The contradictions of Diaspora: A reflexive critique of the Jewish Diaspora’s relationship with Israel
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088217741322 |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Author | Ilan Zvi Baron |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088217741322
Journal of International Political Theory
2018, Vol. 14(1) 85 –106
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1755088217741322
journals.sagepub.com/home/ipt
The contradictions of
Diaspora: A reflexive critique
of the Jewish Diaspora’s
relationship with Israel
Ilan Zvi Baron
Durham University, UK
Abstract
This article explores a question that is often assumed but rarely addressed: What does
Israel provide ideationally for Diaspora Jews that serves as the basis for Diaspora/
Israel relations and justifies the importance of Israel for Jewish identity? Whereas past
literature on this topic has either assumed an answer to this question or debated
survey results and demographics, this article takes a different approach by not assuming
an answer to this question. The article argues that Diaspora Jews’ relationship with
Israel is best understood phenomenologically. The significance of Israel for Diaspora
Jews is found in a type of obligation that is political but is not based in sovereignty
or law but instead in meaning that serves as a form of authority and functions as
part of the phenomenological structure characterizing Jewish being-in-the-world in
the age of Israel. Using a combination of personal reflection, empirical research, and
theoretical investigation, the article concludes by suggesting that critique serves as an
activity that reveals the normative character of Israel’s meaningful authority, but that
Israel’s authority in this phenomenological sense needs to be undermined if it will be
possible to move beyond the increasingly polarizing role that Israel is having in Jewish
communities today.
Keywords
Authority, critique, Israel, Jewish Diaspora, phenomenology
Corresponding author:
Ilan Zvi Baron, Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics, School of Government &
International Affairs, Durham University, The Al-Qasimi Building, Elvet Hill Road, Durham DH1 3TU, UK.
Email: ilan.baron@durham.ac.uk
741322IPT0010.1177/1755088217741322Journal of International Political TheoryBaron
research-article2017
Article
86 Journal of International Political Theory 14(1)
Marie was in fact the best Jew in the family, far more observant than her husband
or his parents. She pinned a doily on her hair on Friday nights to light the candles, and
baked three-cornered cookies when it was annually appropriate, and knew all the
words, in Hebrew, to the national anthem of Israel.
Michael Chabon (1995: 173), The Wonder Boys.
Introduction
What does Israel provide ideationally for Diaspora Jews that serves as the basis for
Diaspora/Israel relations and justifies the importance of Israel for Jewish identity? This
is a question that is rarely asked and instead assumed, but it needs to be asked. At its core,
this question raises the aporetic character of the significance of Israel for Diaspora Jewry.
For many Jews, Israel matters to them greatly, but it equally provides challenges that
undermine its normative value because of its potential for divisiveness that in large part
flows from critiques about Israel. In the following, I explore this question and the aporia
by taking a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Doing so is unique in the contem-
porary literature about Jews and Israel and provides a methodological avenue to reveal
key features of the Diaspora/Israel relationship, including how the role of Israel’s mean-
ing functions.
I grew up in the West Coast of Canada. As my rabbi once said, it was hard to get more
Diaspora than were we lived. Yet, our geographical distance from the Middle East did
not mean that Israel was far away. It was closer than you might think. On nearby Gabriola
Island, there is a Labor Zionist summer camp modeled on the Kibbutz (or at least, it was
when I went there as a teenager), which is part of the Habonim Dror movement. At the
local Synagogue, there were flags of both Israel and Canada prominently on display, and
we said prayers for both. When Israel was attacked, as it was during the Gulf War, we all
felt it. That war was brought close to home as I heard about how gas masks were deliv-
ered to relatives in Israel, and how my grandfather had to tape up windows in his home.
Debating Israeli security, especially during the Intifada, was a common discussion point
in the small community. When Israel was under threat, we felt it vicariously.
We hoped for a secure Israel, but we believed in a just one. At camp, I learned about
social justice as well as Zionism. And the rabbi when I was young fought for social jus-
tice. He still devotes efforts to Jewish–Muslim relations (Wangnsnes, 2017). With a
socially progressive rabbi and a background in a social-justice-Labor-Zionist ideology,
my vision of Israel was rose-tinted. I even used to wear an Israeli army beret (it just
seemed appropriate) and was embarrassed when I met a Palestinian my age who asked
me remove it. I didn’t understand why. He was the better person for not taking anything
out on me.
There was tension about Israel, since even at camp we knew that not everything Israel
did was right. But suicide bombings and the Gulf War all contributed to a sense of a
country under siege. Yet, there was little reflexive analysis about the role of Israel in our
lives as Diaspora Jews and of our subsequent normative commitments to this country.
Debate tended to take fairly standard positions: Doves versus Hawks, Human Rights
To continue reading
Request your trial