The Theology of the Nation – New Article

In his 1829 essay Reflections on Tragedy, Benjamin Constant insists that there is no more sense in writing plays about the inevitability of destiny or the adversities of fate. What worked for the Greeks would not work anymore. He suggests that playwrights should pit the protagonist against “the state and the action of society.” Constant (d. 1830), a Swiss-French political thinker who was one of the first to adopt the title “Liberal,” suggested that “the social order, the action of society on the individual […] these are the tragic motivations which one needs to know how to manipulate. They are entirely equal to the fatality of the ancients.”

Constant understood that far beyond the lack of belief in the divine Moirai, something fundamental had changed. Entering Modernity, people had become individuals. They would no longer see themselves as part of a wholistic order, a Great Chain of Being stretching from the heavens to the underworld, subjecting them to a preordained purpose into which it was rightful and necessary to fit in. The center of our life is our autonomy, and the threat to that autonomy comes not from the gods but from rulers and courts. The state now holds the power that was once under Zeus or Jehovah.

Modern drama is thus manifested through the slings and arrows of outrageous government. From Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure to Kafka’s The Trial, we witness the unavoidable friction between the individual and the socio-political complex. And as the heart of art pulsates politics and not theology, so does the heart of religion.

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Where’s the heart of Christianity? Massive White Evangelical support for Donald Trump has long raised doubts about their dedication to the principles they had not too long ago outwardly professed. The insurrectionists at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, sported quite a few crosses and posters of MAGA hatted Jesus. Once inside the Capitol, Jacob Anthony Chansley, a.k.a. “Q Shaman”, led a prayer from the Senate podium, thanking God for allowing him and his co-hooligans to “send a message to all the tyrants, the communists, and the globalists that this is our nation, not theirs.” Others were Chanting, “Trump is President, Christ is King,” an amalgam of the religious and the political in which the regal title of the Son of God uncomfortably tilts more to the monarchical than the heavenly. A campaign banner read “Jesus 2020”.

To say that this is Christian Nationalism would be a truism. Religion and chauvinistic politics are wedded here, of course, but it’s worth noting that in the process, the place of the religious tradition is minimized. In fact, traditional Christianity, its dogma, ethics, ritual, and customs take a back seat, if at all, in this campaign bus. There is a fundamental unwillingness to get bogged down by traditional beliefs and taboos, and the whole endeavor is not about worship at all. The name of God is vocalized, no doubt, but it emotes less an omniscient transcendental father figure and more a partisan political leader. 

This is tribalism, but it comes not from lack of knowledge or dedication to the faith. Church going does not temper tribalism, it stimulates it. According to Pew Forum data in the months before the election, 77% of white evangelicals who attended church at least once a month said they would vote for Trump. Of those attending church weekly, that answer was given 78% of the time. And only 67% of those who attended church less than once a month said they would vote Trump.

In their Taking America Back for God (Oxford, 2020) Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry bring further data showing that “those Americans who most strongly espouse Christian nationalist beliefs also tend to be the most religious as measured by activities like church attendance, prayer, and Scripture reading.” They also conclude that “the “Christianity” of Christian nationalism represents something more than religion… It is as ethnic and political as it is religious.”

If the Christianity of the gospels is a universal religion, quite removed from tribalism, the religion spreading today prefers politics over the Gospel. Referring to Trumpism as a major manifestation of Christian Nationalism, Philip Gorski comes to a similar conclusion and states that “Trumpism is, amongst other things, a secularized version of white Christian nationalism, and that Trump’s most ardent evangelical supporters are actually more nationalist than Christian” (American Babylon: Christianity and Democracy Before and After Trump, Routledge, 2020).

What does it take to make a churchgoing Christian more nationalist than Christian? The fact that participation in communal worship is married to political tribalism rather than separated from it means there is something in the way religion functions today that connects it to political passions. Ironically, it is through the church that religion is nationalized.

This phenomenon is not limited to the United States. A 2017 Pew Forum survey found that in Western Europe, “non-practicing Christians are less likely than church-attending Christians to express nationalist views” and “non-practicing Christians are less likely than churchgoing Christians to say that ancestry is key to national identity.” Western European churchgoers also express more anti-immigrant and anti-minority sentiments.

Nor is this only a Western or Christian phenomenon. In India, the BJP party, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is reshaping Hinduism. A veritable smorgasbord of traditions, some more internally divergent than Christianity is from Islam, Hinduism is pushed into a monolithic mold and given the essence and edges of a nationalistic ethos. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist movement that forms the source and base of the BJP, views India as a Hindu Rashtra (nation), challenging the secular character of the state formed by its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and enshrined in the Indian constitution. Contemporary Hindu nationalism today displays all you would expect from your run-of-the-mill, right-wing nationalist movement, from insistence on “secure borders” and fear of illegal infiltration, through initiating vigilante activity and violently fighting ethnic “defilement” and up to silencing dissent. And it does all this using religious symbolism and justification. There’s a coherent theology here, a tribal, nationalistic Theology of the Nation, meaning a religious framework that takes the nation (and not the divine) as its main theological concern and is flexible enough to modify traditional principles of faith to serve it.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya this January. Built on the ruins of a 16th century mosque, the lavish temple was built after a long and arduous civic and legal battle, which at times devolved into riots in which thousands lost their lives. In what seemed like a national (though solely Hindu) festival in India, the temple was consecrated, with Prime Minister Modi serving as the chief patron of rituals for the event and performing (vegetarian) sacrifices to the main Idol, that of the God Ram. Army Helicopters showered the cheering crowds with colorful flower petals while Modi’s main message in a speech he gave at the event was “Dev to Desh, Ram to Rashtra” – from deity to country, from Ram to nation.

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The theology of the Nation is not to be confused with civil religion. We are witnessing no overarching civic ethos that uses generic religious frames of reference to express the nation-state’s implicit communal values. Civil religion, as in Robert Bellah’s seminal 1967 article, is a state-formed social institution, an ethos shared by citizens working together for their republic, while the Theology of the Nation is a religious need, using explicit religious symbols and holding religious hopes, fostering nationalism and energizing congregations.

Nor is this a case of a state-sponsored and controlled church, in which the state employs a religious system to empower the national movement (such as in Franco’s Spain and Putin’s Russia). On the contrary, here, nationalism is used by religion. As with the American evangelicals, the religious tradition adopts the state as its central point of reference and uses nationalism as a dominant theological context.

