From Hadesh - Renewal Vol. I Issue. 1
By: Ariel Yaari
Are Jews indigenous to the Land of Israel? The answer to this question has engulfed much of the Jewish intellectual world for the past decade or so. In fact, the answer itself seems obvious doesn’t it? We know with certainty that the majority of Jewish diaspora groups descend in large part from ancient Israelites1. Our religion is absorbed in the agricultural preservation of the Land. Our holidays, our prayers, our poems, hopes and dreams for the last two thousand years have all expressed our longing for Zion. So why has this been taken up with such zeal by Jewish activists as of late? Why are there entire organizations and movements devoted to what seems to be self-evident?
The answer is twofold. The ferocity with which many have denied the origins of the Jews in the Levant has led to a parallel ferocity defending its truth. The second, more important reason comes from an ideological shift among the new generation of Zionists.
For many years, it seemed that the Zionist dream had been achieved. The Herzlian Dream laid out by the founders of Israel had come to pass. The Jews, after two thousand years of persecution and torment, had returned to their land and built up an economically prosperous state with a democratically elected government. A bastion of civilization against the tides of barbarism.
This narrative was very popular with our parents. If you’re a fellow Zoomer however, you probably just roll your eyes. It is increasingly clear to a large portion of young Jews that America treats us not so much as an ally than it does as a colony. A proxy that can be used to advance its interests in a largely hostile region. This is also largely independent of who occupies the Oval Office. Democrat or Republican – American interests are to take precedence above all else. The Imperial Eagle once again planted on our soil.
This does not make America (or the West broadly) evil. It makes them self-interested, as all self-respecting nations are. It was the folly of Israel for thinking that nations did not act as such.
When one recognizes one pattern of behavior, they start to see many more patterns. Many are perplexed by the Israeli State’s insistence on being a Western nation at all. Why? The majority of Jews in Israel do not come from the European diaspora and even those who do have earlier origins in the Middle East. Shouldn’t we want an authentic Jewish culture that accurately represents a reconstituted people within its land?
It is time to no longer be defined by Diaspora.
The revitalization of the Jewish national spirit should finally take place.
But how does one go about doing that exactly? Over two thousand years of continuous exile has an effect on a nation. In fact, modern Judaism is a largely diasporic religion!2 The way Judaism adapted to survive without a land and without sovereignty is so integral to familiar Jewish practice that we struggle to conceptualize what a truly post-Diaspora Judaism would look like.3 How to go about such an extraction process is extremely difficult and requires prudence, research, and a succession of old paradigms.
One popular method of how to go about this is Post-Colonialism, or Postcolonial Theory, to be more precise. Postcolonial Theory (which, from this point forward will be known simply as “Theory”) originated in Western universities in the late 1970s.4 As a discipline, it seeks to examine how colonialism affected colonized people. Principally, this took place as a form of othering that was done to colonized peoples by the Empires that subjugated them:
“We are civilized, they are barbaric.”
“We are cultured, they are primitive.”
“We are scientific, they are superstitious.”
The imposition by the European empires of the perpetual other onto their colonial subjects led to a denigration of the Orient and ultimately led to its inability to reconstruct itself when these Empires fell. They had internalized that they were barbaric, primitive, and superstitious. The father of Theory, Edward Said, called this attitude of the West towards the East and its consequences Orientalism.5
The only way for colonized peoples to escape their Oriental imposition was to reject the entire Western hegemonic structure and only once freed from it could restore themselves to their former glory.
Theory is seen by many young, educated Jews as the perfect way to break the West’s chokehold on us. The logic goes that if Theory can be utilized to help decolonize indigenous peoples affected by Imperialism during modernity, then the original victims of imperial expansion– the Jews– should benefit from it all the more!
This had led to many young Jewish intellectuals, activists, and influencers to buy completely into Theory. Organizations have sprung up to help promulgate this new Decolonial Zionism6, which has many devoted disciples. I, too, had been taken by the idea for a time.
While its impulses are good, the intellectual foundations upon which Theory rests are shaky. Theory stems from the Postmodern theories of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida who sought to reveal certain imagined ways of how power structures and language are used to reinforce the hierarchies put in place by the dominant group. This leads to weird ideas like: “women can’t be sexist,” and, “black people can’t be racist.” Women and minorities do not benefit from the current hierarchy, so ipso facto cannot perpetuate sexism and racism because these two prejudices are only in place to perpetuate the power of straight white men.
