1 00:00:00,870 --> 00:00:05,640 Well, good afternoon, everybody. My name is Jacobi Edgar. I'm the new Stanley Professor. 2 00:00:05,790 --> 00:00:09,090 Stanley Lewis. Professor with what I studied. It's a pleasure to see you all here. 3 00:00:10,140 --> 00:00:15,000 I'm delighted to actually open this year's Israel Studies seminar. 4 00:00:16,140 --> 00:00:30,570 Maybe I would say a little just a few words about the context of this seminar, and then we'll move on to Dr. Barone's Bare Bones presentation. 5 00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:39,690 So during this academic year, the Israel Studies Seminar will explore what it means to widen the horizons of conventional discourse about Israel. 6 00:00:39,690 --> 00:00:44,010 And we will do so by focusing on various perspectives on Israel. 7 00:00:44,460 --> 00:00:48,900 The seminars objective is to situate Israel within within broader contexts, 8 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:54,750 including thematic, theoretical, methodological, epistemological and geostrategic. 9 00:00:55,920 --> 00:01:04,290 Speakers throughout the year are invited to offer views of Israel from the socio political or historical vantage points of various traditions, 10 00:01:04,290 --> 00:01:08,310 groups, cultures and states or from certain epistemological perspective. 11 00:01:09,090 --> 00:01:14,819 We hope that by doing so, we will be able to illuminate topics that may be otherwise neglected, 12 00:01:14,820 --> 00:01:22,230 neglected in the field of Israeli studies, but are nevertheless crucial for understanding Israeli and Middle-Eastern politics at large. 13 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:26,610 And our speaker today is Dr. Ilan Baron, 14 00:01:27,660 --> 00:01:33,000 who teaches international political theory in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University. 15 00:01:33,510 --> 00:01:37,860 He is also a member of Durham's Centre for the History of Political Thought, 16 00:01:37,860 --> 00:01:42,480 and he co-directs the Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics at the University. 17 00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:50,100 His academic work deals with, well, among many other issues international political sociology, 18 00:01:50,580 --> 00:01:55,200 Jewish politics and Zionism, food politics and the Jewish diaspora. 19 00:01:55,830 --> 00:02:01,260 He recently published Obligation in Exile the Jewish Diaspora, Israel in particular, 20 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:06,420 in which he explores the complex relationship between Israel and the diaspora Jewish identity. 21 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:13,050 The title of his talk Today's Jews, Israel and Debate Understanding Israel in the Diaspora. 22 00:02:13,590 --> 00:02:16,829 And I'm pleased to pass the mic to. Yes. 23 00:02:16,830 --> 00:02:21,030 Just. Okay. Well, thank you so much for the invitation to be here. 24 00:02:21,390 --> 00:02:25,230 It's a real honour, and it's also rather serendipitous. 25 00:02:25,230 --> 00:02:28,260 I'm the first speaker because it means you have nobody to compare this to. 26 00:02:28,380 --> 00:02:31,880 Just takes a load off my shoulders, at least through this academic year. 27 00:02:31,920 --> 00:02:35,280 You set the standard? Yeah. All right. What I. 28 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:46,110 What I want to do and in my talk today is make a case for studying or making make a methodological 29 00:02:46,110 --> 00:02:51,640 case for the importance of a hermeneutic analysis or a hermeneutic phenomenological analysis. 30 00:02:51,660 --> 00:03:01,140 And in order to do that, I want to I'm going to make reference to a bunch of empirical work that I've done, some stuff which I've just completed. 31 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:08,010 Unfortunately, I'm not going to talk very much about food or cookbooks, but we certainly can have that conversation if anybody here wants to. 32 00:03:09,510 --> 00:03:19,530 So I want to I'm going to start by just explain a little bit about a research project that I've recently been working on with a colleague, 33 00:03:19,650 --> 00:03:26,060 Ari Kelman from Stanford University, doing a we were doing a congregation study in California, 34 00:03:26,430 --> 00:03:33,150 and the congregation study was exploring the role of Israel in the life of a single Jewish community. 35 00:03:33,750 --> 00:03:39,240 And this was the first time that this kind of study, at least to my knowledge, has ever been done. 36 00:03:39,780 --> 00:03:46,019 There's certainly a lot of survey type of data that exists about Israel and Jewish identity in Israel, 37 00:03:46,020 --> 00:03:49,950 in Jewish communities, and in the United States, at least in some in the UK as well. 38 00:03:50,610 --> 00:03:55,470 But I don't think anyone had ever gone into a congregation to do this kind of work, 39 00:03:56,460 --> 00:04:03,870 partially or perhaps largely because there are two topics that one does not debate or discuss in a congregation. 40 00:04:04,260 --> 00:04:06,180 One of them is the Holocaust and the other is Israel. 41 00:04:07,410 --> 00:04:15,240 We spoke about one of them, and this was a fairly small congregation that we did the analysis in. 42 00:04:15,570 --> 00:04:20,160 It was a we were invited into the congregation to do this to do this study. 43 00:04:20,430 --> 00:04:29,640 So it's not as if we you know, we're looking at a map and, you know, pinpointing it was a result of my book and being invited to to do the study. 44 00:04:30,810 --> 00:04:32,709 And we spoke to a little over 50 people, 45 00:04:32,710 --> 00:04:40,800 which is a pretty good sample size of the congregation and also a range of demographic within the congregation. 46 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:46,800 Although, as is typically the case, there's a certain demographic that is more active than other demographics. 47 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:48,840 So there's, you know, a skew in age. 48 00:04:49,470 --> 00:04:59,470 And what was interesting about the the interviews that we did was that Israel just didn't come up in the life of this. 49 00:04:59,930 --> 00:05:05,120 Wasn't a big it wasn't a big deal. Right. It did not take up a lot of time in a like this condition. 