Of course, the political powers are more than willing to manipulate faith to their advantage, and of course they do. But in this case, religion needs politics more than vice versa. The tradition finds substantial sustenance in the political sphere and is galvanized by the struggles of the state and the nation. The Theology of the Nation is borne out of the modern crises of tradition.

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For the rest of the article please go to its location at the Nexus site.

The New Antisemitism

"The new antisemitism sees Judaism not as the West’s Other, but as its origin, as the patriarchal, hierarchical, militant, colonialist, exclusivist source of all that’s bad, all that must be rejected, this time in an act of oedipal patricide. Jews are now the purest manifestation of Western colonialism, the ultimate oppressors.

Here Judaism is rejected and hated precisely because it is very much Western, because it lies at the origin and root of the West and is today a prominent expression of it. Because in an unbelievable twist of events, it is “white.” Absurdly, Jews are no longer the victims of white supremacy, but white supremacy’s pristine embodiment.

Both old and new antisemitism carry an attempt to eradicate the Jewish essence from the world, but while for the old antisemitism rejecting Judaism was an effort to affirm the antisemites’ own self, for the new antisemitism purging the world of Judaism is done in order to be born again, to be cleansed of original sin.

Within the current climate of intra-Western self-loathing, the very denial of Israel’s right to exist serves as a rite of purification and atonement for the sins of historical colonialism. The elimination of Israel, purportedly the world’s foremost symbol of colonialism and suppression, will release radicals from the guilt accumulated over centuries of colonial rule, guilt that, they are frustrated to find out, no number of land acknowledgements can wash away.

The Jew is therefore once again crucified for the sins of others. Sacrificed in order to cleanse the West of its sins. Perhaps even of itself. As the eternal alter-ego of the West, Jews will always function as its scapegoats. If once antisemitism was the socialism of the fools, today it is their decolonization movement."

An excerpt from an article of mine in Persuasion.

The Evil of Hamas – And the Way Ahead

It’s difficult for educated middle-class westerners, to get into the mind of religious fundamentalists. We tend to think that while they certainly say horrible things, they don’t really want those horrible things. After all, at the end of the day, everyone wants to sit at home and have dinner with the family, watch a good movie, and occasionally go for a vacation. Right?

What we witnessed on Saturday, October 7 is just how wrong that is. Hamas’ founding “covenant,” issued in 1988, explicitly called for the murder of Jews. Not IDF soldiers, not Israeli citizens. Jews. And they meant it.

However, since its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has enjoyed the accommodation of eight successive Israeli governments. Netanyahu headed six of them. He became prime minister in 2009 promising to “overthrow the Hamas regime,” but has taken great care of upholding it, pursuing agreements with it and even transferring funds to it.

Why? In March 2019 Netanyahu explained his strategy: “Those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.” Israel’s current Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, outdid him and stated that “Hamas is an asset.”

In short, in order to prevent progress on a path that ends with the division of the land of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state, it is necessary to make sure that there is no such path, and when the Palestinians are divided into two entities there is no such path.

That is why Netanyahu also made sure to thwart reconciliation attempts between Fatah and Hamas, which would have brought the latter under the PA’s authority. There have been several such reconciliation attempts in the past 15 years, the main one in the spring of 2014. Netanyahu’s Israel has always diligently frustrated them.

On the other hand, Netanyahu also made sure to oppose and/or to thwart any comprehensive move to occupy the Gaza Strip and undermine Hamas’s rule. The main objective was to keep Hamas separate from the PA and in power.

The issue here is not Netanyahu’s responsibility or fault, but the understanding that there were strategic reasons for maintaining Hamas rule, reasons that were established on a rejection of the two-state solution and on the belief the one could reason with fundamentalists.

Looking ahead, we need to reconsider that strategy and understand our alternatives.

On the one hand, there is the option of occupying the entire Gaza Strip and overthrowing Hamas. The political right will find it problematic for the reasons listed above: It eventually leads to the two-state solution. But it is, of course, problematic in other respects. It will incur a huge price for the IDF, one that will continue grow almost on a daily basis as even after the collapse of Hamas rule there will be plenty of armed young men who will maintain violent resistance, week after week, for years. And of course, it is problematic because it will place Israel directly responsible for the lives and well-being of 2 million Gazans.

On the other hand, there is a different strategic view. What the Oslo Accords managed to do was to provide the State of Israel with a proxy who takes care of the Palestinian population, and even receives funds from abroad for this purpose. It also protects Israel from the accusation of implementing a formal apartheid regime. Israel has no direct rule over the lives of 3.5 million West Bank Palestinian, and there is even an entity that is no less afraid of Hamas, and fights it alongside the Jewish state.

Fast forward a few weeks from now. Don’t get your hopes up: Hamas won’t be annihilated. Not only are the terrorists holding over a hundred captives and abductees, it is in any case it is impossible to destroy the movement without occupying the entire strip for a long time, and Israel, for the reasons mentioned, does not want to do that. In addition, Israel’s time is limited. We are already seeing horrendous images from the bombings in Gaza, and as time goes by it will get increasingly difficult to push on.

Thus what we can hope for is exacting serious damage to Hamas’ military and political capabilities, perhaps also the elimination of part of the leadership: That is, transform it into an organization on the run, which cannot organize an effective attack on Israel and does not actually control Gaza. If this happens, this terrible war will end with a reasonable result (without taking into account Hezbollah’s intervention).

Then the day after the war will come. Left to itself, Hamas will recover within a few years. Obviously that cannot be allowed. What must be done is use the war as a starting point for a geopolitical process. Namely, we must do the opposite of what we did till now: Not strengthen Hamas and weaken the Palestinian Authority, but vice versa.

This means entering into negotiations with the PA and allowing it to take over the Gaza Strip. It probably will not be willing to march into Gaza on the bayonets of the IDF, so not only diplomacy, but a lot of funds and guarantees from the international community will be needed, not only from the U.S. and Europe but also Arab countries. Perhaps that planned peace treaty with Saudi Arabia will be part of it.

It won’t be easy, but this is the only way to stabilize the region: Bringing in the PA or creating a body like the PA that is not fed by religious fundamentalism but by a national concept, that wants an independent state and is ready to reach an agreement with Israel. As during the Oslo process, the horizon promised must be a state (demilitarized, with security arrangements, etc.), and as with any agreement with its neighbors, it won’t mean they will suddenly start loving Israel. It means that there will be a secure border and the beginning of a long road to reasonable neighborliness.

