http://www.metafilter.com/tags/Messianism Posts tagged with 'Messianism' at MetaFilter. Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:51:23 -0800 Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:51:23 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/44566/Regarding%2DThe%2DQuestion%2Dof%2DZion%2DJacqueline%2DRose%2Dinterviewed <small>...This is one of the reasons why I am convinced that Zionism should not simply be dismissed. Hans Kohn turned away from Zionism, but Martin Buber and Ahad Ha'am definitely did not. If Zionism can produce voices such as these, this is evidence of a fermentation of rare value. Discovering thinkers like <a href="http://www.websophia.com/faces/buber.html" title="One of the most influential Zionist leaders after Hungarian-born Theodor Herzl, Buber renewed the prophetic demand that Israel build a community of righteousness and peace through just means, particularly as regarded the relations of the Jews to the Arabs.">Martin Buber</a> and <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/arendt.htm" title="'Action, the only activity that goes on directly between men...corresponds to the human condition of plurality, to the fact that men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world. While all aspects of the human condition are somehow related to politics, this plurality is specifically the condition - not only the conditio sine qua non, but the conditio per quam - of all political life'.">Hannah Arendt</a> and Ahad Ha'am was like encountering pieces of coral from a deep pool. I had read Arendt and indeed some of Buber's work before, but I did not anticipate the sheer prescience of their critique of Zionism. For example, Arendt predicted that the Jewish state would become utterly reliant on American force, and live 'surrounded by an entirely hostile Arab population' in which all 'development would be determined exclusively by the need of war'; this is so accurate, it sends a shudder down your back. Then there was the romantic, semi-mystical discourse of Buber and <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ahad_haam.html" title="Born in Skvira, near Kiev in the Ukraine, Asher Ginsberg became the central figure in the movement for Cultural or Spiritual Zionism. Although raised in a hasidic family, Ahad Ha'am was soon exposed to secular studies. The impact of modern philosophy and the sciences led him to abandon his religious faith and observance. Nonetheless he remained deeply committed to the Jewish people. It was his attempt to find a synthesis between Judaism and European philosophy. ">Ahad Ha'am</a>, posing the question of who we are at its most profound. Their vocabulary revolves around spirituality, selfhood, self-knowledge, truth, understanding, denial. In order to put into words the perils of Zionism, these thinkers had to explore why people can desire identities that become ultimately destructive...</small><br><br>from an <a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/ViewPopUpArticle.jsp?id=2&articleId=2766" title="In 'The Question of Zion', Jacqueline Rose applies the insights of psychoanalysis to the inner world of Zionist doctrine and attitudes. openDemocracy's Rosemary Bechler talks to her. ">interview</a> with <a href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4575576-108966,00.html" title="If an academic wants to roll up her sleeves and play a part in world affairs, can an intellectual approach and psychoanalytical insight make a difference? Jacqueline Rose, professor and writer, hopes they can. Is that enough?">Jacqueline Rose</a>, who wrote <a href="http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/s7927.html" title="Chapter 1 'The Apocalyptic Sting': Zionism as Messianism (Vision)">The Question of Zion</a><small> via <a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/index.jsp" title="Democracy in global politics - openDemocracy">Open Democracy</a></small> tag:metafilter.com,2005:site.44566 Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:51:23 -0800 Israel Messianism Palestine Zionism y2karl