50 00:05:05,390 --> 00:05:13,550 Now, if you pay attention to what the leaders of major Jewish organisations are telling us we should be discussing, think about Israel all the time. 51 00:05:13,820 --> 00:05:18,050 Right. Israel is right up here a lot, you know, and if your conversation should be Israel and I guess God. 52 00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:23,050 But there'll be another conversation. Right. Well, no, you can't discuss the Holocaust, remember? 53 00:05:23,060 --> 00:05:26,860 So but these are the these are the these this is what we should be thinking about it. 54 00:05:26,870 --> 00:05:30,829 We should be thinking about Israel all the time. It should be up front and centre in. 55 00:05:30,830 --> 00:05:37,370 In our lives. As. As Jews. I should add here that this project, as I mentioned, is done in California. 56 00:05:37,520 --> 00:05:46,840 The fieldwork that I've done, the interviews I've done with Diaspora in the Diaspora have been in the UK, some in Canada and some the United States. 57 00:05:46,850 --> 00:05:53,179 So those are the countries that have the most knowledge of for the French case is very different and very small Jewish communities in, 58 00:05:53,180 --> 00:05:57,829 say, Eastern Europe. What else will be different? I'm not I'm not really talking about about any of those groups. 59 00:05:57,830 --> 00:05:59,840 I also did interviews in Israel when I was doing the book. 60 00:06:00,140 --> 00:06:08,060 So I'm talking about really speaks to the the North American and to some extent British, British Jewry as well. 61 00:06:09,020 --> 00:06:14,240 So Israel just Israel, it didn't come up. It wasn't something that was regular, that was regularly in discussion. 62 00:06:15,530 --> 00:06:19,700 You know, you wouldn't hear about it, you know, after service. It just wasn't a big part. 63 00:06:19,940 --> 00:06:27,829 The the rabbi the congregation didn't regularly speak about Israel, but there is an Israeli flag right near near the bima, along with certain. 64 00:06:27,830 --> 00:06:34,820 There was also in the congregation where I grew up in Canada, on the West Coast, and they do say a prayer for the state of Israel. 65 00:06:34,830 --> 00:06:39,649 So there is some Israel presence, but other than that, nothing. 66 00:06:39,650 --> 00:06:45,350 And this was a bit of a surprise. It's not we're expecting what we expected was that there would be debate. 67 00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:52,100 Right, that there'd be some sent some kind of vehicle, there'll be some argument about Israel in this community and that Israel will be a friction 68 00:06:52,100 --> 00:06:59,120 point because that is pretty much the case in most communities that Israel is not is no longer, 69 00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:02,300 if ever was a unifying force. It's now become a divisive force. 70 00:07:02,660 --> 00:07:07,970 And what we expected to find was something similar to that. So why wasn't why wasn't Israel there? 71 00:07:08,270 --> 00:07:13,190 Well, partially because the congregants felt that Israel was divisive. 72 00:07:13,670 --> 00:07:15,590 They didn't want to get into any debates. 73 00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:21,020 Now, they assumed that there was a diversity of views within the congregation, but they didn't really have much evidence of this. 74 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:26,900 And they felt that alongside they felt that because of that diversity, 75 00:07:27,170 --> 00:07:33,620 if they weren't just being with friends who they whose ideas or beliefs or political perspectives they already under, 76 00:07:33,620 --> 00:07:40,279 they already knew they weren't quite prepared for, you know, the what what could what could arise. 77 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:46,420 They weren't and couple that was the idea that we should know more than we do about Israel. 78 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:47,750 So there's. 79 00:07:47,900 --> 00:07:55,220 So if you take yourself outside of the congregation and you're out in the Bay Area or somewhere in California or, you know, for that matter, you know, 80 00:07:55,520 --> 00:08:03,860 Midwest, wherever, and you're speaking to somebody, it could be out here in the street and Oxford and Israel comes up and as it always does. 81 00:08:03,860 --> 00:08:09,230 Right. And they, you know, it comes out that you're Jewish. And then if you're Jewish, you must know something about Israel. 82 00:08:09,590 --> 00:08:09,979 Right. 83 00:08:09,980 --> 00:08:17,240 That may the conference had internalised that sense that because you're Jewish, you must have some kind of higher level of understanding about Israel. 84 00:08:17,240 --> 00:08:24,290 And if you're not Jewish but a lot of them didn't feel they had that higher level of understanding, whatever that might be, 85 00:08:24,890 --> 00:08:30,770 but they still assumed it, which meant that they would assume that the person they're speaking to because they're Jewish in the congregation, 86 00:08:31,070 --> 00:08:33,200 they would have know more about Israel, the neighbourhood, 87 00:08:33,350 --> 00:08:39,950 and if they know more about Israel than they do and they have a different opinion about Israel and you're one and you don't know enough, 88 00:08:39,950 --> 00:08:41,600 how would you justify your own opinion? 89 00:08:41,930 --> 00:08:48,710 So it's sort of this hotbed of hypotheticals that would just create the potential for debate, which they wanted to avoid. 90 00:08:49,070 --> 00:08:53,120 The other thing so those were, I think intellectually for me at least, 91 00:08:53,120 --> 00:08:59,059 the most interesting findings and we're still doing we we have to transcribe finishing the transcriptions have a lot of analysis 92 00:08:59,060 --> 00:09:06,290 this is sort of the my notes from after all the interviews the other thing which I think is interesting sociologically, 93 00:09:06,290 --> 00:09:09,830 although not necessarily as interesting for the case I want to make today, 94 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:16,430 is the opportunity, cost and bandwidth that people felt that there's only so much time. 95 00:09:16,790 --> 00:09:20,189 This is not a priority for me, and especially in this particular conversation, 96 00:09:20,190 --> 00:09:27,259 there was a lot of anxiety over Trump and the policies that going along with with the Trump administration, 97 00:09:27,260 --> 00:09:32,899 that they're very, very politically active and just felt that's where our direct that's where our energies are right now. 98 00:09:32,900 --> 00:09:34,820 We're not going to we don't have enough time to hold everything. 