The trauma right now is excruciating, and we are only at the beginning of this war. However, let’s remember that the trauma of the Yom Kippur War was terrible and six years later a peace agreement was signed between Israel and Egypt. Even today there are many people living in Egypt who do not like Israel, but there’s a safe border between the countries for 45 years. The entire Sinai Peninsula is not in Israel’s hands, but tens of thousands of Israelis visit it every summer.

For now, I pray for the safety of our troops and civilians everywhere.

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Published in the Jewish Journal

The Jewish Question Reopens

Like an onion, the current crisis in Israel is made up of a number of layers. The question of the scope of the authority vested in the Supreme Court is the seed that led to the immediate conflict, but it’s secondary to the two layers that envelop it and provide it with both motivation and fuel: the question of Judaism and the global crisis of liberalism.

The latter is embodied by the rise of populist movements across the world, from India via Hungary to the United States. Liberal democracy, which had appeared to be the last valid political framework after the breakup of the communist bloc (“The end of history”), is being challenged by forces that are exploiting its weaknesses and flaws amid the pursuit of power, money and respect.

Unlike the fascist and Bolshevik waves that the world experienced a hundred years ago, today democracy faces no competing ideology. Populism actually seeks to emphasize that it’s democratic and that it represents “the people” against an educated, affluent or “globalist” elite. In practice, populist governments have so far proven themselves to possess antiliberal tendencies and a lack of skills and competence. Their major achievement takes the form of forging an autocratic leader who is surrounded by a bevy of kleptocratic cronies.

Between the narrowest resolution, namely the question of judicial review and the power of the Supreme Court, and the broadest, namely the worldwide liberalism crisis, lies the struggle that is being waged in Israel over its Judaism.

Here the global crisis is embodied in its local form, and it’s from here that the bulk of the social dynamite has been detonated. In the country’s 75th year of existence, the question of its Jewish identity has been burst open.

It’s easy to see that the present coalition entertains a very specific conception of Jewish identity. It draws a parallel between Judaism and halakha (Jewish law) and between halakha and rejection of the West’s values, that sees the Haredi public as the most authentic expression of the tradition, that sees women as a nuisance and non-Jews as an affront.

Thus, beyond the hairsplitting over the court’s “reasonableness” standard or the override clause, lies the will of a determined minority to make the public space subject to halakha. Note: It’s not adherence to the halakha as such that is significant, but rather the interpretation of it as being in conflict with the values of the liberal West, and the desire to shape the country accordingly.

Despite the hopes of the fundamentalist bloc that even without high tech, foreign investment or the reserve army, “the Jewish people will get along and you can go to hell,” in the inspiring framing of our communications minister, it’s clear to every sensible person that a theocratic Israel is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic Jewish hellscape in which both the state and Judaism have collapsed and we are left amid their ruins.

Dread of this outcome explains the intensity of the struggle now underway, but dread is not sufficient as an answer. Facing off against the government is a prodigious bloc whose determination regarding the importance of humanist and liberal values stands in inverse proportion to the degree of its clarity about the character – or even the legitimacy – of its Jewish identity.

This public, most of which is secular but contains also traditional and Orthodox Jews, finds itself perplexed about the question of intertwining Judaism and liberalism. On the one hand it’s clear that it will not forgo either the one or the other; on the other hand, it lacks a way to formulate its Judaism.

The axis of tension lies in the correlation between Judaism and the values of the modern West. Whereas the foundation of the fundamentalist bloc’s Judaism lays in the rejection of humanism and liberalism, the majority of the public in Israel has adopted those values and wishes to hold onto them, but has not come to terms cognitively with their connection to Judaism.

Tragically, many have internalized the fundamentalist notion that a substantive contradiction exists between Judaism and modernity. On one side, then, are those who define their Judaism in opposition to modernity, and on the other side are those who consent in principle to this opposition, and are embarrassed by it.

By an irony of history, the Western world, whose roots lie in the Hebrew Bible and in the idea of the creation of humanity in God’s image, is today being rejected by those who purport to be continuing this tradition and is being adopted precisely by those who hesitate to take pride in that tradition.

At the moment, the liberal bloc is seizing on the flag and on the individual’s contribution to the state as the manifestations of its identity, but is finding it difficult to work these into a rounded vision. If there is a challenge facing us, it is to move from the so-far successful effort to counter the government’s plans to the articulation of a coherent charge that is Israeli, liberal, democratic – and Jewish.

In a speech to the second Assembly of Representatives of the Jewish community in Israel in Mandatory Palestine, in January 1926, David Ben-Gurion asserted that independence would not be attainable without adopting “the moral conception of true Judaism, not the false kind in whose name people and circles that are far from the moral life speak so glibly.” Almost a century later, that is again the challenge we face.

Published in Haaretz

Settler Violence and Two Types of Jewish Fundamentalism

An article of mine has been published in the new issue of Sources of the Shalom Hartman Institute: :

"A Natural Act of Vengeance: Settler Violence and Two Types of Jewish Fundamentalism"

The article explores two types of ascending Jewish extremism, rising from within Religious Zionist circles, presenting fundamentalist interpretations of Jewish tradition and rejecting both the authority of the State of Israel and the notion that the state has messianic significance, which had been the signature claim of Religious Zionists since the 1970s.

Focusing on the post-mamlakhti Hardal group and the anti-mamlakhti Hilltop Youth, I try to show the connections between their political convictions and their religious ideas – the deeper meaning of minister Smotrich’s call to "wipe out" a Palestinian town and Jewish zealots’ vengeance pogroms – and argue that the latter are as dangerous to Judaism as the former are to the state of Israel.

Here on the site, and here in pdf.

The Particular Fundamentalism in the New Israeli Goveronment

As Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich heads next week to the US, his words in support of Israel “erasing” the Palestinian village of Huwara still eco off the walls of the State Department and numerous Jewish organizations, all of whom have made it clear that they refuse to meet him. Even the right-leaning AIPAC will not greet Israel’s Finance Minister. His attempts to backtrack, awkward and halfhearted, did not make things better, and indeed only cemented the conjecture that with Smotrich things are not as we have known from the past.

It would indeed take either ignorance or naivete to assume the current Israeli government resembles any previous one. Though different in character and motives, never have coalition parties presented such monolithic eagerness to weaken Israel’s judicial system, dismantle the checks and balances on power, and expand the role of religion in the public sphere.

