Re: [Marxism] Re: marxist difficulty in theorizing the nation?

["Marvin Gandall" <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew C. Pollack wrote:

> I agree with what Marvin and Louis said about the lack of identifying
> characteristics of most Ashkenazi Jews today.  We're well on the way to
> assimilation (although less quickly the more furious the pro-Israel
> sentiment gets in some sectors).
-----------------------------

Good point about Israel being a brake on full assimilation. The major factor
sustaining consciousness of being Jewish today, given the general erosion of
strong religious belief in modern urban society and the lack of any real
defining characteristics of Jewish nationhood, is the continuing fear of
extermination, not surprising since the Holocaust is only a generation
removed. I've met any number of people, including radicals, who describe
themselves as "Jewish" even though they are irreligious, have no connection
to the Jewish community, and will readily concede their fear is irrational
in the context of the current political situation. This is a good
illustration of how the definition ascribed to individuals and groups as
Other can be internalized, even though it may not be an accurate reflection
of their reality.

Zionism, of course, was born of fear of persecution (at a time when Jews,
especially in East Europe, WERE a distinct and oppressed community) and it
continues to nourish and exploit the sentiment, most recently in France, to
win political and financial support from liberal Jews, who are drawn to a
Jewish state as an "insurance policy" against another Judeocide. So strong
is this attraction that it causes many to turn a blind eye to the kind of
apartheid practiced in Israel that they never countenanced in South Africa,
and to endorse the kind of US and Israeli aggression against the Arab
Middle East they resisted during the war in Vietnam.

Ironically, the Nazis, who were committed to the extermination of world
Jewry, have been most responsible for the survival of a widespread Jewish
consciousness despite modern assimilationist pressures which Judaism would
otherwise have been ill-equipped to resist, for reasons which have already
been mentioned. It is also doubtful if a separate Jewish state would have
been carved out of mandatory Palestine if the Nazi Holocaust hadn't
mobilized world opinion in favour of partition and supplied the new state,
among other things, with young military recruits from the concentration
camps.

That Zionism requires the threat of extermination to survive is evident from
the beginnings of a movement away from it when peace with the Palestinians
seemed to be at hand following the Oslo accords. The developing ties between
secular Israelis and Palestinians and the so-called post-Zionist school of
revisionist historians were the most visible expression of this hopeful new
mood. With the eruption of the second intifada, provoked by Labour's
manuvering and Likud's open provocation, the seige mentality and Israeli
chauvinism all along the political spectrum returned with a vengeance.
Israel's Zionist ideologues are well aware that a peace settlement and
easing of tensions with the Palestinians and other Arab states would greatly
weaken the ideology's hold on the Hebrew-speaking population and the
foundations of an exclusive Jewish state, and in turn erode Jewish identity
abroad.

MG









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