99 00:09:35,060 --> 00:09:44,060 Ironically, because there was so much activism politically and because of Trump and Charlottesville and and and issues on immigration, 100 00:09:44,630 --> 00:09:49,130 that then created the impetus with a smaller group within the congregation to say, Wait a minute, we're Jews. 101 00:09:49,130 --> 00:09:52,670 Why are we doing this other stuff? What would Israel. And so we'll see. Well, we'll see how that happens. 102 00:09:53,090 --> 00:09:59,630 So that so I think what's the point I want to take from this was this sense of expecting conflict. 103 00:10:00,150 --> 00:10:03,720 The sense also that because of who we are, we should know something about Israel. 104 00:10:04,440 --> 00:10:07,470 And more than that, I more than I think I know myself. 105 00:10:07,770 --> 00:10:14,400 And related to that, or the corollary that other members of Congress will know more about Israel than I do. 106 00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:22,860 And as a consequence of that, a sense of insecurity over how strong are my actual beliefs or political persuasions on this? 107 00:10:22,860 --> 00:10:26,270 How would I justify them? Okay, so there's this. 108 00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:33,720 Let's just keep that that set of evidence that that story in the background for a minute. 109 00:10:35,130 --> 00:10:39,080 I grew up in West Coast of Canada. This was as I think one route was. 110 00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:45,330 I think the current rabbi said it's hard hit, more diaspora. And where I grew up, Vancouver Island. 111 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:51,290 Right. It's pretty far west, you know, in the San Andreas Fault eventually splits and there's a big earthquake in San Francisco. 112 00:10:51,300 --> 00:10:55,140 I think Vancouver Island will disappear. That's the fear I grew up with. That's still there. 113 00:10:55,920 --> 00:11:02,550 Fortunately and oddly enough, there's not not that far in between. 114 00:11:02,670 --> 00:11:08,129 Ish Victoria and Vancouver on one of the islands is the summer camp called Marconi. 115 00:11:08,130 --> 00:11:11,700 Miriam. It's a member of happening draw, right. 116 00:11:11,700 --> 00:11:13,660 The Zionist Labour Zionist organisation. 117 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:22,260 And for every summer, for quite a few summers as a kid, I go to this camp and live life as it was on a kibbutz in the 1960s and I mean in the 1960s, 118 00:11:22,260 --> 00:11:25,380 like we learned sixties folk songs, you know, Israeli and American. 119 00:11:25,950 --> 00:11:28,960 And we, you know, from each according to their ability to each according to their needs. 120 00:11:28,980 --> 00:11:36,120 It was, you know, this idealist kind of labour, Zionist socialist utopia in the west coast of Canada. 121 00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:42,270 And part of what we learned there was just Zionism and labour. 122 00:11:42,270 --> 00:11:51,390 Zionist is also social justice. So the idea of what Zionism meant for us was embedded with a very strong sense of social justice. 123 00:11:53,100 --> 00:11:59,219 My personal view is that aspect of Zionism just doesn't exist anywhere and certainly isn't represented in Israel. 124 00:11:59,220 --> 00:12:08,160 But that was the idea that we grew up with. It's the idea that many Jews grew up with that in the diaspora, Jews grow up with that. 125 00:12:08,310 --> 00:12:15,570 Israel occupies this ideational feature in who we are that is represented by these values. 126 00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:24,840 And these values are shaped by social justice, by Jewish history, also by some kind of national self-determination. 127 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:30,900 But we don't really talk about the consequences of national self-determination that much because as is becoming more relevant, 128 00:12:31,290 --> 00:12:37,680 it places in uncomfortable company, particularly the ultra right and in the United States the moment. 129 00:12:38,250 --> 00:12:45,360 So this is the idea so we grew I grew up with this you know this we know the the Israeli flag was and was in this congregation. 130 00:12:45,360 --> 00:12:51,899 There's this Labour Zionist camp that I went to families Israeli and Israel's always close by. 131 00:12:51,900 --> 00:12:56,610 Even though we were weren't there when the Gulf War was going on, it was a big deal. 132 00:12:56,640 --> 00:13:02,610 Right. We were talking about it all the time. You know, when Israel's attack centres was under threat, we felt it vicariously. 133 00:13:02,820 --> 00:13:08,070 So even though we're very far removed, don't really understand very much what was going on there. 134 00:13:08,550 --> 00:13:12,959 It's a very important part of who we are, and that was very much the case in this conversation. 135 00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:17,340 In California, most of the Congress felt Israel should matter to us. 136 00:13:17,730 --> 00:13:20,660 Yeah, Israel should play a greater role in the life of the community. 137 00:13:20,670 --> 00:13:25,020 I don't know if I'd attend everything because you know time, but yeah, it should. 138 00:13:25,050 --> 00:13:29,240 Israel matters. Why? Why does Israel matter? 139 00:13:29,250 --> 00:13:34,560 What is the benefit? Or if you want to put it in kind of in those terms? 140 00:13:35,220 --> 00:13:39,600 I don't. But some do. Why should Israel matter to us in this way? 141 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:44,510 And and why is it becoming so divisive? It's not as if debate about Israel is new, right? 