Significantly, more than half the seats of the coalition are taken by religiously observant Jews, and while most past Israeli governments had representatives of the Ultra-Orthodox public, none had the Religious Zionist public represented solely by hard-core fundamentalists, nor did any, ever, have had Kahanist ministers.

The particular brand of fundamentalist Judaism that the current extremists in power hold is different from that of Ultra-Orthodoxy. Discerning how is key to understanding the danger they pose for Israel’s democracy – and to the wellbeing of Palestinians.

Ultra-Orthodoxy’s piety is dedicated to community and continuity, that is to maintaining their cocoon of like-minded, meticulously observant Jews, following what they believe is the path of their forefathers and taking care that their children do the same. Theirs is a fundamentalism interested less in theology, more in sociology, and thus also capable of pragmatism, usually with an added wink and a Yiddish pun.

In contrast, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir (Israel’s Minister for National Security) display a fundamentalism resembling that of extreme Evangelical Christianity, in that it applies literal understanding to the Bible and aims to implement that understanding to the transformation of the political and social reality around them. This type of fundamentalism is committed to zealous authenticity in belief and practice, and maintaining a dogmatic understanding of tradition, shows very little aptitude towards pragmatism.

Just five years ago Mr. Smotrich presented what he called the Decisiveness Plan (or the Subjugation Plan, the translation can go both ways), in which he proposed to offer the Palestinians – in Israel and in the occupied territories alike – three options: surrender and agree to become residents with reduced voting rights; emigrate; or resist and be subjected to the full force of the IDF.

In the essay he published at the time (Sep’ 2017) Smotrich admits that this plan is “lacking in democratic distinctiveness”, but claims it is the only realistic path that Israel can take. What he does not reveal is that he bases his plan not on geo-political assessments but on an ancient Talmudic text.

In a speech he gave a year before he published his plan (Aug’ 16) he refers to a narrative according to which when Joshua came to conquer the Promised Land he sent three epistles to the peoples living in it, offering them the very same options.

In that speech Smotrich claimed that,

There is one absolute and correct truth… This is the basis for the approach of Joshua when he entered the Land, which I seek to adopt even today. The foundation of our absolute truths is faith in the Torah… The Torah of Moses is the only base on which we must establish the belief in the righteousness of the way and the fighting spirit of the IDF.

Israel’s new Finance Minister displays the most basic characteristics of fundamentalist religiosity: a uniform perception of history, by which what was true thousands of years ago is also valid today; a wish shape contemporary life according to ancient ways, to thrust the past into the present; and a literalist understanding of scripture which reduces a rich religious tradition into a rigid and simplistic framework. These produce a one-dimensional submission to the authority of the Holy Scriptures.

He has absolutely no qualms about his beliefs. Just half a year ago, during the previous Israeli government, Smotrich shouted across the Knesset’s floor to the Arab MKs: “You’re only here be mistake, because Ben Gurion didn’t finish the job and throw you out in 1948.”

And he is not alone. Mr. Ben-Gvir is a longtime member of circles following the late Rabbi Meir Kahane’s teachings, a vile racist who whose Kach movement was designated a terrorist organization by both the US and Israel. Ben-Gvir himself was twice convicted for supporting a terrorist organization following his activities there.

Kahane himself used the very same account about Joshua in his books to justify the future expulsion of Israeli Arabs, which he repeatedly claimed must be implemented. The tale plays a part in the movement’s theological world, being also founded on a fundamentalist interpretation of elements of the Jewish tradition. In the past Ben Gvir explicitly said that Jews must “Drive out the Arab enemy”, and though of late insisting he no longer thinks so, only five years ago claimed that “every word of Kahane is relevant for today’s reality”.

Just as Kahane insisted that non-Jews will no be able to vote in Israel, Smotrich also plans to reduce Israeli Arabs to the status of non-voting subjects. As he said in a privet conversation in 2017, Palestinians will be relegated to the status of “resident alien,” because, as he explained then, “according to Jewish law there must always be some inferiority.”

This kind of dogmatic, selective interpretation of the Jewish tradition, linked with the will, and now the power, to apply it in order to change the face of the country, is something that Israeli citizens encounter for the first time in the highest echelons of their government. The mass demonstrations that have engulfed the country over the last two months have a direct connection to the horror that strikes many Israelis witnessing it.

Netanyahu’s desperate legal conditions have led him to establish a government with the most extreme elements of Judaism’s underbelly, groups that were taboo until two years ago and that hold a violently racist view of Israel’s social and political reality. A significant part of the Israeli public, represented by the tens of thousands engaged in weekly demonstrations, are resisting what they conceive as threat to the Israeli democracy and to the integrity of the Jewish tradition.

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Published in Haaretz

Antisemitism and the Move from the Liberal to the Populist Right

Antisemitism is becoming normalized in the United States at a frighteningly swift pace. After Kanye West implied on Twitter that he was interested in killing the Jews, former President Donald Trump invited him to dinner, and hosted white supremacist Nick Fuentes at the same event. Then, during an interview with the conspiracist broadcaster Alex Jones, West insinuated that Jews are pedophiles and announced that he “loves Nazis” and also “likes Hitler.”

West’s explosion of antisemitism retrospectively illuminates the reckless conduct of the Trumpist right. Before Trump was elected, it was clear that he showed tolerance for antisemitism and also employed antisemitic stereotypes himself, but the populist right adopted a dismissive attitude towards this and carried on “warning” about the danger posed by Alexandira Ocasio-Cortez or Ilhan Omar.

Even when hate crimes against Jews increased on his watch, even when he said that some of the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville were “very fine people,” even after the biggest terror attack against Jews in the United States, for Trump fans in Israel, the radical left and extremism on campuses remained the biggest danger.

The story is not just the blindness to the fact that antisemitism on the right is much more extensive and dangerous than the antisemitism on the left (which does indeed exist). Nor is it simply the importation and adoption of an entire antisemitic lexicon, of terms like “deep state” and “foreign money” and “globalist elite.” The story is the intellectual distortion caused by the occupation, and locating the aid to continue maintaining it in the midst of those who detest Jews the most.

A large part of the fight against “antisemitism from the left” is actually a fight against de-legitimation of the occupation, with every criticism of it immediately being labeled as antisemitism. Entire government departments are established to fight BDS, a failing, ineffective organization. At the same time, far-right  parties in places like Hungary, Poland, Austria and elsewhere are embraced, while overlooking their antisemitism considered the price that has to be paid in return for the Islamophobia they so generously offer and for their support for settlements.

