Sovereign Jews

Israel, Zionism, and Judaism

Yaacov Yadgar (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

288 Seiten

2018
State University of New York Press (Verlag)
9781438465340 (ISBN)

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Offers a novel exploration of the relationship between religion and the state in Israel.

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. In Sovereign Jews, 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.

Yaacov Yadgar is Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford and the author of Secularism and Religion in Jewish-Israeli Politics: Traditionists and Modernity.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Jewish Sovereignty?

Part I: Religion, Judaism, Tradition

1. Religion – The History and Politics of an Ahistorical Concept

2. Are Jewish Traditions a Religion?

3. Tradition as Language and Narrative

Part II: Zionism and Jewish Traditions

4. Zionism, Jewish ‘Religion,’ and Secularism

5. Zionism and Jewish Traditions

6. Main Zionist Streams and Jewish Traditions

Part III: The Israeli Nation-State and Jewish Traditions

7. Israeliness vs. Jewishness: National Identity in Israel and Jewish Traditions

8. Statist Jews: Secularity, Sovereignty, Zionism – and Judaism

9. Who Needs the Status Quo? Statist Jews and "Religious Coercion"

Notes
Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	24.08.2019
Verlagsort	Albany, NY
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	395 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Judentum
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
ISBN-13	9781438465340 / 9781438465340
Zustand	Neuware