jacobhermant 's review for:

The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance by Shaul Magid

---

At its best when Magid is unpacking and critiquing liberal zionism as an ideology at odds with itself and reality. Otherwise a very annoying book by an author who is just unable to move beyond zionism in any meaningful way. “Oh what if we had a new zionism but also a democratic Israel” you are living in fantasy land! Part of a lineage of Jewish studies scholars who are too attached to the zionism of their past, in various forms, to actually get out of their own heads and commit to anti-zionism, so the arguments always come across as faulty since they’re trying to hold incommensurable positions together! The chapter comparing BDS to settlements is especially egregious. He finds a vague kernel of truth that immediately falls apart in order to try and defend a politics of nostalgia. I’m sorry rabbi dr magid, but as long as you refrain from anti-zionism your arguments against zionism will never be able to be truly compelling. Could say a lot more, but I’ll keep it to this.