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A review by outcolder
Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism by Judith Butler
4.0
After the escalation in Occupied Palestine this past May 2021, I was in a Vienna library and this just kind of leapt off the shelf at me. I've never read Butler before, and always thought the Palestine stuff would be sort of obvious to me... I wanted to read Gender Trouble first... but suddenly it seemed like a priority. I was anticipating a lot of nasty online arguments with friends and family but the social media experience was completely different than it was in 2014. You must have noticed as well.
I was looking forward to revisiting cats like Walter Benjamin and some of the other people Butler examines here. Years ago, I read that [a:Michael Löwy|95211|Michael Löwy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1299072718p2/95211.jpg] book [b:Redemption And Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought In Central Europe: A Study In Elective Affinity|2641206|Redemption and Utopia Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe A Study in Elective Affinity|Michael Lowy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1574108500l/2641206._SY75_.jpg|163108], but I didn't remember anybody's stances towards Palestine, really, except for Buber and Scholem who were already living there before the catastrophe. Walter Benjamin is as cool in Butler's retelling as I remember him, but I did not know that Levinas was such a jerk... ready to throw his whole post-Holocaust ethical project out the window when it comes to Palestine.
Hannah Arendt takes up a lot of space here as well, and not having read her yet it's hard for me to judge if Arendt was confused, or if Butler is confused, but I am definitely confused. The last two essays are the best, one about Primo Levi who comes across as so freakin' right on it hurts. I've never read his real Shoah stuff, just "lighter" fare like [b:The Monkey's Wrench|6180|The Monkey's Wrench|Primo Levi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1686902343l/6180._SY75_.jpg|9503]. Turns out he was very pro-Palestine.
Edward Said bookends the set. Butler is mainly interested in his book about Moses, and some statements he made about exile and diaspora and building a new multi-national state with the shared experience of exile at its heart. Sounds lovely. I'm a bit confused about framing Moses as an Arab, though. Surely the Copts are the indigenous Egyptians, not the Arabs? But when you're spinning academic metaphor webs why nitpick about it? As KRS-1 taught me, "Moses passed as the Pharaoh's grandson... so he must have looked just like him..." After 1300 years of Islam, "who is an Arab" gets as tricky as "who is a Jew." Still, Butler glosses over the Arab conquest of Egypt, or maybe Said does... I don't know.
I don't think Butler even comes close to answering her own question, about whether it's possible to have a Jewish state given Jewish ethics. It's too hard to define Jewish ethics... I mean... it's not that easy to define "Jewish." Butler keeps reminding us that even though they're looking at a gang of Central European thinkers, there are Sephardim and Mizrahim and lots of other kinds of Jews and ways to be Jewish. Still, if they'd just stuck with Hillel and Maimonides and cats like that, we might have come closer to a real answer, and if I had to bet, the answer would be "No." You can't just plop your state in the middle of somebody else's home. To suddenly claim that Galut is over... is not Jewish. Butler, and I'm sure it's not for lack of courage, just never really says that in stark black-and-white like that. But it's obvious that's what they're thinking. If you comment on this review, please be respectful.
I was looking forward to revisiting cats like Walter Benjamin and some of the other people Butler examines here. Years ago, I read that [a:Michael Löwy|95211|Michael Löwy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1299072718p2/95211.jpg] book [b:Redemption And Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought In Central Europe: A Study In Elective Affinity|2641206|Redemption and Utopia Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe A Study in Elective Affinity|Michael Lowy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1574108500l/2641206._SY75_.jpg|163108], but I didn't remember anybody's stances towards Palestine, really, except for Buber and Scholem who were already living there before the catastrophe. Walter Benjamin is as cool in Butler's retelling as I remember him, but I did not know that Levinas was such a jerk... ready to throw his whole post-Holocaust ethical project out the window when it comes to Palestine.
Hannah Arendt takes up a lot of space here as well, and not having read her yet it's hard for me to judge if Arendt was confused, or if Butler is confused, but I am definitely confused. The last two essays are the best, one about Primo Levi who comes across as so freakin' right on it hurts. I've never read his real Shoah stuff, just "lighter" fare like [b:The Monkey's Wrench|6180|The Monkey's Wrench|Primo Levi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1686902343l/6180._SY75_.jpg|9503]. Turns out he was very pro-Palestine.
Edward Said bookends the set. Butler is mainly interested in his book about Moses, and some statements he made about exile and diaspora and building a new multi-national state with the shared experience of exile at its heart. Sounds lovely. I'm a bit confused about framing Moses as an Arab, though. Surely the Copts are the indigenous Egyptians, not the Arabs? But when you're spinning academic metaphor webs why nitpick about it? As KRS-1 taught me, "Moses passed as the Pharaoh's grandson... so he must have looked just like him..." After 1300 years of Islam, "who is an Arab" gets as tricky as "who is a Jew." Still, Butler glosses over the Arab conquest of Egypt, or maybe Said does... I don't know.
I don't think Butler even comes close to answering her own question, about whether it's possible to have a Jewish state given Jewish ethics. It's too hard to define Jewish ethics... I mean... it's not that easy to define "Jewish." Butler keeps reminding us that even though they're looking at a gang of Central European thinkers, there are Sephardim and Mizrahim and lots of other kinds of Jews and ways to be Jewish. Still, if they'd just stuck with Hillel and Maimonides and cats like that, we might have come closer to a real answer, and if I had to bet, the answer would be "No." You can't just plop your state in the middle of somebody else's home. To suddenly claim that Galut is over... is not Jewish. Butler, and I'm sure it's not for lack of courage, just never really says that in stark black-and-white like that. But it's obvious that's what they're thinking. If you comment on this review, please be respectful.