142 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:47,009 There's always been debate about Israel and Zionism. 143 00:13:47,010 --> 00:13:58,110 What what's changed or if if something hasn't changed, what's going on now that explains the complexity of of our relationship with Israel. 144 00:13:58,620 --> 00:14:08,880 So I, you know, growing up with these family connections of the Zionist icon, this Labour Zionist mythology, I eventually wanted to know more. 145 00:14:08,890 --> 00:14:15,150 And so I studied this. I actually studied as a history student, not as a political science student. 146 00:14:15,690 --> 00:14:20,879 And the more I read, the more I learnt, the more time I spent in Israel, 147 00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:29,310 the more uncomfortable I became that the stories I grew up with just were so clearly myths. 148 00:14:29,310 --> 00:14:33,980 And it's not that they were true or false. They're all true in the sense that we believe them. 149 00:14:33,990 --> 00:14:43,200 Is that the role they serve is very much a mythologising role and as a consequence of that it became very, very difficult to then align right. 150 00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:51,239 Those narratives, these mythological narratives, what Israel is supposed to mean to us with the political discourse that you would hear and with the 151 00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:59,040 various multiplicity of events that you could be witness to and none of them would ever really meet. 152 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:08,930 In a way that was comfortable or agreeable, that the more I study this, the more time I spent in Israel, the more I talk about this. 153 00:15:09,110 --> 00:15:12,290 The heart of the relationship became for me and made it so. 154 00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:15,050 I think that says more about myself than it does about anything else. 155 00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:21,469 But I know I'm not alone in this, that there is a very large portion of diaspora. 156 00:15:21,470 --> 00:15:27,590 Again, remember the group and talking about Diaspora Jews for whom this is exactly the case for them, that the more they see Israel on the news, 157 00:15:27,740 --> 00:15:29,030 the more they read about Israel, 158 00:15:30,530 --> 00:15:37,370 the more uncomfortable they become about what Israel means to them and what kind of connection they should have with Israel. 159 00:15:37,670 --> 00:15:41,749 Now, major Jewish establishment has tried to confront this through various ways, right. 160 00:15:41,750 --> 00:15:48,200 The whole birthright type program is a big one. But there is something interesting about how these trips to Israel have an effect. 161 00:15:48,470 --> 00:15:55,970 So, again, these interviews in California, these trips would really the few people, one of them, it would totally, totally change their perception. 162 00:15:56,180 --> 00:15:59,650 And there is huge debates also about what should you do on these trips, right? 163 00:15:59,660 --> 00:16:03,110 Can we organise enough? We are organising. Where are you going to go? Who are you going to see? 164 00:16:03,350 --> 00:16:06,420 Can you you know, is women of the Wall appropriate? Are you going to go to settlement? 165 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:10,009 If you can go to settlement, you know, who do you talk to? Rabbis, human rights. Can we talk for hours? 166 00:16:10,010 --> 00:16:15,920 Human rights. Does that mean other rabbis are against human rights? And it you know, it just gets more and more and more complicated. 167 00:16:16,700 --> 00:16:24,529 But often the people go there, they'll come back. And the phrase, which I've heard a few times, not so much in these interviews, 168 00:16:24,530 --> 00:16:28,220 but ever is, was you go to Israel and you would recharge your Jewish batteries. 169 00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:32,060 Some are going there. It's like plugging in your iPhone. 170 00:16:32,630 --> 00:16:36,410 And I use the iPhone example intentionally, which I'll come back in a minute. 171 00:16:36,650 --> 00:16:39,740 And you become you're fully charged again. 172 00:16:39,740 --> 00:16:46,240 You back you can go back home and, you know, you're you're ready to go for that, you know, and until I guess you need another another recharge. 173 00:16:46,790 --> 00:16:50,860 Oh, that's very bizarre, right? 174 00:16:50,870 --> 00:16:54,559 I mean, it's like it creates a country as if it's an amusement park, right. 175 00:16:54,560 --> 00:17:04,100 Where you can go and you can separate yourself in a way that enables you to kind of suck up that which you need to make yourself feel whole. 176 00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:12,830 Right. That there's a structural relation here where the meaning that you are taking from being there is crucial to who you think you are. 177 00:17:13,010 --> 00:17:17,719 There's nothing. I'm not speaking at all about the facts on the ground or political orientation. 178 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:19,760 I don't really care about that for this immediate purpose. 179 00:17:19,940 --> 00:17:26,420 What's interesting is this idea that you can go to this place and somehow by being there when you return home, 180 00:17:26,630 --> 00:17:35,180 you are recharged, that your self becomes whole again in a way that it wasn't before you left to go to Israel. 181 00:17:35,180 --> 00:17:38,430 And so that that's a very interesting dynamic, right? 182 00:17:38,450 --> 00:17:44,510 I don't I'm not. And we all have these and, you know, these different ways going vacation can do it for some of us, right? 183 00:17:44,750 --> 00:17:48,709 I can't marketing my essays. That's it. I need a break. And, you know, so term is over. 184 00:17:48,710 --> 00:17:52,130 I'm going to turn off my iPhone. I'm not reading anything, any academic stuff. 185 00:17:52,130 --> 00:17:55,340 And you come back and, you know, okay, maybe you've got energy and but this is different. 186 00:17:55,760 --> 00:17:59,330 This isn't about taking time off. So you've got energy again so you can do your work. 187 00:17:59,750 --> 00:18:03,800 This is about going there so you can feel better in yourself because something is missing. 