From: Avi Zer-Aviv [mailto:[email protected]]
Feel free to share. Avi Layla Tov (Goodnight), Zionism By Avi Zer-Aviv August, 2014 Zionism has died. This dream, of a national Jewish homeland, has become a nightmare. Israel as an experiment of Jewish liberation has brought home a universal truth: that each one of our personal and collective liberations are tied into everyone else’s, and that we cannot afford to ignore that reality anymore. The days of cultural and religious segregation and ghettoization are over. Zionism died for many reasons. Its biggest failure, though, was in its commitment to make non-Jews ‘other’ through a people that had been branded ‘other’ for thousands of years. This reverse racism is alien to the Jewish collective psyche, and rightly so. Even in the face of the Holocaust, the notion of a safe haven for Jews at the exclusion of other people’s rights ran against the grain of conventional Jewish wisdom. The death of Zionism brings with it tremendous opportunity to re-establish a new vision. This renews the tradition of socialism, social justice, plurality and secular liberalism that have a much longer and deeper history in Jewish identity than religious or cultural nationalism. I am proud to be part of the renewal of this tradition, and call not just for the end of Zionism, but for all nation-states to dissolve borders and become part of a collective planetary family devoted to ecological and humanitarian love, care and nurturance. Gone are the days of tribalism that create artificial divisions in the name of this or that ideology. Gone is the bubble mentality that promises safety and security in return for allegiance to the cause. We are ushering in the days of global interdependency that ask us all to be citizens of planet earth first and foremost. Through this prism, we celebrate our diversities, narratives and histories without escaping into our little bubbles that keep us from working together and having real dialogue. If we are to survive as a species, we all need to learn to become indigenous. That is true post-colonialism. The ecological catastrophe that faces us is the biggest evolutionary challenge of our time – perhaps ever in the history of humankind. Zionism, like all other forms of rigid nationalism, keeps us from addressing the deeper needs of our planet by locking us into identities that are artificial and binary by design. These types of identities remove us from our constant and ongoing relationship with the earth, and keep us in the militaristic, capitalistic and scarcity-bound modes of functioning. So for my part as an Israeli and former Zionist, I say, “Goodbye Zionism. I see through your veil. You do not offer protection for Jews or anyone else because you are exclusionary by design. My safety and security is bound up in everyone else’s, and not only have you failed to see that; you actively promote the lie that healing comes through segregation. You have confused the map with the territory, in that you see Jewish self-determination through the eyes of nationalism, instead of the true treasures the Judaic tradition has to offer. I see why and where you went wrong, and do not blame you for it.” I do ask you to get out of the way and allow for true healing and self-determination. End your occupation. End your racism. End your insistence on a land for the Jews at the exclusion of others. Let the Jewish dream truly flourish. ---- Jewish Socialist Bund https://Jewish-Socialist-Bund.net https://Jewish-Socialist-Bund.net/JPLO [email protected] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40765): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40765 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117921786/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
