Dr Yael Almog yael.almog@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor
Jewish Diaspora and the Stakes of Nationalism: Margarete Susman’s Theodicy
Almog, Yael
Authors
Abstract
This article unpacks Margarete Susman’s political and theological arguments at the core of her reading of the Book of Job. As I show through a reading of her oeuvre, Susman rejects political projects that she takes to be based on eschatology such as political Zionism. However, Susman should not be viewed merely as a critic of Zionism. I argue that an analysis tuned to the historical circumstances of her writing should recognize her stance on the nation-building project in Palestine as ambivalent rather than antagonistic. Susman’s conception of the Jewish spirit as rooted in self-sacrifice allows her to appreciate the national aspirations at the core of the Zionist project while rejecting Zionism’s exclusion of other Jewish national projects. I contend that Susman’s understanding of Jewish messianism as immanent rather than teleological informs her ambivalence toward Zionism as well as her original vision of Jewish political action. I argue in closing that Susman’s theodicy offers a novel vision for Jewish ethics that is not limited to the historical moment of its formulation. Susman’s theodicy also resonates within contemporary debates on Jewish diaspora in providing a non-centralized vision of Jewish national projects.
Citation
Almog, Y. (2019). Jewish Diaspora and the Stakes of Nationalism: Margarete Susman’s Theodicy. Religions, 10(2), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10020103
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Feb 11, 2019 |
Online Publication Date | Feb 12, 2019 |
Publication Date | 2019-02 |
Deposit Date | Sep 26, 2019 |
Journal | Religions |
Electronic ISSN | 2077-1444 |
Publisher | MDPI |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 10 |
Issue | 2 |
Article Number | 103 |
Pages | 1-9 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10020103 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1290500 |
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