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Books

The Necessity of Exile by Shaul Magid

Rachel R. Rosner responds to new concepts of exile.

Since Hamas’s heinous attack on Israel on October 7th 2023 – what some are calling ‘Israel’s 9/11’ – the world has seen a frenzy of claims for and against Israel’s right to exist and the justness of its military response. As the months have gone by, antisemitism has surged worldwide, to levels that were seen only last century, and a deepening rift between diaspora Jews and Israelis has come to dominate the Jewish political discourse.

The rabbi and scholar Shaul Magid’s The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance (2023) was written before the current Gaza war, and published shortly after it began. In the present heightened political climate, the book is undeniably provocative. Challenging cherished beliefs about Zionism, the Jewish diaspora and exile, and the State of Israel, Magid’s thought experiment to redefine Jewish ideals as an exilic state of ‘counter-Zionism’ treads on sensitive topics, and is sure to ignite discussion across political divides. For these reasons, his book is both timely and needed.

Magid opens with a prescient declaration: “Israel as a country is confronting many of its demons, even as it confronts many of its enemies, both internal and external.” He says the book is written from an ‘exclusively Jewish perspective’, and is a ‘contribution toward the health of the Jews’. He hopes there will someday be a democratic ‘Israel/Palestine’, protecting the diverse populations as equal citizens, and dedicated to the ‘flourishing of humanity’. Magid’s guiding aim is to provide an “alternative vision, one that resituates Zionism as an important relic of the past, and opens space for us to reconceive Jewish national and collective identity in a new exilic mode.”

Over the course of 309 pages, Magid delivers a careful examination of the shifting historical nexus that defines Zionism, exile and the diaspora, and the State of Israel. He accomplishes this through various means, including an exploration of the concept and history of Zionism; questioning the connection between Jewishness and Zionism; examining the mutually defining categories of Jews, non-Jews, and what he calls ‘anti-Jews’; the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and the Settlement movement; a history of the concepts of Jewish homeland, rights, and ownership; antisemitism and Jewish oppression; Religious Zionism and Post-Zionism; and the historic roots and creative potential of the concept of Exile. Magid argues that the essentially unstable nexus holding together Zionism, the diaspora, and the State of Israel, is its ultimate strength, since a central merit of this shifting instability is that it allows for adaptive change and a better way forward. “Thinking beyond Zionism,” Magid claims, “as ironic as it sounds, may be the true messianic act.” Magid’s messianic act involves placing the concept of exile at the center of Jewish beliefs and actions.

Dove and Grenade Friedrich Farshaad Razmjouie 2023

While Zionism was a catalyst for establishing the State of Israel, Magid argues that Israel can no longer continue as a ‘Jewish State’. Rather it must pursue more liberal and democratic ideals, which demand a dismantling of Israel’s Jewish ethnocentrism, and with it a dismantling of the ideology that marries Zionism with territory, and with territorial expansion. Until this becomes a reality, he suggests, Jewish Israelis live in a state of self-declared self-identified exile, even within Israel’s borders. Exile, which Magid thinks of in terms of a rather traditional Jewish concept of a messianic state of anticipation, he argues can be reenvisioned, and so hold promise to work productively for the new society. The ‘counter-Zionism’ he promotes, “seeks to embrace exile as a constitute dimension of collective flourishing that affirms Jewish life in the present as an articulation of… ‘not yet’.”

Magid calls his ‘counter-Zionist’ solution an effort that might amount to a noble failure. Nonetheless, it is an attempt to at least reckon with ideas that inform Jewish feelings and thoughts on a variety of failures. Jewish ideological and political difficulties – at best, immense struggles, at worst, outright failures – are evident on multiple fronts: the current Gaza war and the increasing tensions that go with it; the struggle between one- and two-state ‘solutions’; the ongoing unrest, if not civil war, within Israel over its own governance; the State’s self-definition, even the very constitution of the State; and the precarious future of Jews in a world of increasing antisemitism, violence, and existential threat.

Magid argues that he is not anti-Israel. Rather, he sees his counter-Zionism and exilic self-identification as supporting a liberalization and democratization of Israel, its diverse citizens, and even of Jews worldwide. While many of Magid’s sentiments feel removed from the current reality, and even if applied, would suggest unrealistic and potentially damaging political ‘solutions’, he does encourage Jews to envision new realities for Zionism, the Jewish people, and the State of Israel, and this seems constructive. New realities will come anyway, and exercising imagination for alternatives can be taken at the very least as a respite from the present, if not a wise philosophical rehearsal for future possibilities.

Precisely because Magid writes ‘from a distance’ and not just ‘at a distance’, it is fair to question what this distance affords. Redefining theories and ideologies and offering political solutions from afar carries with it the luxury of separation. However, it is often the brutal reality of life on the ground that dictates which beliefs and ideologies, if not political commitments, one has the luxury of keeping, or not. War and brutality magnify the fact that there are beliefs and political securities one is either protected by or a victim of. Moreover, these lines are most often drawn not through an autonomous act of self-determination, nor through an exercise of creative contemplation, but rather by the decisions and actions of others. From this perspective, Magid’s redefinition of Zionism seems like a luxury afforded by his remove from the realities of this uncertain and mercurial war, even if it is meant as an encouragement to envision brighter futures.

Ultimately, self-identity is formed in response to the behaviour of others. Changes in Jewish self-identity then require more than just revisions to Jewish self-understanding. Thus, if Magid wants to remain true to the vision offered, the book can’t be written or read from an ‘exclusively Jewish perspective’.

Rachel R. Rosner is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University, and a Junior Fellow at The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

• The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, Shaul Magid, Ayin Press, 2023, 318 pages, $22.95 pb