188 00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:08,419 And that's not maybe it's not just ideological. 189 00:18:08,420 --> 00:18:12,229 If it's ideological at all, that's clearly ontological and more so, 190 00:18:12,230 --> 00:18:16,969 it's phenomenological because it's about who you are in the structures of the world that you 191 00:18:16,970 --> 00:18:21,770 find yourself in and how you understand yourself to interacting within those structures. 192 00:18:22,130 --> 00:18:25,400 It's your construction of your identity in the world, 193 00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:35,270 or it is what it means to be Jewish in the world today when that world involves and that we call and that we recognise as Israel, 194 00:18:35,300 --> 00:18:41,810 that Israel carries a meaning in that relationship. That's without getting into too much jargon. 195 00:18:42,050 --> 00:18:51,740 That's very clearly a kind of structural relationship that fits within a hermeneutic phenomenological analysis almost to the letter. 196 00:18:52,190 --> 00:18:57,530 Right. That there is a structural aspect here that you are linking in and you're taking something 197 00:18:57,530 --> 00:19:01,040 out of it that's giving you meaning that enables you to function in that same structure. 198 00:19:01,940 --> 00:19:07,580 So I mentioned the iPhone. Why the iPhone? Well, these interviews, again, we should take pride in Israel. 199 00:19:07,640 --> 00:19:12,950 Israel, why is everybody always giving Israel a bad time? And if you if you want to boycott Israel, fine. 200 00:19:13,340 --> 00:19:17,180 Throw away your iPhone. I can't. I think I've heard that. I don't know. 201 00:19:17,780 --> 00:19:21,829 It seems like I heard every interview, right, that what Israel provides, Israel gives it's great. 202 00:19:21,830 --> 00:19:25,580 What medicine? iPhone irrigation. 203 00:19:25,580 --> 00:19:29,479 Right. All the stuff that Israel, given the world is fantastic. Why doesn't anybody hear about this? 204 00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:34,840 It's our job to kind of give this spiels. Everybody realises the wonderful products that make the world what it is. 205 00:19:35,180 --> 00:19:41,600 And somehow we you know, and people missed that and the missing that they're getting a bad story. 206 00:19:41,930 --> 00:19:45,410 Well, who cares, right? 207 00:19:45,500 --> 00:19:50,650 Why does it why why does it matter that and I'm not saying this because I think it should or shouldn't care. 208 00:19:50,660 --> 00:19:57,860 I'm just asking the question if if there's someone's debating about what Israel is doing, whether it is a good country or a bad country. 209 00:19:58,190 --> 00:20:00,550 Okay. How are you going to do how you have. Argument. So. 210 00:20:00,710 --> 00:20:05,950 Well, one fairly common example of how the argument functions is in regard to human rights violations. 211 00:20:06,130 --> 00:20:10,690 Okay. So Israel's got one of the worst civil rights records, you know, out there. 212 00:20:10,690 --> 00:20:13,810 And we can look at the U.N. for telling us this. And, you know, so and. Well, wait a minute. 213 00:20:13,820 --> 00:20:19,890 Who are the countries that are making these accusations? You know, are they are they innocent parties? 214 00:20:19,900 --> 00:20:25,420 Right. Let's let's do a let's do a comparison. The question I have is, well, who cares who's saying them? 215 00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:30,710 It's easy enough to do an analysis and to figure out whether or not any of these claims have any merit. 216 00:20:30,970 --> 00:20:36,160 And if they do, then you deal the claims on their own. You don't need to compare with what someone else is doing right. 217 00:20:36,190 --> 00:20:40,839 I don't care if somebody else is doing something really bad. What I care about is this means what you know, as if I'm doing it right. 218 00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:44,620 If I'm doing it, if I'm acting badly, it's my responsibility. If someone else is acting badly. 219 00:20:44,620 --> 00:20:48,250 Okay, let's find someone. I'm not going to compare my behaviour to someone else. 220 00:20:48,670 --> 00:20:53,409 You know, it's like you. Would you expect Harvey Weinstein to say, look, you know, I'm better than. 221 00:20:53,410 --> 00:20:58,479 And then think of who would be worse than your, you know, your rogues list of, you know, your rogue's gallery, who's going to be worse. 222 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,900 And just because. President Trump. Right. There you go, Trump. 223 00:21:02,290 --> 00:21:08,690 Okay, so the list we can start thinking of a list, right? That doesn't make one of them less worse in any meaningful sense. 224 00:21:08,710 --> 00:21:12,550 Right. The comparison isn't very helpful, but somehow we feel the need to do this. 225 00:21:13,180 --> 00:21:17,890 Why do we feel the need to do this? Well, I think it's emotional. I think it has to do with, again, that connection, 226 00:21:18,100 --> 00:21:23,860 that recharging that somehow Israel features in the construction of Jewish identity today, at least for those who want it. 227 00:21:24,060 --> 00:21:27,250 Right. And here I'm going to add a very important caveat. 228 00:21:28,690 --> 00:21:34,330 Israel doesn't matter for many Jews, and I don't necessarily think it's my place or else's place to say it should matter. 229 00:21:34,540 --> 00:21:39,580 Right. But for those who think or those who feel that Israel is important to them, 230 00:21:40,390 --> 00:21:46,380 it's those constituencies that what I'm speaking about, I think makes makes the most sense for those who decide not to. 231 00:21:46,390 --> 00:21:55,390 It doesn't disprove what I'm arguing. And what's interesting then is why why do they feel that Israel isn't important for their sense of Jewishness? 232 00:21:55,900 --> 00:22:00,910 But for the moment, that's a constituency which I'm not I'm not talking about that much. 233 00:22:01,570 --> 00:22:07,090 Okay. So what I'm trying to get at here is that meaning the meaning of Israel is central. 