But this price is paid in ongoing installments, which are currently taking the form of the right’s self-imposed silence in the face of the normalization of antisemitism. The populist right cannot come out and admit that Trump has always had trouble rejecting white supremacists and antisemites, or acknowledge that Trumpism pulled scoundrels and a skinhead rabble from the fringes to the center and afforded them a level of recognition far exceeding anything they have received before.

Deeper still, we are witnessing a reluctance to admit that the shift from a liberal right to a populist right is a danger to Jews throughout the world, as it is also a danger to Arabs, women and LGBT people here. The threat to the liberal order that comes with the rise of populism, that threatens the rights, status and prosperity of Jews in the same way that it threatens every other minority, is not admitted nor addressed because the coming Netanyahu coalition has adopted similar populism and is dismantling the liberal order here.

Ironically, the dismembering of liberal democracy and the movement toward autocratic government are becoming the only points of agreement between our populist right and the antisemites abroad. How loud could the outcry against antisemitism be, anyway, when we have homophobes and Kahanists sitting in the government?

In recent months, prominent Trumpists like Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert have spoken out in favor of “Christian nationalism.” Boebert even said that the separation between religion and state should be eliminated and that “the church should direct the government.” The danger for Jews is clear, as is the resemblance to the ambitions of MKs from the Religious Zionism party and the ultra-Orthodox parties.

We are advancing toward a reality in which the anti-liberal right here will parallel the anti-liberal right there, and vice-versa, with the minorities in both places being the ones who will suffer. Here it will be mainly the Arabs, as well as women and the LGBT community. There it will be women, LGBT and Jews. The familiar declaration of the “shared values” we have with the United States will take on a new meaning. It will come at the expense of Israel’s commitment to Jews all over the world.

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Published by Haaretz

Ben-Gvir and the Danger of Kahanism in Israel

MK Itamar Ben-Gvir’s promise, in an interview with Sefi Ovadia and Yanir Cozin on Army Radio, to expel MK Ofer Cassif from the country, might at first glance be seen as an encouraging sign – at least he’s not singling out Arabs.

Kahanism is etched in the public memory as a abominable racist doctrine on an ideological par with the Nuremberg Laws. Rabbi Meir Kahane proposed segregating Jews and Arabs at beaches, banning marriage between Jews and Arabs, denying Arabs the right to vote and to be elected and making Jerusalem, by law, a city in which Jews alone could reside.

Racism was indeed a central pillar of Kahane’s ideology, but it was not the sole basis of his philosophy. At the heart of Kahanism lie two additional concepts: the rejection of secularism, liberalism and democracy; and the desire for vengeance on the goyim. All of which are currently propounded by Ben-Gvir.

When Kahane was sworn into the Knesset, he added the following verse from Psalm 119 after the traditional text: “So shall I observe Thy law continually for ever and ever.” He admitted that his intention was to say that, to him, the laws of the Torah would supersede the laws of the state. In his worldview, the democratic and secular State of Israel was an illegitimate entity destined to be replaced by a state governed by halakha (Jewish religious law).

In his final book, “The Jewish Idea,” Kahane wrote that democracy is an alien, non-Jewish concept and that “the Torah does not abide this nonsense.” In his view, a secular government has no authority because “the duty to honor and obey the natural government depends upon the extent to which this government honors and obeys the Torah.”

Kahane goes on to assert that there must be “no king or government made up of people who are not God-fearing,” and that the will of the majority is completely irrelevant, since “there is no authority to any law or decision or decree by a government of evildoers that opposes the Torah, and it is a mitzvah to reject their authority, and totally prohibited to accept the decision of the evil majority.” Essentially, according to Kahane, in Israel there is “one view only and no more, and whoever disputes the one view of God’s Torah, even if it be a majority of the Jewish people, holds a perverted view.”

According to this stance, the current State of Israel is illegitimate and should be dismantled as soon as possible. Kahane envisioned a halakha state, which he felt was the only thing that could truly be called a Jewish state. This state would be ruled by one person, a dictator. As he writes: “There is a need for a regime of one man, one word, a president, not the chaos of dozens and hundreds of representatives and parties.”

But wait, that’s not all. Not only is a government that does not obey the Torah illegitimate, so are any disobedient citizens: “Any person who does not obey the Torah has lost his rights and status.” In the Kahanist dictatorship, the rights and status of secular citizens will be inferior to those of religiously observant citizens. And what about those Jews whom Kahanism considers to be abominable sinners? They won’t be here, apparently. As Ben-Gvir said in 2016 about the LGBTQ: “They have no place here, not in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel.” “The state must have a Jewish character,” he explained.

Here is where hatred of the left comes into the picture. Ben-Gvir’s attack on Cassif is the continuation of a long-standing Kahanist tradition. In his first book in Hebrew, “The Challenge,” Kahane called for “isolating the disturbed left and pseudointellectuals, whose hatred for religion reflects their sickening inner world.” In “The Jewish Idea,” he wrote that the state’s leftist founders were “evil people … who will forever pay for their vicious crimes.”

Isn’t it at least possible to show gratitude to the old Labor Party for the state’s establishment? No. The state did not come into being thanks to their efforts, but only thanks to God, and only for the sake of vengeance on the goyim. According to Kahane, “The State of Israel is first of all God’s wrath that is aroused from the dust of the desecration of the Divine Presence. Israel [came into being] for the sake of God wreaking vengeance on His enemies the goyim (from his book, “On Faith and Redemption”).

And here we come to the third pillar: vengeance, as an ideal. “There is no loftier and more just virtue than that of vengeance,” Kahane wrote in “The Jewish Idea.” And why? Simple: “Vengeance is great because it revives God.” In other words, God is weak and enfeebled and requires violent acts of vengeance to restore Him to full life. Without the sacrifice of non-Jewish blood, the good Lord cannot regain His full might.

The purpose of the State of Israel is vengeance on the goyim, “and whoever relents from vengeance on Israel’s enemies is essentially forgoing God’s vengeance.” Kahane asserts that vengeance is a prerequisite for the reestablishment of the Jewish people and its God. Redemption is not possible without slaughtered and bloody non-Jewish sacrifices.

This explains why Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the Kiryat Arba resident who massacred 29 Muslim worshippers and wounded over 100 more at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, is one of the great saints in the Kahanist pantheon. Is there any better example of blind, brutal and insane Jewish vengeance in our times?

