Dreaming Big

What does it mean to be a Jew? An answer to this question depends firstly on one’s position or point of view. Is this a Jewish inquiry or an inquiry from outside the Jewish sphere? Is this the question of an individual, a member of a group, or of a governmental entity (King or Queen, Dictator, President, Legislative body, bureaucracy, legal system, military…)? Is this question being asked as a religious issue, a social issue, as a question of ethnicity or race, or out of some historical inquiry? Is it a philosophical question or a question about the practical situation of the Jews and their physical needs? Each of these questions confounds others. They don’t come apart neatly.

In “The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study,” W.E.B. Du Bois was asked to write about the Negro Problem. He turned that around and made his inquiry into an effort to understand “the problems of Negros.” Just as “The Negro Problem” was once a widely use phrase, so too was “The Jewish Problem.” The Jewish Problem and the Negro Problem are cracks in the structure of Post-Enlightenment thinking. If, as the leading political thinkers in the democratic west believe(d), their systems were fundamentally fair and just towards all, then the failure to bring those benefits to the Jews and the Blacks was a sign of a flaw. The flaw was either in their system, or in the Jews and the Blacks. (For those parts of the world outside of the liberal west, good luck).

Our concern then, is with Jewish problems. First, there are the problems of physical existence as a Jew. How do Jews get what they need for their sustenance and health, their safety and security? How are they able to educate and provide for their children? For some Jews, this is really the only question. They are not able to escape from their Jewish status, and thus they find themselves with the same problems that everyone has, but with an additional complication based on the perceptions that others have of them, and often, restrictions on the range of opportunities available to them. If a Jew feels that they derive no particular value from their Jewish status, they can try to separate themselves from their Jewish status. They can assimilate into the broader society that they find themselves in. They can change their names and replace any Jewish associations and behaviors with those of the dominant social group they find themselves among.

When we think of assimilation of this sort, we don’t think of the absolute terror that led to forced conversion in Spain or in the Holocaust. Rather we think of those Jews in Nineteenth Century Germany or in the United States who felt that they would just do better if they followed that path. (Though even in the United States some Jewish parents, in reaction to the harms that the Jews have suffered, made intense efforts to hide any trace of their Jewish origins in order to protect their children, completely concealing their origins even from their children.)

But many of those who were born Jewish feel that there is some meaning to their Jewishness that goes beyond the practical consequences of their parentage. The range of significance and coherence among that group varies in strength, specificity and detail. For some people, this amounts to the good feeling they get from being part of a group with many positive accomplishments. It is an identification that might seem superficial and insignificant in the lives of these people, but in fact, as vague as it is, is often a central pillar of their identity.

The concept of Chosenness can be looked at as either/both a source of privilege or obligation. In all cases, for those Jews who feel entitlement or responsibility based on their Jewishness, there is a sense that there is some meaning attached to that Jewishness that is consequential. It requires action. I am speaking broadly because among this large group there is stunning variation in the way that the actions that are required are motivated, and in what those actions are. Militantly secular Jews devoted to Social Justice, and Haredim who live the most unworldly lives possible, lives devoted to maximizing their time in prayer and study, are drawing from the same well. Their lives are centered on pursuit of the meaning that they derive from their Jewishness.

This might seem perplexing. These two Jews might find it impossible to see in the other the motivations that guide them. However, both are answering the Jewish problem, how can I make my Jewishness a positive force, because both assume that the meaning of their Jewishness is to be a positive force in the world. They assume that the meaning of Jewishness goes beyond material matters.

(It is important to understand that those who have the appearance of strong allegiance to their version of Jewish practice should not be assumed to be virtuous or beyond reproach because of that appearance. The world is more complicated than that).

Having divided the idea of meaning into material and non-material categories, I need to go back and admit they are seldom separable from each other entirely. One side of the balance can strengthen the other, or it can weaken it.

I have been working my way through a long dense book, “A History of Zionism,” by Walter Laqueur. I have a long way to go. My current interest in Zionism comes from two sources. There are many Jews now who refer to themselves as Anti-Zionist. An understanding of Anti-X seems to demand an understanding of whatever X is.

However, my primary interest relates to the Judeo-Futurism inquiry I have been on. Zionism was part of a range of Jewish Futures that animated the Jewish people in the first half of the last century at least as much as Afro-Futurism has animated the Black community, in the US and beyond, in recent years.

Zionism arose out of a failure of liberalization in Europe towards the end of the 19th Century. Where assimilation was allowed it had suffered many setbacks. It no longer seemed like a workable solution to the problems of the Jews. If there was no way out of the problems of the Jews through an exit door, then the problem had to be solved in the room. Initially I considered the idea that Zionism itself was the Judeo-Futurism of its time. Theodor Herzl’s novel “Altneuland,” which I discussed a few months ago, looks a bit Wakandaish. But this idea breaks down pretty quickly. Herzl’s idea was that the creation of a Jewish state would serve as a political resolution of the Jewish Problem and of Jewish problems, but within his lifetime, that focus was severely challenged.

At the last Zionism Congress before Herzl’s death, the idea of accepting Uganda as the site of a potential Jewish homeland was defeated. Herzl realized after that failure that Zionism’s ability to maneuver was limited by issues of meaning attached to Jewish existence. His version of Judaism gave way in the years immediately following his death to what is referred to by Laqueur as “practical Zionism” – the day-to-day efforts to build up Jewish settlement in the Land – to make facts on the ground – to build a society with Jewish meaning. More than a century later, the practical reality of the State of Israel is no longer a Utopian venture. As Herzl said, “If you will it, it is no dream.” In that, he was more correct than he imagined, it is no dream. This is the imbalance that Judeo-Futurism can come to address. We need to address our day to day needs, to address crises as they arise. But we need to be dreaming big again, aspiring beyond the work of a day to the work of a people.