234 00:22:07,120 --> 00:22:11,200 It's not what Israel does so much, although clearly that that plays a part in it. 235 00:22:11,590 --> 00:22:16,120 It's the meaning that Israel provides. So what kind of meaning does Israel provide? 236 00:22:16,150 --> 00:22:22,100 Well, in the end, in my book, Obligation and Exile, when the price is now considerably cheaper than was initially published. 237 00:22:22,100 --> 00:22:26,650 So I think it's now maybe £20. If you get it direct in publisher, where can we find it? 238 00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:31,720 You can will Amazon and the publisher best thing is probably buy directly from Edinburgh University Press. 239 00:22:32,140 --> 00:22:36,460 I've heard that some of the yeah I think they're probably the best best place to get it. 240 00:22:38,410 --> 00:22:42,790 The in the book I make the case that obligation is a way to think this through. 241 00:22:42,790 --> 00:22:52,180 So why do I use the why obligation? Largely because I was trying to find a language with which to get to this meaning issue in a political way. 242 00:22:52,570 --> 00:22:56,070 Right. That what interests me is the political relationship and the role of debate. 243 00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,830 And that's not a language necessarily a phenomenology, 244 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:05,170 but obligation to me seem to more appropriate than the one word which otherwise exists in the literature, which is loyalty. 245 00:23:05,470 --> 00:23:13,360 When I wrote this, there was very little, and that was doing the kind of work that I was doing on a subject that was a bit more but still not 246 00:23:13,360 --> 00:23:18,099 a huge amount and obligation seemed appropriate because if you're going to have an obligation, 247 00:23:18,100 --> 00:23:23,770 there also has to be there has to be the option or the choice to resist. 248 00:23:24,220 --> 00:23:27,730 Right. Which is why when Michael Walzer writes by obligation in the sixties, 249 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:34,300 he's linking obligation with questions of civil disobedience and resistance, because to go close, go very close together. 250 00:23:34,510 --> 00:23:38,830 You can't have one really thought. The other obligation requires that there is that option there. 251 00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:46,750 And that's part of what gives obligation. Its normative or moral element to it is that there's always this element of resistance in the background, 252 00:23:46,750 --> 00:23:51,129 if you will, whereas with loyalty, you don't have that. If you're not loyal, you're disloyal. 253 00:23:51,130 --> 00:24:00,550 And that was not a claim I was prepared to make, you know, and that's why I think it's really a question of choice and as opposed to one of loyalty. 254 00:24:00,550 --> 00:24:04,430 But the thing with obligation was, okay, first thing about an obligation, sort of loyalty. 255 00:24:04,450 --> 00:24:06,550 What does that open up? What does that tell us? 256 00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:17,139 Well, what I argue in the book is that it highlights the key areas of friction right when Israel arises and it tells us why those areas arises. 257 00:24:17,140 --> 00:24:21,190 Friction, right. So one of them is security. One of them is and one of them is debate. 258 00:24:21,850 --> 00:24:27,320 And the reason that obligation helps us to understand these as being pivotal moments is because there 259 00:24:27,580 --> 00:24:31,360 there are central areas where there could be some kind of resistance that would really matter. 260 00:24:31,750 --> 00:24:35,559 Right. It's not like whether or not you're going to have tea or coffee and, you know, 261 00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:39,820 you're resisting the, I don't know, a path by being in the company of whatever. 262 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:46,510 It's that there's something about your connection to this place that becomes manifest through these choices. 263 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:53,560 And what I felt at the time was that obligation was a way in which we could have a conversation about those choices. 264 00:24:53,950 --> 00:24:58,719 Are you obligated or not? And why? And what I was looking for wasn't some. 265 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:00,370 Much to say, there is an obligation. 266 00:25:00,610 --> 00:25:07,300 It was rather to find a language with through which we could have a conversation with Israel that wasn't ideological or necessarily theological, 267 00:25:07,570 --> 00:25:11,560 which I'm not skilled or capable really to have a conversation on. 268 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:18,970 But that would give you the room to actually discuss the politics of Israel and Jewish communities today. 269 00:25:19,210 --> 00:25:26,980 And the idea of obligation seemed to do that because it could help us work through the significance of security and of meaning. 270 00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:34,320 Now. With with with security. 271 00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:42,390 The story here is a very complicated one, not because of the occupation or the wars, 272 00:25:42,810 --> 00:25:46,560 but because of the story that Israel exists, provide security for the Jewish people. 273 00:25:47,490 --> 00:25:54,270 What if it doesn't? I'm not saying it does or doesn't, but you have to allow for the possibility that it doesn't. 274 00:25:54,660 --> 00:26:01,410 When there are threats that or when there are attacks that go on either in Israel and 275 00:26:01,410 --> 00:26:05,850 you feel increasing in risk or if there are attacks in Jewish communities elsewhere, 276 00:26:06,630 --> 00:26:11,580 and then that somehow that someone becomes connected to events in Israel. 277 00:26:11,950 --> 00:26:12,790 Right. So if there. 278 00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:21,810 So when I was doing the interviews for this book, one of the interviews was shortly after an anti-Semitic attack and not in Israel. 279 00:26:23,580 --> 00:26:28,500 And I was the person I was interviewing. 