Now recall the picture of Goldstein that was proudly hanging in Ben-Gvir’s living room until two years ago. Above the portrait of the mass murderer was the verse (Numbers 25:13), “because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel,” which concludes God’s words of praise for the archetypical biblical zealot Phinehas.

Ben-Gvir did not hang Goldstein’s picture on his living-room wall because he admires doctors or thought Goldstein had nice eyes. The verse says it all: glorification of the act of revenge, praise for the massacre in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Ben-Gvir also issues frequent calls for revenge. Just this year he did so after Barel Shmueli, a soldier, was killed on the Gaza border in August 2021; after Yehudah Dimentman was murdered near Homesh in December (“The incident must not end without the government taking revenge”) and during the wave of terror attacks in March.

Don’t act surprised. From beginning to end, Ben-Gvir is a Kahanist. Thus, his worldview comprises not only atrocious racism but also hatred of the left, rejection of the legitimacy of democracy, the aspiration to turn Israel into a state governed by halakha and, yes, a deep desire for vengeance on non-Jews. This is the DNA of Kahanism.

Has he “become more moderate”? Is Ben-Gvir no longer the young man who promised to “get to” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin? Is Ben-Gvirism Kahanism-lite? Kahanism minus the extremism? Kahanism for the whole family ? A cuddlier, warm, fuzzy version of Kahanism?

Judge for yourselves. Seven years ago, in an interview with Hanoch Daum, Ben-Gvir said that the difference between him and Kahane was “not in views or attributes, but maybe in style. The style is a little different.” Five years ago, at a memorial for Kahane, Ben-Gvir said that “every word” of Kahane is “actual, sharp, meant for the reality we have today.” Three years ago he was interviewed in the Ynet studio and argued that the “big difference” between him and Kahane is that “they give us a microphone.”

Do they ever. A responsible media would at least confront the man with the ideas that motivate him. Instead, Israelis can’t avoid seeing his smiling mug everywhere, with journalists vying to outdo one another in their obsequiousness to him.

Why should he even think about moderating his positions? His path is assured. He is in the Knesset, and his standing is burnished daily by Benjamin Netanyahu and the Bibi-ist microcosmos. The man threatens to deport leftist MKs, dubs any Arab he doesn’t like a “terror supporter,” calls for vengeance, and Religious Zionism – party and community alike – welcomes him with open arms. He has no reason to change.

A public with moral backbone would vomit him out. The weakness of Israeli civil society is evident from the ease with which Kahanism has entered its veins and heart.

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Published today in Haaretz

Meditation, Philosophy, and the Changing Image of the Person in the Jewish Tradition

A few weeks ago The Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation was published, offering, among many other articles, an article of mine headlined “The End of Man: Philosophical Consummation in Jewish Meditative Tradition”.

The article examines the close connection between philosophy and meditation among two Jewish thinkers: Maimonides and Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad. Before and after I provide a background on the development of interest in meditation in the Jewish tradition, by examining various human models. I end with a few words on the situation today.

I want to bring in what follows a few passages from the article. These are individual paragraphs, and which have other parts between them, but I think they are interesting enough to bring them that way. The book itself is for sale on Amazon, but as usual with books like this, it costs quite a bit.

Here are the excerpts from the article.

… Ancient (Hellenistic) philosophers had no doubt that their quest for truth is undivided from special exercises which they must perform. Thus, the Pythagoreans, Cynics, Epicureans, Stoics, etc., all had their own spiritual paths, which they considered elemental to their philosophy.

[…]

Meditation, therefore, was directly connected to philosophy in ancient times. What changed with the transition to modernity was that access to truth was no longer contingent on personal transformation, but on intellectual knowledge alone. Foucault posits what he calls “the Cartesian moment” as the juncture through which the “care of the self”, in the form of meditative practice, was no longer required as a prerequisite for knowing the truth, and thus the imperative gnōthi seauton was understood not as a demand for self-transformation, but self-analysis.

In his examination of philosophy and spirituality, Foucault was greatly influenced by the early works of Pierre Hadot, who in his later book, What is Ancient Philosophy (1995), states much the same conclusions, and submits that throughout antiquity philosophy was “conceived as an attempt at spiritual progress and a means of inner transformation”. Theory, in other words, had its original meaning (Theōria): transformative contemplation.

[…]

Christians held a fundamentally different path towards perfection. The Philosopher reaches knowledge through self-transformation, the Saint seeks salvation through imitatio Christi. They also developed (more so as the centuries went by) an altogether distinct view regarding the path to truth: not self-transformation, not knowledge, but faith. While the ancient philosophers perceived the self as a political animal on the one hand and an entity examining itself and evolving on the other, for Christians the self was publicly a part of the Church, the body of Christ, and privately an entity sinful in essence and saved by faith. Moreover, for the Christians there was only one truth and one path to it. Believing it was life, denying it – death. Corresponding to the weight that Christianity attached to truth, Hellenistic philosophy was gradually seen as a collection of mere statements about reality, and its role as a way of life was forgotten. Philosophy schools were not taken as superior or inferior ways towards self-knowledge, but as heresy.

[…]

Rabbinical Judaism was not ancient Hellenistic philosophy, though in a different way than Christianity. It was not concerned with proclamations of faith, nor with the one and only truth, but with a communal commitment to a sacred covenant. Its conception of a commendable person was one that is bound to the word of God, not one that is transformed by meditative practices. It propagated an ethics of obligation, not one of virtue. As the Talmud instructs no less than four times, “Greater is one who is commanded [to a mitzva] and accomplishes it, than one who is not commanded [to a mitzva] and accomplishes it” (Kiddushin, 31a). Obeying God is important, not self-development.

Rabbinical Judaism, through community and Halakha (Jewish Law), gives structure to one’s life not by teaching methods for its transformation but by keeping it stable, that is by placing it rigorously within an elaborate framework of laws, customs, and rituals. For the Hellenistic philosopher, the self is to be cultivated, at times transcended. For the Jewish Sage, the self is to be subjected to God’s will and conquered.

This anthropological conception changed only when Hellenistic thinking was integrated into Jewish thought, beginning approximately in the 10^th century. The study of Jewish mysticism acknowledged from its inception the immense influence of Neo-Aristotelian and especially Neo-Platonic philosophy on Jewish thought. The entire metaphysical edifice of Kabbalah owes its internal logic to Neo-Platonism, and non-kabbalistic Jewish philosophy, such as that of the later Geonim (the greatest rabbinical thinkers until the 11^th century) and Maimonides, who was heavily influenced by Aristotelian thought, accessed through Arabic translations of Greek works and developed by Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1938), Ibn Bâjja (Avempace, d. 1139) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198).

