it were a multiparty system, but I think our problems are pretty clearly caused by the fact that we have a lot of fascists and they have disproportionate electoral power, not by a two party system.
I’m doing my best to not click any twitter links, so they can’t monetize me in any way. I know it’s extra work, but it you could find a way to link to content there without going there (like screenshots on a gdrive or nitter.net) or put an indication when a link is to twitter (the Substack app is unhelpful in inspecting links), it’d help. Appreciate all you do, and feel free to say, no.
I'll try to keep it in mind, but I can't promise I'll remember!
I just realized a long-click on a link shows me the source, so disregard my request for an indicator. I believe that nitter/screenshot links deprive a fascist-run company of oxygen, but understand the practical limitations
So many good questions and thoughts, I am percolating.
I do have direct ties to Israel but yes I’ve never been there and all, and never will be. Unless and until things got so bad stateside that asylum and/or Aliyah were possible and viable immediate choices in response to an existential crisis stateside. Say that 10 times fast.
So yes. The time to wrestle with this privately, within community, and publicly, is now. All these levels. Now. Before everything is passively baked in.
So. Much to percolate.
For some reason I never made the connection that all politics is identity politics — but hearing it that way, suddenly things click into place.
As an American child of leftish Colombian parents, I keep thinking about how the relationship between the USA and Israel is similar to the USA’s relationship with Colombia (albeit the Colombian violence has much less to do with religion and ethnicity). How the USA favors right wing allies, ultimately entrenching right wing governments that resort to violence to suppress terrorism on the one hand and dissent on the other, plastering them with the same brush. And not just in Colombia but in most of Latin America (and apparently also the Middle East). Right wing regime after right wing regime. I’m so tired of it, and the collateral damage it inflicts on regular people caught in the crossfire between authoritarian thugs and guerrilla terrorist thugs. It’s incredible that it’s been almost a century of this playbook for USAmerican efforts abroad. The American experiment aside, the USA needs to come to terms with the fact that it’s terrible at exporting democracy.
Cold war mindset is hard to break.
Indeed, plus ça change... or perhaps I should more appropriately quote Garcia Marquez, “‘what did you expect? ... Time passes.’ ‘That’s how it goes, ... but not so much.’”
the US is currently funding a fairly liberal government defending itself from a fascist imperialist invasion, so it's not all bad. often it really is though.
Ukraine, right? It’s like, the only one since WWII.
Noah, Jews have been wondering and debating what it means to be Jewish for a few thousand years. Hamas has nothing to do with that ongoing discussion. I also think it’s important to understand that the phrase “Jewish community” does not and cannot embrace the vast majority of American Jews, 75% of whom (see Pew’s studies) do not identify as part of the “Jewish community,” a group defined as Jews who have some formal attachment to a synagogue or other Jewish organization. Finally, having been involved in a massive study of Jewish identity undertaken by Jewish philanthropy, I know that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people and Arab Jews has for years been the most hugely divisive topic between the official Jewish community and the rest of America’s Jews.
Yeah, see, I think this is a really terrible way to think about this stuff. You're telling me I don't belong to an "official" Jewish community because I haven't registered with an org you approve of? What about the longstanding Jewish community of Jewish secular atheists?
Like, I say"maybe in light of this horrific failure of policy, we should consider reassessing our relationship to Israel," and your response is, "well you aren't really in the Jewish community if you make that suggestion." Do you see why that might be a problem? Or at least why it might be pretty offensive? I would never sit here and tell you, "Oh, unless you do x, y and z you're not in the Jewish community." It's just an aggressive and unpleasant thing to say.
Actually, Noah, I said none of that. What I did was offer some information the sum of which says most American Jews, myself included, have felt apart from the organized Jewish community for many years and Israel’s policies toward Palestinians is a big part of that alienation. Those policies failed utterly a long time ago and many of America’s Jews have completed their reassessment of Israel’s policies. That’s all I’m saying. You’re late to the reassessment. Very late.
I should add that I've enjoyed reading your work. I just think you're completely wrong — historically wrong — in the way you are thinking about the situation at the moment.
I still don't have a very good sense of why you think I'm wrong. Because no reassessment is needed? Because Netanyahu's policies were not a failure? Because Israel is not central to American Jewish identity?
Not trying to be a jerk, I just don't understand what your criticism is.
Oh wait, I missed the comment up there. I see.
I already said, in response to Rohn Kenyatta's piece "American Palestine, Israel and Schwartzgeist", that Biden knee-jerk jumping into bed with Netanyahu was the wrong play here (https://open.substack.com/pub/rohnkenyatta/p/american-palestine-israel-and-schwartzgeist?r=ven3d&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=41654882).