280 00:26:28,860 --> 00:26:31,410 It was initially very, very reluctant to speak with me. So why? 281 00:26:31,530 --> 00:26:37,950 And the reason he was reluctant speak of name was because there's this this news story, right, that there is, you know, Jews being attacked. 282 00:26:37,950 --> 00:26:41,310 And some of those linked to events in Israel was in Israel. That didn't matter. 283 00:26:41,550 --> 00:26:44,690 And that event in another country. Right. 284 00:26:44,700 --> 00:26:48,450 Different community, created this sense of insecurity in this individual. 285 00:26:48,450 --> 00:26:52,560 Like I don't know if want to talk about Israel here right now because there's other events going on and maybe, 286 00:26:52,890 --> 00:26:55,890 you know, there's only two maybe there's some sort of connection. I know who you are. 287 00:26:55,920 --> 00:27:03,280 You know, there is some weird ish insecurity, security dynamic at play here because of what was going on that was related to events in Israel. 288 00:27:03,300 --> 00:27:08,100 This person was feeling insecure because of an attack in another country against different people. 289 00:27:08,250 --> 00:27:14,940 But it was the that attack was related to Israel in some way. If that's the case, then you have to be able to have the conversation. 290 00:27:15,120 --> 00:27:18,180 What kind of security is Israel provide for us? 291 00:27:18,300 --> 00:27:21,570 What is the narrative of security that Israel's providing for us? 292 00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,770 Because it can't just be the narrative the political bias want us to believe in. 293 00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:27,730 If it is, we all want to move there. Okay? 294 00:27:27,750 --> 00:27:32,160 And then we have to deal with the security that accompanies nation state politics and international relations, 295 00:27:33,270 --> 00:27:36,420 which is another conversation I think we that needs to we need to have. 296 00:27:36,810 --> 00:27:41,850 So the security dynamic becomes very, very complicated once you look at the meaning of the story. 297 00:27:42,220 --> 00:27:45,720 Right. That the Zionist security narrative is supposed to tell us the meaning of that 298 00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:51,959 story becomes very important because there's going to be questions to it. If Israel it does Israel does. 299 00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:57,270 The narrative of Israel mean that Israel provides increased security for the Jewish people? 300 00:27:57,630 --> 00:28:02,340 And if there are and if it creates new risks, does that then that doesn't. 301 00:28:02,340 --> 00:28:06,480 If it creates new risks, that does not then mean that Israel's responsible for them. 302 00:28:06,780 --> 00:28:11,150 But it does change the dynamic of the narrative. Right. It it adds a layer of complexity. 303 00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:14,100 So how do you have that conversation without getting into the hysterics? 304 00:28:14,790 --> 00:28:19,709 As David Swirsky mentioned in the interviews for the book, when it comes to Israel, 305 00:28:19,710 --> 00:28:23,910 we tend to get hysterical in Jewish community, trying to find a language that could get us away from hysterics. 306 00:28:24,180 --> 00:28:31,770 So that's one of the complications, right? If you're going to is the security and the insecurity and the sick and how the narratives of 307 00:28:31,770 --> 00:28:38,370 Zionism and of what Israel means for us play into that into that that that that security story. 308 00:28:45,010 --> 00:28:54,459 The second the second element, which I want to just mean the second I want to focus on meaning itself and what kind of meaning do we do? 309 00:28:54,460 --> 00:29:03,040 Does Israel offer? Is a question I take up in a forthcoming article that will be out in the Journal of International Political Theory, 310 00:29:03,340 --> 00:29:11,500 I believe in February, something in a few months anyways and maybe earlier. 311 00:29:11,770 --> 00:29:16,990 And what I argue in that piece is that the meaning that Israel provides is one of authority. 312 00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:24,790 And this gets back to the recharging, the batteries that the meaning that Israel provides is a kind of authority that 313 00:29:24,790 --> 00:29:28,030 is difficult to find elsewhere in Israel is a really easy place to find it. 314 00:29:28,330 --> 00:29:37,830 Right? The historical narratives, its biblical history, it's, you know, you've got everything kind of bundled up in one place. 315 00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:44,440 You can just walk around and Jewish history just seeps in and you know, and you know that's or recharging of batteries and it's really easy. 316 00:29:44,740 --> 00:29:51,130 It's really, really easy for Israel to do that because there's so much history there that's that is very important for the Jewish people. 317 00:29:51,430 --> 00:29:57,100 Right. They're saying about the place itself that gives it a lend that that gives it this aura of historical authority for who we are. 318 00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:05,020 It's a grounding of some kind. And I think that in a world where it's otherwise very hard to find a kind of certainty, 319 00:30:05,260 --> 00:30:08,740 that kind of grounding, this is a kind of modern, post-modern conundrum, if you will. 320 00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:13,440 Israel builds in the book, fills in that void. Now, what? 321 00:30:13,450 --> 00:30:18,370 What does that mean? It means that whatever we want Israel to be, it's never going to live up to it. 322 00:30:18,370 --> 00:30:21,250 And that doesn't matter what your J Street or AIPAC, right? 323 00:30:21,670 --> 00:30:25,870 It will never live up to what you want it to be because it's trying to provide some kind of 324 00:30:25,870 --> 00:30:31,000 authoritative meaning for who you are in a world where you're not quite sure where you sit. 325 00:30:31,450 --> 00:30:35,320 Which gets us again to hermeneutic phenomenology. 326 00:30:35,660 --> 00:30:43,389 Right? This being in the world, right? This worldliness this and what what and the meaning that we find in this world, how are we able to function? 