Yaacov Yadgar 
Sovereign Jews [EPUB ebook] 
Israel, Zionism, and Judaism

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.

Inhoudsopgave

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

Over de auteur

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.