On Goat Surveillance

Building on Hannah Arendt’s theorizing about citizenship and rights, this chapter shows some of the outcomes of the transformation of the Jewish Question for “the people” who must be produced and maintained as sovereign citizens in their own state. The chapter includes a number of ethnographic vignettes describing situations that arise when Israelis struggle over Jewishness in order to make a living, sell their produce, or immigrate to the country. This chapter lays the foundation for the broader argument about how ethno-national models of political liberation produce their “people,” arguing that although such production causes the most harm to those it excludes, the processes of producing inclusion also threaten human liberation. This chapter is framed by Kafka’s “Little Fable,” which serves as a metaphor for the myriad ways Jews struggle to be Jewish in Israel, which seems like a narrowing maze with no exit.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the book, beginning with its theoretical foundations in the study of nationalism and colonialism. It opens with the work of Lord Acton on how “the passengers exist for the sake of the ship,” in which the passengers are sovereign citizens in the nation-state. It considers the work of Eugen Weber on processes of cultural change that are fundamental to both colonization and nationalist projects. Introducing the modern state of Israel, it puts forth a thesis on how nationalism might be better understood as a form of self-colonizing, in which people must assimilate to the nation. In the case of Israel where “religion” and “nation” are conflated in the figure of the Jew, sovereign citizens must be Jewish in particular ways that limit Jewishness and freedom of religion. The chapter also explains why the book is framed with Kafka’s writing.

Self-Elimination

Hannah Arendt wrote that “emancipation” of the European Jews should have been their admission into humanity as Jews. But attempts at assimilation actually made their future more precarious. They seemed to become part of European society but were neither admitted into society nor, indeed, into humanity. This chapter argues that assimilation does not end when Jews become sovereign citizens of their own state. Expanding on Patrick Wolfe’s theorizing on assimilation, it argues that self-determination in the Jewish state is also a form of self-elimination. Zionism is the ultimate Kafkaesque attempt at assimilation, an attempt to gain acceptance by mimicking those by whom one has been oppressed. The modern state was supposed to create the conditions in which Jews could flourish “as Jews.” Yet, because of the conflation of “religion” and “nation” in the figure of the Jew, the modern state actually limits the possible ways of being Jewish.

Before the Law There Stands a Jew

This chapter is framed by Kafka’s parable, “Before the Law,” which deals with the paradoxes of social inclusion. This chapter includes a number of stories gathered during fieldwork that demonstrate some of the seemingly strange ways in which Israeli Jews struggle over Jewishness. It raises questions about those who have purportedly already gained political liberation through the establishment of their own nation-state to consider what such liberation means. The chapter provides historical background about the paradoxes of assimilation for Jews in Europe, and about pre-state arrangements that are often cited as the foundations of current struggles over Jewishness in Israel.

Is Israel a Christian State?

This chapter opens with an ethnographic vignette in which an ultra-Orthodox man explains the dangers of Zionism. He says the founding father of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, “actually wanted to convert all the Jews to Christianity.” This opens a discussion about the character of the Jewish state, building on the previous chapter about assimilation. It focuses on government efforts to change the ultra-Orthodox and to integrate them into Israeli society. It deals with conflicts over “freedom,” which has often come to mean self-realization and individual autonomy, but should not be limited to this Western liberal definition. While anthropologists have long argued that such normative terms like freedom do not have a universal definition, in this case, we find that the secular state interprets freedom in a way that does not coincide with the understanding of at least some of those it intends to make free.

The False Promises of Sovereignty

The last chapter showed how struggles to be Jewish in Israel seem like a narrowing maze with no exit. This chapter considers the nature of that maze. It focuses on two cases of observant Jewish Israelis who come into conflict with the state over what it means to live according to their understandings of Jewishness. It shows that what appears as a religious-secular divide is far more complex. It is sometimes a religious-religious divide and is always part of a process of producing a national majority of sovereign citizens through disaggregation and conflation of modern categories of identity—religion and nation. Framed with Kafka’s “City Coat of Arms,” it shows how alliances of convenience can undermine political positions, in this case strengthening nationalism and territorial expansion at the expense of traditional Judaism.

The Jewish Question Again

This chapter examines the persistence of the Jewish Question or Problem in the state that aimed to liberate Jews. For example, many people expected the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim, to “assimilate” to Israeli culture and become the “new Jews” of the Zionist project. In other places such “progress” that undermines local cultural groups often results in liberal expressions of outrage. But the case of ultra-Orthodox Jews has not produced the same reaction. The ultra-Orthodox are seen as part of the Israeli hegemon in opposition to Palestinian Arabs who are the indigenous under threat of elimination. This chapter again suggests that the definition of indigeneity be expanded beyond geographical ties to include forms of social organization and ways of life that might be threatened. Thus, both Palestinian Arabs and Haredi (and other) Jews are at risk—one facing elimination through Zionist territorial expansion, the other through the forces of Zionist assimilation.