Understanding Zionism: History and Perspectives
By Anne Pérez
Fortress
What exactly does it mean to identify as a Zionist or to call someone else as such? This is a more complicated question than I imagined. Anne Perez, a historian of modern Jewish and Israeli history, believes that Christians are obligated to have a basic knowledge of the long history and multiple perspectives of the Zionist movement, particularly because Christian anti-Semitism contributed to its training. His accessible introduction to this extremely complex topic, from its foundations to its possible future directions, maintains a balanced commentary while providing valuable historical context. I came away with a clearer understanding of the multiple strands of Zionism and its opposition – inside and outside of Judaism – and a working knowledge of key historical figures, concepts and events, which prepared me for read more in depth on the subject. This would be a great choice for a church reading group or book club. I was glad I started here before delving into more specialized books on the subject.
Who are the Jews and who can we become?
By Donniel Hartman
University of Nebraska Press
Donniel Hartman suggests a path forward for contemporary Jews by looking at the foundational stories of Judaism. In the Genesis story, the modern Orthodox rabbi explains, Jews are Jewish by heritage, not by belief. In the story of the Exodus, Jewishness is an aspiration, based on the choice to follow the law, the whole of which consists of loving one’s neighbor as oneself. Throughout history, these accounts of Genesis and Exodus have intertwined to constitute “the warp and weft of Jewish identity”, but when one is emphasized more than the other, this collective identity becomes distorted and begins to unravel.
In the second half of the book, Hartman applies this Genesis-Exodus metanarrative to the challenges facing contemporary Jews in Israel and the diaspora. Genesis Zionism, he says, is based on the right of Jews to a Jewish home in the Jewish homeland. But Exodus Zionism “teaches that it will not be a Jewish home until the Palestinians also have a home of their own.” As a liberal Zionist, Hartman emphasizes that the Exodus covenant requires that Jews continue to pursue peace as a concrete goal even when it does not seem possible: “the challenge of the Exodus is to regroup and try again . And even. And again.” In the 21st century, he wonders, what story will Jews choose to tell about themselves?
The land of hope and fear: Israel’s battle for its inner soul
By Isabelle Kershner
Button
This collection of meticulously reported stories about life in Israel by Isabel Kershner, a New York Times corresponding to Jerusalem, is exquisite. Kershner delves into the lives and conflicts of people who live side by side and across major ideological divides. Her deep knowledge of the policies that shaped their lives shines through in her analysis, but she neither condemns nor commends. Each essay stands alone as a compelling journalistic profile, but together they offer a kaleidoscopic perspective of the ongoing conflict and its human costs. We begin to detect how deeply interconnected these stories are and how difficult it would be to unravel them. And yet, Kershner manages to convey hope for the future. It’s not entirely fair to say that this book is a pleasure to read. It is often devastating. But it’s unforgettable.
The necessity of exile: essays from a distance
By Shaul Magid
Ayin Press
Jewish studies scholar Shaul Magid writes succinctly about the conflict at the heart of imperiled liberal Zionism: How do you reconcile being “right about Israel and left about everything else”? It’s impossible, he says, and as the State of Israel has become increasingly “aggressive” and “chauvinistic,” it has had to deal with its own “counter-Zionism.” Magid draws on the work of Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, Martin Buber, and others to explain why Zionism, as necessary as it seemed to traumatize Jews after World War II, does more harm today only good. Magid thinks it’s time to stop trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance that inevitably arises from trying to uphold liberal values while supporting an increasingly right-wing nationalist state. (A deadhead coming of age in the counterculture of the ’60s and ’70s, Magid compares it to seeing a Grateful Dead sticker on a Cadillac.) He insists that being a counter-Zionist does not mean being anti-Israeli, and it calls for a new ideological framework that embraces the exilic character of Jewish life. Magid’s essays are provocative and often idealistic, although he is certainly not naive. He anticipates those who would oppose Israeli peace efforts with the oft-repeated phrase: “The Palestinians are not partners for peace.” Magid, like Hartman, argues that this is irrelevant to the moral imperative that Israel continues to strive for.
Israel: a Christian grammar
Paul J. Griffiths
Fortress
Paul Griffiths says that this book is not intended as an encyclopedia or survey but as a sketchbook written by “a Christian theologian trying to think about Israel in depth.” What he believes is that Israel (as a theological concept, not as a nation-state) is made up of both Christians and Jews, church and synagogue. If we share a lineage, worship the same God, and have the same goal, then we must understand that we share a form of life, and that form is Israel.
More provocatively, he says that Christians should assume that Jews, as God’s primary beloved, are more intimate with God than we are, “held closer and with more love.” Since the Church has “gravely and systematically damaged the synagogue,” this should inform all our interactions, which should be “penitential and marked by sacrificial love.” (In one of three excursions at the end of the book, Griffiths says we should all be philosemites.) He issues a particularly strong warning against the impulse Christians may have to proselytize Jews. In one of my favorite passages from this dense, demanding and sometimes beautiful theological reflection, Griffiths writes that the Church has “abrogated its proselytizing status to the Jews, and has done so because of its sin”, having been “a violent wife”. with the synagogue the mistreated.