[…]

In the contemporary Jewish world, the developmental anthropological model is ubiquitous, as is the integration of meditation techniques. Philosophy, however, at least in the form of systematic structures of thought, is almost non-existent. While Orthodoxy devotes itself to observing and elaborating the Halakhic code, and while the more progressive denominations have devoted themselves to cultural enrichment and moral activism (“Tikun Olam”), a broad spiritually-inclined public has, since the 1960s, branched out into varied paths of personal transformation, adopting the ancient philosophical conception of human development – albeit without the philosophy.

Rather, what can be found today is an amalgam of simple and all-encompassing axioms that have become obvious truths for today’s spiritual seekers, themes such as personal growth, human potential, inner truth(s), wholeness and oneness, “energy”, “natural” as authentic, the uniqueness of every individual, and the existence of a perennial wisdom. These ideas are not so much articulated as simply presumed, and what’s left for the individual is to base themselves on them and choose the meditative method that they prefer to practice.

[…]

Thus, while in the ancient past Jews had a theological structure but not a developmental model for the person, and in the middle-ages through early modernity prominent Jewish thinkers and movements adopted both Hellenistic philosophical frameworks and the ancient philosophical conception of human transformation, contemporary Judaism, when it does engage in meditation, accepts the paradigm of personal development and transformation, but does this with a bare-bones philosophical structure, if at all. Following the modern divorce of philosophy from spirituality, with some possible exceptions, today’s Jewish seekers prefer the latter and elect to subscribe to a spiritual and meditative path while abandoning any interest in philosophical thought and speculation, itself another broad cultural trend that far exceeds its applicability to its contemporary Jewish adherents.

Conspiracy Theories as Part of a move towards Depolitization

It’s been nearly 20 years since Gadi Taub assailed “Badulina,” the best-selling fantasy novel-cum-self-help book by Gabi Nitzan. Writing in Haaretz, Taub, a historian and public intellectual, deplored the worldview that Nitzan was promoting, likening it to the economic approach espoused by Benjamin Netanyahu in “a society that is privatizing itself to death.” Taub bemoaned the malignant, New Age-like individualism that Nitzan was inculcating in readers of “Badulina” as an excuse for withdrawal from society and for selfishness. “When there is no politics,” Taub wrote, “there is only a free market. There are no citizens, there are consumers.”

Today, some two decades later, Taub, who took a sharp turn into right-wing populism, would not dare to denigrate Netanyahu or condemn privatization. On the other hand, little seems to have changed for Nitzan. He’s editing a new newspaper, called Bereshit – the Hebrew title of the first book of the Bible and its first word – whose theme is the “crisis of democracy”; or, as he writes on the front page of the first issue, “individual rights, human dignity and liberty and freedom of expression.” In the meantime, however, that seems to mean being occupied obsessively with exposing the “lie” about the pandemic, the masks, the vaccines, the side effects and so on.

The coronavirus crisis changed the world in a variety of ways during the past two years, but no one foresaw how widespread and popular conspiracy theories would become. Economic and social uncertainty have always acted as a petri dish for superstitions, but we needed the social media to make it possible for individuals to spread fictions fast and wholesale; and even more important, for surfers to communicate among themselves and build ecosystems of alternative facts.

Of Sheep and Lone Wolves

Conspiracy theories are a riveting social phenomenon. As a widely used formulation by Karen Douglas puts it, they grant their followers three promises. The first is a secret, a hidden charm, which is not so much information as it is a framework of meaning. The second promise is a feeling of security: The possessors of the secret are prepared for a crisis, or are part of an inner circle that has been chosen for salvation, or they are the only ones who understand that there’s nothing to worry about. The third promise is community: Those who know the secret share a treasure and constitute a social circle. The community accords warmth and positions itself against a hostile or blind world.

These promises, it’s almost needless to say, are false. Conspiracy theory advocates know less about the world, not more. They are consumed with doubts and seek constant confirmation for their beliefs. They are not safer (they’re more likely to die from COVID, for starters), and the community they have found is fragile; it does not represent true friendship necessarily, but ad hoc relations. Arguably, these attributes are easy to find among anti-vaxxers.

But the story is bigger than that. Conspiracy theories are spawned in response to a particular need. The publication of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” at the turn of the 20th century, to take a famous and painful example, was aimed against a specific group of people, with the goal of vilifying them and relegating them to a place beyond the pale of legitimate society. Claims that the moon landing never happened or that President John F. Kennedy was not assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald offer a soothing explanation for events that many considered impossible.

In other words, like every myth or folktale, a conspiracy theory seeks to fulfill a psychological and social purpose. If we examine it and go down the sociological rabbit hole, we’ll reach the fuel that motivates it. Here we will grasp its essence, its raison d’être. And it won’t be the rule of the Illuminati.

What, then, do suspiciousness of the medical and political establishments, protests against restrictions and lockdowns, and ridiculing the public’s fear of the virus have in common? What is the joint platform for expressions of disappointment at politicians from the right and the left, parallels drawn between Israel and the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, the “development” of alternative medicines for the coronavirus and the consolation that is found in the community of the like-minded?

Let’s let the protagonist of “Badulina” answer: “To remind [people] that their fundamental obligation in this world is not ideological or nationalistic, but personal: to be happy.”

In a word: depoliticization. The conspiracy theory espoused by the anti-vaxxers affords a global context and social legitimization for turning one’s back on the state, the establishment, scientific research and society at large. If we can’t rely on the government, the health system or our next-door neighbors, all that’s left is to withdraw into ourselves, declare that everyone is crazy (or sheep), feel special (or persecuted), and feather, as they say, our own nest. Accusing the government of engaging in a totalitarian conspiracy constitutes an ultimate excuse for withdrawing from social involvement and provides an exemption from caring about the political sphere.

The conspiracy idea comes in response to a social need, but is far from exhausting it. The overall phenomenon extends far beyond the opponents of vaccination. They are only one stream in a raging flood that seeks depoliticization, social privatization and the acceleration of individualism.

