On Israeli identity, Jewish democracy and oxymorons - A response to Carlo Strenger
Le débat en Israël sur le livre de Shlomo Sand Comment j’ai cessé d’être juif
Haaretz Daily Newspaper
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/on-israeli-identity-jewish-democracy-and-oxymorons-a-response-to-carlo-stre
It is my desire to respond in this short article to the main claims made by Carlo Strenger about my new book, “Matai V’aikh Hadalti L’hiyot Yehudi” ("When and How I Stopped Being Jewish"). And I will begin by emphasizing that I never ventured to imagine, as claimed by Strenger, that “Zionism invented the concept of the Jewish People,” or that “secular Jewish identity doesn’t exist,” ("A letter to Shlomo Sand," May 29).
The “Jewish people” or the “Chosen people” are theological concepts that existed before the birth of Zionism and, it appears, will survive after it exits the historical stage. Before the modern era, the concepts of “Christendom” or “People of God” were common within the Christian heritage, but today they are barely ever used.
Zionism took the religious and ambiguous concept of “people” and injected it with national meaning, much as it did with other terms and symbols from the Jewish heritage. Originality and deception were both concealed within this linguistic process. If today we frequently apply the term “people” to a human group that shares a secular public culture, such as language, music or food, it would indeed be strange to use this term to refer to world Jewry, especially while keeping in mind Ludwig Wittgenstein’s principle of family resemblance.