Israel Has A Jewish Problem

The long-standing debate about whether the State of Israel can be both Jewish and democratic raises important questions about the rights of Palestinian Arabs. In Israel Has a Jewish Problem, Joyce Dalsheim argues that this debate obscures another issue: Can the Jewish state protect the right to be Jewish, whatever form that "being" might take? Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, she investigates that question by looking at ways in which Jewish citizens of Israel struggle to be Jewish within the confines of a Jewish state. She focuses on everyday experiences, on public interpretations of the possibilities of being Jewish in the context of state policy, and on media representations of conflicts between Jewish citizens over social, religious, and political issues. Despite Israel's claim that every religious community "is free, by law and in practice, to exercise its faith, observe its holidays ... and administer its internal affairs," Israel is foundationally a Jewish state. It privileges Orthodox regulation of who will be considered a Jew, of marriage and family law, and of conversion. This arrangement, and the constant tensions it has produced over the years, is often understood as a compromise between secular and religious political factions. But this religious-secular framing conceals broader patterns inherent in nationalist projects more generally. Using insights from Franz Kafka's writing as a theoretical lens through which the ethnographic data can be viewed, Dalsheim interrogates the relationship between nationalism and religion, asking what kinds of liberation have been achieved by Jews in the Jewish State. Ultimately the book argues, in a Kafkaesque reversal of the liberatory promise of national sovereignty, that national self-determination involves collective self-elimination.

"This book examines the struggle over Jewishness in Israel. Although the state was founded to liberate the Jews, some Israelis must leave the country to get married, while others are denigrated for trying to live the Torah life. The Kafaesque nature of such struggles illustrates how modern democratic nation-states, meant to liberate citizens through rule by "the people" and for "the people," instead create "a people" for the state and its projects. The book argues that self-determination becomes a form of self-elimination as it produces the ethnos for the nation, inevitably narrowing the possible forms of personal and cultural identity. Sovereignty, secularism, nationalism, citizenship, self-determination, assimilation, Israel, settler-colonialism, religion, Jewishness"--

There is a sickness at the heart of left-wing British politics, and though predominantly below the surface, it is silently spreading, becoming ever more malignant. With three separate inquiries into anti-Semitism in the Labour Party in the first six months of 2016 alone, it seems hard to believe that, until the 1980s, the British left was broadly pro-Israel. And while the election of Jeremy Corbyn may have thrown a harsher spotlight on the crisis, it is by no means a recent phenomenon. The widening gulf between British Jews and the anti-Israel left - born out of antiapartheid campaigns and now allying itself with Islamist extremists who demand Israel's destruction - did not happen overnight or by chance: political activists made it happen. This book reveals who they were, why they chose Palestine and how they sold their cause to the left. Based on new academic research into the origins of this phenomenon, combined with the author's daily work observing political extremism, contemporary hostility to Israel, and anti-Semitism, this book brings new insight to the left's increasingly controversial 'Jewish problem'.

"Jewish Problem: Its Solution or, Israel's Present and Future" by David Baron. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

The Jewish problem has very ancient, diverse, and in some respects enigmatic origins. Anti-Semitism is a motif that has appeared in almost every stage of Western history. Even as far as Italy is concerned, it may not be devoid of interest to look at the Jewish problem with more than mere curiosity. The fact that the special circumstances which have caused the most direct and thoughtless forms of anti-Semitism in some countries are not present in Italy allows us to consider the problem with greater calm and greater objectivity. In these notes, the real factors according to which an anti-Semitic attitude can be consolidated are examined.

The Jewish state is a political rumination by Theodor Herzl. The author endeavored to offer a Jewish perspective and solution to the problematics surrounding the Jews during that era.