Theory eventually undermines its own ends. Theory originates in Western academies, and was proposed by people educated in the West. Thus, Theory imposes a new Western paradigm, rather than removing it therefore abolishing nothing.7 Additionally, rejecting everything Western, including systems with remarkable predictive power like the Scientific Method, leads to a reinvigorated alternative form of Orientalism that stems from a Postcolonial framework. The East is once again exotic, mysterious, and primitive, but this time that’s a good thing.
This has had some rather embarrassing outcomes in Decolonial Zionist circles. The example par excellence is the Sudra, which is nothing more than a Jewish Keffiyeh. To preempt those who object: yes, the Sudra was worn by Babylonian Jews and many other Eastern Jewish communities. However, the historical evidence shows that it emerged among native Mesopotamian populations8 and was only worn by the Jewish populations in those areas for the same reason why Haredim look like Mafiosos. It was the style of the time.
What’s upsetting here is that there is a native Israelite shawl – the Tallith – which was worn for everyday use in antiquity and was preserved in this role by various Jewish communities!9 It’s a colossal missed opportunity. This re-othering of the East that takes place in the Postcolonial framework has lumped in the contemporary Middle East with its ancient counterpart. It views them as being essentially the same thing by dint of their non-Westerness.
It leads to the erroneous conclusion that the culture of this area has remained unchanged, stuck within the sands of time. But the truth is that much has changed. While the many Semitic-speaking peoples shared much overlap with each other, the Levant is not Mesopotamia which is not Arabia. It would be like trying to reconstruct the culture of Victorian England from current day America. There is overlap, but the differences remain vast.
The thing that remains the most concerning to me though is the fetishization of revolution and revolutionaries. This is the ugliest aspect taken from Leftist politics. I concede to the necessity of change when old systems need to be replaced by new ones, but where does it end? Successful revolutions know when to stop. The revolutionaries become the new ruling class and are able to do what well meaning revolutionaries always seek to do: govern, administer, and influence. Praising revolution for its own sake will lead us into an inevitable Robbespierrean purity spiral, one that irrevocably destroys movements.
We must liberate ourselves, but we mustn’t be decolonial. Theory has led to disaster everywhere it has been applied.10 Why bring such havoc upon ourselves? We stand at a crossroads, the most momentous time in modern Jewish history. We have the ability to shape a new Jewish future in such a way that hasn’t been possible since the times of Ezra and Nehemia 2,500 years ago. We need to have constructive solutions, not deconstructionist theories.
Ostrer H, Skorecki K. The population genetics of the Jewish people. Hum Genet. 2013 Feb;132(2):119-27. doi: 10.1007/s00439-012-1235-6. Epub 2012 Oct 10. PMID: 23052947; PMCID: PMC3543766.
I am not the first one to forward this criticism as this idea is prevalent in the thought of Rabbi Shelomo Goren, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, and to a lesser extent Rav Ovadia Yosef. We will return to it on a different occasion.
Lau B. (2010). The Sages Volume I: The Second Temple Period. (pp. 5-22). Maggid Books. There Lau discusses the reforms made by the “Men of the Great Assembly” after the construction of the Second Temple for the continued survival of Judaism, such as the democratization of Torah learning and a shift away from the centrality of the Temple. For a continuation of these reforms after the destruction see also, Lau B. (2011). The Sages Volume II: From Yavneh to the Bar Kochba Revolt. (pp. 3-21). Maggid Books. These are just a few select examples, but the issue is much more extensive.
Lindsay, J., & Pluckrose, H. (2020). Cynical Theories (1st ed.). (pp. 67-88). Pitchstone Publishing.
For more, See Said, E. (2003) Orientalism. Penguin Books.
I should note the difference between the terms “postcolonial” and “decolonial”. Postcolonialism is the critique of the Western metanarratives that pervade the thought of colonized peoples. Decolonialism is the act of removing them.
I am not the only one to make this point. See Nanda M. (2001). We Are All Hybrids Now: The Dangerous Epistemology of Post‐colonial Populism. Journal of Peasant Studies 28.
Legrain L. (1927). Sumerian Statues. https://www.penn.museum/sites/journal/8992/
Dr. Gimani, A. Parashat Shelach. The Source of a Custom - And They Shall Make for Themselves Fringes on the Corners Of their Garments (Num. 15:38): The Yemenite Tallit https://www2.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/shelach/gimani.htm#:~:text=The%20accepted%20custom%20is%20that,tallit%20katan%20throughout%20the%20day. Bar Ilan University. Also see, https://www.imj.org.il/en/collections/516323-0