327 00:30:43,390 --> 00:30:44,830 That's what we're looking for in this world. 328 00:30:45,070 --> 00:30:50,260 And how is this in constant interactions between ourselves and the various structures in the world that we're encountering? 329 00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:55,989 Right. And Israel provides such an easy place to find that kind of grounding. 330 00:30:55,990 --> 00:30:59,260 You don't have to go there. All right. It helps, but you don't have to go there. 331 00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:04,389 Right. You know, you we talk about all the time, whether it's in whether it's religiously. 332 00:31:04,390 --> 00:31:09,340 Right. The all times it comes up into law or whether it's the food, which is becoming a really big deal. 333 00:31:09,550 --> 00:31:14,170 I was in documentary now in search of Israeli cuisine, which kind of just emphasises a lot of this, right, 334 00:31:14,710 --> 00:31:20,890 where you can just all the Jewish people, all the vibrancy and the wealth and the creativity becomes, you know, concentrate in one place. 335 00:31:20,890 --> 00:31:25,120 You can create this fantastic mélange that you otherwise would not be able experience anywhere else. 336 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,250 And yeah, it's a vibrant, it's creative and it's wonderful. 337 00:31:28,180 --> 00:31:35,140 It's and it's something which you wouldn't necessarily find anywhere else except now it's being exported as a, as a kind of a culinary good. 338 00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:40,329 And that that place provides this, this meaning. 339 00:31:40,330 --> 00:31:46,480 It provides that kind of certainty, which I think is otherwise in high demand and short supply. 340 00:31:48,310 --> 00:31:52,570 Just to wrap this up, what does this what am I trying to get at here? 341 00:31:52,570 --> 00:32:00,190 Why is this important? Well, what I think matters is that we we need to be taking a much more theoretical or 342 00:32:00,190 --> 00:32:04,900 philosophical approach to the role that Israel functions for dance for Jewry. 343 00:32:05,050 --> 00:32:08,280 This is not just sociological and it's not just empirical. Right. 344 00:32:08,290 --> 00:32:15,550 And it and it's not. And even though I think yeah, it's not just sociological and it's not just empirical and of course it's historical, 345 00:32:16,150 --> 00:32:20,950 but there's another dimension to the contemporary dynamic of it, which we're missing. 346 00:32:21,340 --> 00:32:28,090 Right. When I was doing this research, when I know, sorry, when I do my PhD, I was looking at Zionism, was looking then at doing postdocs. 347 00:32:28,300 --> 00:32:32,710 There was nobody, nobody would fund contemporary research that dealt with Israel, Zionism. 348 00:32:32,890 --> 00:32:35,110 They just wouldn't touch it because it's too controversial. 349 00:32:35,290 --> 00:32:40,179 And this is around the time of campus watch on that thing when that was starting and you had professors being vilified, 350 00:32:40,180 --> 00:32:45,130 whether they're too critical of Israel to support of Israel. Nobody wanted to go near anything contemporary. 351 00:32:45,310 --> 00:32:48,940 There was a funding for his for historical studies at the time. I don't know what the case is now. 352 00:32:48,940 --> 00:32:54,550 I'm not a historian, but I suspect it's still tough. But at the time, contemporary, forget it. 353 00:32:55,360 --> 00:33:04,600 And I think that part of the issue here is we become very hung up on trying to make the case for who did what to whom, 354 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:12,610 as opposed to what meanings are being produced here, and how are those meanings then deployed in particular types of debates or discussions? 355 00:33:12,940 --> 00:33:18,220 Because for most of us, Dyson or Jews, I'm speaking as one who don't live in Israel. 356 00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:22,389 It's those debates and those discussions that we connect with Israel the most, right? 357 00:33:22,390 --> 00:33:28,629 This congregation where I interviewed a little over 50 people, a handful of them had actually been to Israel, maybe ten. 358 00:33:28,630 --> 00:33:32,780 I don't I think it was actually less many of them wanted to go there. 359 00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,180 Some of them had relatives or friends had gone there, but very few had actually gone majority. 360 00:33:37,420 --> 00:33:41,560 But but they felt that Israel really mattered to them. Right. Most of us don't go right. 361 00:33:41,950 --> 00:33:44,980 For all sorts of reasons. Time, money, know you name it. 362 00:33:45,250 --> 00:33:48,700 Right. Maybe you're worried about safety. All sorts of reasons. 363 00:33:48,700 --> 00:33:54,130 People don't go. Still mean. But Israel still matters. Well, how do you engage with that dynamic of Israel? 364 00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,760 That's not about who did what to whom. That's a sideshow, right? 365 00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:01,960 The debates about who did what to whom. Well, you're trying to make out who is the greater victim. 366 00:34:02,110 --> 00:34:05,470 Which is a very unhealthy conversation to have. That's the sideshow. 367 00:34:05,860 --> 00:34:13,180 The real story is about the type of meaning that Israel is providing in contemporary debate and contemporary discourse in Jewish communities. 368 00:34:13,450 --> 00:34:20,660 That's a conversation we're not having. I think we're not having it because it raises uncomfortable questions about who we are, what we want. 369 00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:23,740 Right. Idealisation narratives, so and so forth. 370 00:34:24,010 --> 00:34:30,610 And also because ironically, for a tradition that basically gave hermeneutics to the world. 371 00:34:30,820 --> 00:34:35,530 Right. We don't seem to be doing this kind of analysis ourselves in a reflexive manner where 372 00:34:35,530 --> 00:34:40,330 we're looking at the hermeneutic role that Israel plays for us as it has produced today. 373 00:34:40,720 --> 00:34:47,940 Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you so much, Dr. Laura.