The Wandering Who: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics by Atzmon Gilad

Author:Atzmon, Gilad [Atzmon, Gilad]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781846948756
Publisher: NBN_Mobi_Kindle
Published: 2011-09-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The Right to Self-Determination:

A Fake Exercise in Universalism

A few years back, in a little community church in Aspen, Colorado, during the Q&A session that followed a talk I gave, a middle-aged man at the back of the room stood up and introduced himself thus: ‘I am a citizen of the world, a cosmopolitan and an atheist. I would like to ask you something, Mr Atzmon’

‘Hang on,’ I interrupted. ‘Please do not be offended by my asking, but are you by any chance a Jew?’

He froze for a second, and couldn’t stop from blushing as everyone in the room turned to look at him. I felt a bit guilty about it, because it was not my intention to embarrass the man. It took him a further few seconds to get his act together.

‘Yes Gilad, I am a Jew, but how did you know?’

‘I obviously didn’t know,’ I replied. ‘I was guessing. You see, whenever I come across people who introduce themselves as “cosmopolitans”, “atheists” and “citizens of the world”, they somehow always happen to be assimilated “Jews” who identify politically as progressive cosmopolitans. I can only assume that non-Jews find some different methods to deal with discontent related to their identity. If they are born Catholic and decide to move on at a certain stage, they just leave the Church behind. If they do not love their country as much as others do, they probably pack a few things and pick another country to live in. Somehow non-Jews – and this is far from being a scientific observation – do not need to hide behind some vague, universal, abstract banners or righteous value system. But what was your question?’

No question followed. The ‘cosmopolitan, atheist and citizen of the world’ couldn’t remember what his question was. I assume that, following the tradition of post-emancipated Jews, he was there to celebrate his right to ‘self-determination’ in public. He was going to use the open discussion to tell his Aspen neighbours and friends what a great human being he was. Unlike them, these local patriotic and proud Americans, he was, actually, an advanced human, a man beyond nationhood, a godless, non-patriotic subject, a rational product of the Enlightenment and the true son of Voltaire.

Self-determination is a modern Jewish political and social symptom, even an epidemic. The disappearance of the ghetto and its maternal qualities led to an identity crisis within the largely assimilated Jewish society. Seemingly, all post-emancipated Jewish political, spiritual and social schools of thought, left, right and centre, were inherently concerned with issues to do with the ‘right to self-determination’. The Zionists would demand the right to national self-determination at the expense of the Palestinians; the Bund would demand national and cultural self-determination within the Eastern European proletarian discourse; Matzpen, the Israeli ultra-leftists group would demand the right to self-determination for the Israeli Jewish ‘nation’ in the ‘liberated Arab East’; Jewish anti-Zionist would insist upon the right to engage in an esoteric, exclusive, ethnocentric Jewish discourse within the Palestinian solidarity movement.

What

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.