It is strange to witness and take stock of the on-going *fracturing* that, in the case of these explosive events in Israel, radiate outward to the entire world. Cracking, fracturing, division, disunity. I just read in the NYTs that some Republicans are associating an anti-Israel or anti-Zionist position on the University campuses with *wokism*.
It is surely a valid endeavor to attempt to see into 'wokism' and Critical Theory and to critique it, yet Israel really does provide a diagram of classical colonialism and of course classical racism. It also provides a clear picture of
a type of apartheid. For the *truly left and truly progressive* the solution is that of South Africa: the incorporation of all peoples in the region into one state that, naturally, will no longer be a Jewish state. That is all fine and dandy but presently, and as a result of its choices (and what the world imposed on it) South Africa is literally coming
unglued. It looks to be on a trajectory that will wind up in the condition of a failed state. If I delve into the *real and true reasons* why such is inevitable, I imagine that my discourse will be understood to be racialist which is a type of racism I guess. But slightly modified.
Is it really a question though of 'wokism'? It seem rather to be a question that revolves around the right of a people to exist as a people according to the terms of
their choice. The 'woke' (in America) advocate for multi-culturalism and multi-racialism and advocate very strongly against the project of maintaining a predominantly white European society. America is defined as a 'proposition nation': accept the proposition and you can be American. But the truth is that it was quite literally constructed under different original terms: acute European identity and an anthropology that is now understood to have been superseded.
In doing this the so-called Woke
very intensely turn against the Founders of the nation who had ideas about race and civilization that are now intolerable and literally
crimethink. Indeed over the last 50-60 years, demographically, America has been remodeled. It therefore becomes necessary to define white European identity with supremacism. And it is a
similar issue that is playing out in Israel. And it sure looks as though the end result of this project is not *social unity* and social concordance but the opposite. The social glue comes undone.
Strangely, to be Jewish is determined
genetically. In this sense Judaism has always been deeply associated with racist ideas but obviously in times when such things were not bothered about (race and racism are modern ideas). In Germany in the Interwar period there was a tremendous concordance and agreement between committed Jews and nationalistic anti-Jewish theorists and activists. Committed Jews are
deeply opposed to miscegenation and they still are. It has always been a social and religious crime to *marry out*. Many Jews agreed with the National Socialists who attempted to outlaw mixed-marriages. Real Orthodox Jewish theory is unquestionably
racialist insofar as Jewishness is determined by genetics.
It is necessary to Judaism and to Jewishness -- as it pertains to Israel -- to establish and maintain separateness. Jewishness at all times and places maintains itself through separation and not assimilation. Assimilation is the death of Jewishness. These are very basic facts about Jewish identity. In Jewish circles they say that assimilation is more consequential than the Holocaust annihilation. The idea of assimilation is, effectively, the end of Jewish identification. With assimilation comes the end of the Jewish historical mission. There are terrifying passages in the Tanakh that describe horrifying punishments at the hand of HaShem for breaking the Covenant and declining the Jewish project.
Zionism and the creation of a Jewish state are thus the origin of an entire realm of problems that are fundamentally *modern*. Those problems, then, reverberate outward from the Israel-Palestine situation and vibrate the strings of many other people in many other places.
How can you maintain a truly Jewish state in modernity and given the suppositions and imperatives of modern outlook? You do not become a Jew by what you believe but rather through the genetics of those who brought you into the world. Yes, there is conversion, but note that the core tenet of conversion is renunciation of everything that is considered 'pagan'. For truly Orthodox conversion -- the only valid type for Aliya -- you are reprogrammed at a foundational level. If conversion is taken seriously -- often it is taken lightly of course -- it is quite demanding.
How odd it must be for so many *on the outside* to see re-enacted before them what was enacted in the biblical stories. The foundation of Judaism is in the establishment of a stark division and separateness. The 'other' and certainly the opponent of the Jew and of Judaism is far more than a mere person or a people. What opposes the Jew is metaphysical. And the symbol of what opposes the Jew is found in Ishmael and Amalek. When examined (by Rabbis) what animates Ishmael and Amalek is a metaphysical principle. And that is why Netanyahu is now placing the struggle -- in sheer seriousness -- as that of a battle between the Good and the Evil.
So,
what do we do? Isn't that the true modern problem? We here are in a situation of being
post-metaphysical. We have deconstructed and we hope to
decommission that terrible Yahweh figure. But trust me he has not been decommissioned for hundreds of millions. And even in us there are *shadows* of the old metaphysics that surge up in us and people around us.
The theatre of life has thus become a sort of maddened theatre of enactment and reenactment. The
Ship of Fools but at a world-level.
Now, to what degree do we *identify* and jump into the on-going enactments and seek a costume that fits the role our gut tells us is ours to play?
