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E-book
Author Yadgar, Yaacov, author.

Title Sovereign Jews : Israel, Zionism, and Judaism / Yaacov Yadgar
Published Albany : State University of New York Press, [2017]
©2017

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Description 1 online resource (vii, 279 pages)
Contents Acknowledgments; Introduction: A Jewish Sovereignty?; A Traditionist Stance; A Plurality of Judaism(s); Structure of the Book; Part One: Religion, Judaism, Tradition; Chapter 1 Religion-The History and Politics of an Ahistorical Concept; A Few Chapters in the History of Religion; A Political Conception of Apolitical Religion; Religion and Colonialism; Religion, Nationalism; Chapter 2 Are Jewish Traditions a Religion?; Judaism in a Protestant Straightjacket; Apolitical Jewish Religion; Mendelssohn: De-Politicizing Judaism; Jewish Religion and the Sovereign State; Religion and Law
Law, Tradition, and ScienceJewish "Religion" and the Denominationalization of Jewish Identity; Chapter 3 Tradition as Language and Narrative; Tradition as Antimony to Liberty?; An Alternative Epistemology; Tradition as Language; Tradition as Narrative; So, What Do These Analogies Point At?; Part Two: Zionism and Jewish Traditions; Chapter 4 Zionism, Jewish "Religion," and Secularism; Religion, Secularization, and the Nation-State: The Zionist Narrative; A Zionist Revision: Modern but Not Exactly "Secular"; The Persistence of the Secularization Narrative
Zionist Ideology and the Invention of Jewish "Religion"Chapter 5 Zionism and Jewish Traditions; "Judaism as Culture" versus a Nietzschean Rebellion Against Tradition; Aḥad Ha'am: "Secularization" or a "National Theology"?; A Universal Secularization in a Jewish Guise; Secularization, Ethics, and Myth; A National Theology; Aḥad Ha'am's Conception of Religion and Tradition; The Meaning of Secularity; Judaism as Culture; Religious and Secular People; Secularism as a Rebellion Against Tradition: Micha Yosef Berdyczewski; Is a Rebellion Against Nature Possible?; Tradition and Liberty
Past and PresentBody and Spirit; Between Rebellion and National Duty; A Rebellion Born from Intimate Familiarity; Chapter 6 Main Zionist Streams and Jewish Traditions; Socialist-Zionism: "Crypto-Religious," "Crypto-Secular," or Otherwise?; Naḥman Syrkin: A New Religion; Yitzḥak El'azari-Volcani: Anti-Theology?; Blood, Identity, and Tradition; Nationalist Theology; Brenner and "Radical Secularism"; Tradition, the Sovereignty of the Individual, and "National Consciousness"; "Jews" and "Jewishness"; Secularist Radicalism and Jewish "Ambivalence"; Assimilation and "Religion"
Secularism, Hebrewism, Exile, and the Negation of the OtherJacob Klatzkin: Secularist Radicalism and Statist Sovereignty; Socialist-Zionism in Palestine and Jewish Traditions; Radically Secularist, Yet Not Absolutely Secular; Not a Paradox, but a Misguided Conceptual Framework; "Confrontation" with Tradition, Form, and Content; Religious-Zionism: A National Movement; Religion, Fundamentalism, and Nationalism: A Delicate Balance?; Religious-Zionism Beyond the Secularist Dichotomies; Revisionist-Zionism: The Nationalization of Jewish Traditions
Summary The question of Jewish sovereignty shapes Jewish identity in Israel, the status of non-Jews, and relations between Israeli and Diaspora Jews, yet its consequences remain enigmatic. Yaacov Yadgar highlights the shortcomings of mainstream discourse and offers a novel explanation of Zionist ideology and the Israeli polity. Yadgar argues that secularism's presumed binary pitting religion against politics is illusory. He shows that the key to understanding this alleged dichotomy is Israel's interest in maintaining its sovereignty as the nation-state of Jews. This creates a need to mark a majority of the population as Jews and to distinguish them from non-Jews. Coupled with the failure to formulate a viable alternative national identity (either "Hebrew" or "Israeli"), it leads the ostensibly secular state to apply a narrow interpretation of Jewish religion as a political tool for maintaining a Jewish majority
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on April 09, 2020)
Subject Zionism.
Zionism and Judaism.
Jews -- Identity -- History
Jews -- Politics and government.
Jews -- Israel -- Identity -- History
National characteristics, Israeli.
Sovereignty.
sovereignty.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Essays.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Government -- General.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Government -- National.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Reference.
Civilization
Jews -- Identity
Jews -- Politics and government
National characteristics, Israeli
Sovereignty
Zionism
Zionism and Judaism
SUBJECT Israel -- Civilization. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85068693
Subject Israel
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2016031634
ISBN 9781438465357
1438465351