While what Hamas did was horrible, and nobody should forget or quickly forgive that? I also said that anybody who thought Hamas's attack was "unprovoked" had their head so far up their ass they'd turned themselves into an ouroboros. Netanyahu and the rest of his Likkud Party has made such a point of treating the Gaza Palestinians like garbage that Hamas doing SOMETHING was as inevitable as it was terrible.
And now, this attack has given them the opportunity to double down on their mistreatment of Gaza Palestinians....
part of the problem with Jewish identity (and you don't apparently share it, nor do I imagine there are not others who share your thoughts); from an historical context and beginning with the revolt of Jeroboam, Jewish identification is an identity more tied to a place. Throughout every diaspora, the Jewish identity was formulated about Jerusalem. I am not Jewish, but I did take several classes at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinatti. My overall field of study was theological history and I find Judaism as unique. Jerusalem is not a holy place in the sense of other religions where adverts go to worship; it is taught as a place God gave the Jewish people to live, and whether a Jewish person continues to identify with the religion is irrelevant to whether he may still identify with the place. For centuries this has been the theme, and for centuries Jewish people have fought to control that piece, or long to live in that people. Judaism has maintained its identity not as much as a religion, but as identified to a place that has bound them together. After the final diaspora in 70 A.D. until the late 1900's, the identity of Judaism could have been absorbed into the cultures into which it scattered. They could have practiced their religion and moved into the wider culture without confining themselves apart from the community. They segregated themselves and brought attention to themselves by their segregation and refused to assimilate into wherever, they learned the language, they became cultural icons, some became influential, and some like you, didn't really consider themselves Jewish. Some like the Wittgenstein's tried to convert and then seemed to loudly proclaim their Judaic roots and practice the Christian religion or no religion. Hitler ignored them as not being Jewish although I don't believe as some have suggested it was because Ludwig and Hitler had been primary school classmates in Austria.
The proclamation and identity as Jewish is a chosen separation "God called them" and belief in God does not always dispel them from the notion of being called. Consequently they havebeen persecuted for centuries, not just the Ashkenazi, but even prior, the Alexandrian Jewish school where the first collection of Jewish scriptures was compiled, saw them exiled three times. I doubt the Persians sent them back to Jerusalem just because they were model citizens, but quite the opposite, they were so disruptive and he wanted to get them the hell away. And I suppose that's when the Jewish religion (the dietary rites, etc) I suppose, so even prior to the founding of what is contemporaneously thought of as the Jewish religion, there was a defining of their identity. It's not unique in history, we still have Basque identity in Spain, other identities were wiped out altogether like the Teutons---but they fought for a place and died in a place or they migrated. There is a large contingent of Basque settlers in the area of northern Nevada. They are proud of their Basque heritage, they hold Basque festivals, there are several Basque restaurants. But they don't separate themselves from the community anymore than I live in an enclave of Irish Americans.
The point is that overall Judaism is more about identifying with a place than it is with a religious or ideological perspective. For you this does not seem to be the case and Judaism is merely your heritage, but for many many Jewish people the place itself is the identity
I think there’s a flipped concept in your bases for reasoning about political action. Is all politics about shared identity outside Party identity? Isn’t there a politics involving shared interests that forges a shared identity: the political party or movement that advances the interests? Unions are a great example. Workers share interests, not identities. They forge an identity around those interests.
creating the politics is creating the identity. people have a range of possible shared interests or bases for solidarity. until you identify and create an identity around those interests, though, you don't have politics—just potential politics, perhaps.
think of it this way; who's a worker? There's not an obvious answer. Do freelance sloggers like me count? Starbucks workers, or just coal miners? Sex workers and immigrants? (I say adamantly yes). Middle-managers? Cops? (fuck no.) But you see the point. The politics is in defining the identity and in figuring out who you're standing in solidarity with and on the basis of what common experiences/interests.
I’m getting it. This seems heavily related to legein and teukein in Castoriadis’s work.
I'm not familiar with that...?
Cornelius Castoriadis: Prominent post-Marxist, post-Freudian Greek/French polymath, wrote under a pseudonym in 1968 because he was afraid of losing his day job as an economist with the OECD. The Imaginary Institution of Society is probably his best-known work. Legein is distinguishing-choosing-positing-assembling-counting-speaking; teukhein is assembling-adjusting-fabricating-constructing, and they’re in constant struggle with one another.
It's not clear to me it's a wave. anything at elite schools gets reported on a lot, and a lot of people have an interest in demonizing college students.
having said that...antisemitism is a scourge everywhere, and the pro Palestinian movement...has not always been careful to root it out, which can result in real ugliness in times of crisis.