Who Are the Jews—And Who Can We Become?
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- €27.99
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- €27.99
Publisher Description
2023 National Jewish Book Award Finalist in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience
Who Are the Jews—And Who Can We Become? tackles perhaps the most urgent question facing the Jewish people today: Given unprecedented denominational tribalism, how can we Jews speak of ourselves in collective terms?
Crucially, the way each of us tells our “shared” story is putting our collective identity at risk, Donniel Hartman argues. We need a new story, built on Judaism’s foundations and poised to inspire a majority of Jews to listen, discuss, and retell it. This book is that story.
Since our beginnings, Hartman explains, the Jewish identity meta-narrative has been a living synthesis of two competing religious covenants: Genesis Judaism, which defines Jewishness in terms of who one is and the group to which one belongs, independent of what one does or believes; and Exodus Judaism, which grounds identity in terms of one’s relationship with an aspirational system of values, ideals, beliefs, commandments, and behaviors. When one narrative becomes too dominant, Jewish collective identity becomes distorted. Conversely, when Genesis and Exodus interplay, the sparks of a rich, compelling identity are found.
Hartman deftly applies this Genesis-Exodus meta-narrative as a roadmap to addressing contemporary challenges, including Diaspora Jewry’s eroding relationship with Israel, the “othering” of Israeli Palestinians, interfaith marriage, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and—collectively—who we Jews can become.
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Hartman (Putting God Second), president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, asserts in this ambitious outing that "the story the Jewish people tell ourselves about ourselves is in need of a revision," and calls on "wide swathes of Jews to listen, discuss, and retell" it. To jump-start such conversations, Hartman outlines a conceptual framework that understands Judaism as both a "modality of being, an identity Jews affirm independent of what we do," which is based on God's unconditional covenant in Genesis, and "a modality of becoming, a system of beliefs" that challenges "a Jew become more," which is grounded in how God requires the Jewish people to uphold ritual practices in exchange for protection in Exodus. Through these lenses, Hartman wrestles with a host of hot-button issues, such as the limits of loyalty to other Jews: for example, while the Genesis model supports vigorous defense of fellow tribespeople, Hartman examines a 2016 incident in which an Israeli soldier shot and killed a wounded Palestinian terrorist, contending that "unconditional loyalty to Jews and no one else" can "breed moral mediocrity and even depravity." Hartman adroitly argues that "as long as the story we tell ourselves about ourselves embraces and strengthens the complexity of our identities... we provide ourselves with the tools to expand our moral aperture," and invites essential debates about Judaism's past, present, and future. This impresses. -