The libertarian wave that has been inundating this country for a decade is another significant symptom of the phenomenon. People who see themselves as “citizens of the world” are also partners to it, but so too are those who seek personal solutions for public problems, like those who demand that people who are in favor of taking in refugees “should first take refugees into their home.” The cryptocurrency craze is also part of it. And when Yair Asulin writes in this paper that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is not a national war and that “the heroes [of this war] are we the spectators” (Haaretz, March 25), he is engaging in the same depoliticization as Nitzan in “Badulina.”

We are in the midst of an individualist, antisocial, antinational trend, one that began in the 1960s in the United States and Europe, and reached its peak before the coronavirus crisis. In light of the mobilization that was required of various countries to act against the virus, it seemed for a brief moment that the vital role of the nation-state would again be understood and appreciated. We received lifesaving vaccinations, for free and efficiently, because we are part of a particular country and not another, and the prestige of Benjamin Netanyahu (or Berl Katznelson) rose because of the quick arrival of the vaccines and their distribution by the health maintenance organizations. Yet it was precisely against the background of the clear and present need for a state that the anti-vaccination conspiracy spread.

The Invention of the Individual

In his visit to the young United States, the French statesman and aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville was struck by the individualism that was flowering on America’s soil. In his book, first published in 1835, he explained to his readers that this was a “novel idea,” for “our fathers were only acquainted with selfishness.” Individualism, Tocqueville explained, “is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows, and to draw apart with his family and his friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself.”

Leaving society to its own devices means dismantling the public sphere. Accordingly, Tocqueville posits individualism against citizenship. By distancing people from participating in the public space, in politics, the individual is the enemy of the citizen.

It is the freedom of election and of being elected, argues Tocqueville, that saves America from individualistic fragmentation. People who live under despotism develop apathy and withdraw into themselves, but in a democracy the individual can find selffulfillment not only in the family fold but in political activity as well.

The idea that Tocqueville articulated so well is not new. Aristotle saw humans as political animals. Public activity was for him, as for the majority of the citizens of the Athenian polis and afterward in the Roman republic, a supreme realization of their humanity and their freedom. Individuals are transformed into full humans in the course of social and political interaction, because for them the joint creation of society is the complete expression of their humanity.

The individualism that Tocqueville first discovered in America in 1831 spread afterward to the entire Western world. It intensified, and various nations struggled in diverse ways against its results. The fragmentation that hovered as a permanent threat was described as the malaise of modernity, an expression of alienation that would give rise to a mechanistic approach, disassembling meaning, undermining the natural order of things, and violating the unity of the people.

One of fascism’s promises was that it would act as a cure for the process of individuation, and would reconstitute the organic nation and purge it of foreign, harmful restraints that were supposedly to blame for problems. Communism, too, bore a promise of a renewed, collective and communal existence – not by a return to national purity but by changing material conditions and progressing to a society without alienation, one that would be egalitarian and rest on solidarity.

Since the 1990s, liberalism, which innately placed the individual at the center, has become the only game in town. Its advantage, like its disadvantage, lies in not purporting to relieve the distress of modernity. However, whereas in the past the distress was at least declared as such – the Western citizen sought meaning and lamented its loss – in recent decades the lack of commitment to great ideals has been celebrated.

The Individual Kills the Citizen

We live in “liquid modernity,” as the philosopher and sociologist Zygmunt Bauman termed it in the 1999 book of that name. It’s the era in which a transition is taking place from a society comprised of individuals who see themselves as pilgrims seeking redemption, to one made up of tourists looking for experiences. “Liquidity” is a metaphor for the current legitimacy of mobility, for change and even for a revolution in our life, in our values, in our worldviews and in our identity.

According to Bauman, in the liquid modern era, the danger that the public will invade the private (as with fascism or bolshevism) is much diminished, whereas now it is the private that is encroaching on the public. Instead of acting for a common good, private persons are foisting on the public space the privatized logic of individualism. The public space is becoming a screen on which people project their personal distresses. Selfishness is becoming legitimate, and what Tocqueville feared is coming to pass: The individual is killing the citizen.

“Public space is increasingly empty of public issues,” Bauman writes. “It fails to perform its past role of a meeting-and-dialogue place for private troubles and public issues. On the receiving end of the individualizing pressures, individuals are being gradually, but consistently, stripped of the protective armor of citizenship and expropriated of their citizen skills and interests. Under the circumstances, the prospect of the individual de jure ever turning into the individual de facto (that is, one which commands the resources indispensable for genuine self-determination) seems ever more remote.”

These final words are most important. Our individualism is under threat from the commonalty, but the commonalty is also a condition for its development. No person is born with language, culture or autonomy. They must be learned, and we learn them from the society in which we live. A person is a social being not only because they live in society, but because without society they do not become a person.

Beyond this, without proper infrastructures and resources, individuals are incapable of fully realizing themselves; and without institutionalized political defense of our human and civil rights, we simply have no way to enjoy them. The withdrawal into absolute individualism is subverting our full self-realization as human beings, both in principle and pragmatically.

The Most Tempting Manipulation

In the first issue of Bereshit, alongside an article by TV-news anchor Oshrat Kotler applauding citizens who are protesting “Pfizer’s experimental treatment,” there is a photograph of a demonstrator holding a sign that reads, “To be a free people in our land” (quoting Israel’s national anthem). There is bitter irony here, for the demonstrators against vaccination or the restrictions of the green pass do not yearn to be a free people in their land, but free individuals in their homes. Their protest is not only apolitical in the political-party sense, it is antipolitical in the public sense. They want to be left alone.

“First of all, enough with that ‘we’ thing,” King Badulina says in Nitzan’s novel. “There is no ‘we.’ There’s only ‘I’ in the world, seven billion ‘I’s that keep joining together and breaking off according to various interests and external manipulations.” Well, one of the cleverest manipulations is the one that promises the individual that he knows a great secret that others don’t know, that she must resist the rule of a dastardly elite and that it is incumbent on them to disconnect from social solidarity and to withdraw into the home.

That’s a sweet and tempting manipulation. It is adept at flattering the selfishness of the individual, at legitimizing egocentricity, at blurring the need for an establishment, for a government in order conduct normal, safe life. It is skilled at forging an ethos of heroism and revolt in the face of a nonexistent dictatorship. That’s why it’s so popular. Bauman is dead-on when he asserts that the task we face today can no longer be only “the defense of private autonomy from the advancing troops of the ‘public sphere’… The task now is to defend the vanishing public realm.”

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Published in Haaretz