Jews need nationalism, true nationalism.
The Jewish People have forgotten how to be a people, but that doesn’t need to last forever.
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This is a guest essay written by Ariel Yaari, a writer of current events, politics, and religion.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
People misunderstand what nationalism is.
While modern nationalism is an invention of the 19th century, the impulse is one of the oldest in existence.
People are not born as hyper-atomized individuals devoid of structure and community. Rather, all of us, every single one, are born into families who are parts of tribes, who are parts of nations. This has been the human experience since we wandered out of Africa. We want to know who we are and to whom we belong, and how we are different than others; to whom we should be loyal and who will show us loyalty in return.
This impulse reinvigorated itself in the 19th century as nationalism swept across Europe. Instead of people being part of vast empires serving the interests of the Monarchs and the Aristocracy, people wanted their nation to come first — the macrocosmic family.
Italians spoke similar languages and had similar cultures, similar cuisine, etc. Yes, the Sicilians might’ve had more influence from the Berbers and Arabs of North Africa and the Lombards from the Germanic-speaking peoples, but their shared history and identity helped form a coherent “Italian-ness.” They were the heirs of Rome, and the only way for them to be great as their ancestors were was to unite.
The nationalistic impulse came very easy to the Italians, Germans, and Irish, while other groups needed more time to adapt to it, like the Arabs.
One group that never seemed to adapt were the Jews.
Never has there been so much internal conflict against a group having its own state. The General Jewish Labour Bund1 advocated for staying in Europe as a decentralized group sustained by “Yiddish culture” devoid of any actual Yiddishkeit2 or the Haredim3, who would see the eternal boot of exile stamped on our faces until the Messiah comes and solves all our problems for us.
Even those residing in Tel Aviv, the cultural capital of Israel, opposed the Nation-State Law that was passed by Israeli parliament a few years ago, defining Israeli as inseparable from Jewishness.
Why? Wouldn’t nominally Nationalistic Jews want to clearly define our identity?
Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, wanted a state but not the culture or the religion. If we followed the Herzelian vision to its most ideological extreme, German would be the national language of Israel.
Asher Ginsberg, the founder of cultural Zionism and better known by his pen name Ahad Ha’am, wanted a uniquely Hebrew culture and Israel as a “spiritual” homeland for the Jewish People, but stopped short at advocating for a state with full autonomy.
Even when Jews are “nationalists,” we don’t go all the way. Jewish nationalism is always conciliatory — whether to our enemies or to our ostensible friends. We concede our land, our culture, our religion, our peoplehood. We are always expected to concede part of our Jewishness away to have the other side “come to the table.” This oftentimes isn’t even forced on us by the larger powers.
We do this to ourselves.
Trump gave Israel a golden ticket to resume the war in Gaza if the hostages weren’t released by a specific time. What does the Israeli government do in its infinite wisdom? Opt to let Hamas abide by the old conditions of the deal!
We self-sabotage. We are so self-sabotaging that when someone bursts onto the Jewish political scene and states a truth that would be obvious to anyone else in our scenario, he’s immediately lauded as some sort of genius. Kahanism is a political dead-end for the Right in Israel. It has no plans. It is not coherent.
Why, then, has Meir Kahane been thrust into the limelight?
Because he said the one thing that is obvious but not nice — peace with the Palestinians is not possible. He was not the first one to say this. He was not the only one to say this. But he was the loudest.
Why is this the case? Why are we so caught up in shooting ourselves in the foot?
Jews have forgotten how to be a people. So many of us are willing to boil down Judaism to single-phrase catechisms. Judaism is about justice. Judaism is about peace. Judaism is about civil rights. Judaism is about family. And so on.
The fact is: Judaism is civilizational. I can’t boil down the Aztecs or the Sumerians to a single phrase or expression; so too it is impossible to do so for Judaism. Family, justice, and peace are necessary and important to Judaism, just as they are important to many societies. But they don’t define it because defining societies by a single character trait is ridiculously one-dimensional which renders any honest reading of that society incomplete.
As conditions worsened and the Jewish People became ever more dispersed throughout the four corners of the world, Jews needed to figure out how to be a landless nation. This started after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Roman army, and continued apace for centuries.
Eventually, we became so good at developing a semi-functioning society in exile that we began to accept this as the ideal! However, Judaism is still fundamentally deficient in many regards. Our music, our food, our clothing, our dance are poor imitations of what our host nations were doing.
Jews are in an abusive relationship with exile. Like most abusive relationships, our mistreatment has become so routine that we have come to expect nothing better for ourselves. If things are like this, then we probably deserve it, and when exile is good to us, we resort to the routine overcompensation of a woman who can’t envision any other reality for herself:
“Oh, but he’s been so nice to me. Look, he gave me civil rights! He gave me wealth and social mobility! How bad can he be?”
Bad.
Pogroms bad. Inquisition bad. Holocaust bad. October 7th bad.
That’s how bad this can get.
The solution is simple: Jews must be nationalists. I do not intend the milquetoast nationalism which assumes the essential principle that Jews need to have their own corner of the world.
No, I mean being nationalist in a civilizational sense. By not compromising Jewish identity in any capacity — religiously, culturally, politically, or socially.
The Jewish People have forgotten how to be a people, but that doesn’t need to last forever. An injured limb can go through intense physical therapy to restore itself to its original form. The same must happen with Jewish civilization.
Until then, redemption is far away indeed.
A secular Jewish socialist party initially formed in the Russian Empire and active between 1897 and 1920
A Yiddish term for the quality of being Jewish; the Jewish way of life or its customs and practices
A Hebrew term for ultra-Orthodox Jews
I agree with you completely. Now is the time to come together as one. It is essential that you pull together as a nation and encompass those of you in the diaspora. A common purpose must be everything! Israel is an extraordinary place! I have spent a lot of time in your beautiful Country. Please, all of you pull together and you will become an unstoppable force.
Excellent article.