"The great sin of today is the 'politicization' of our Judaism, the great need, the 'Judaization' of our politics": Leon Roth and the possibilities of a Jewish critique of Zionist politics

This article explores the possibilities and limitations of a Jewish critique of Zionist politics and the State of Israel, via an engagement with the writings of Leon Roth (1896–1963). Specifically, the article focuses on three main themes: (a) the relation between Judaism and Jews, questioning the “ethnicist” foundation of Zionist ideology; (b) the relation between religion and politics as the two are constructed in modern European discourse, questioning the nationalist premise of the supremacy of nation-statist politics over religion; and (c) the meaning of Jewish secularism, questioning the Zionist claim to a “non-religious” Jewish identity. I argue that Roth’s critique of the moral failures of Zionism offers an illuminating explication of a Jewish critique of “the Jewish state”, while ultimately failing to form a coherent political voice because of its commitment to the concept of modern, nation-statist sovereignty

Nation-statist soteriology and traditions of defeat: Religious-Zionism, the Ninth of Av, and Jerusalem Day

We ask how the theopolitics of a nation-state, and especially its soteriology, engage with traditions that preceded the state and relay messages that contradict this theopolitics. To discuss this question, we address the evolving (re-)interpretation of the Ninth of Av - a ritual commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of Jewish (Judean) self-rule in ancient times - by Religious-Zionist commentators. We further compare this interpretation to the Religious-Zionist appropriation of Jerusalem Day, a civic holiday celebrating the establishment of Israeli control over East Jerusalem in the June 1967 war. We argue that the statist imperative of the superiority of nation-statist theopolitics suggests that traditions are co-opted to fit in with its soteriology, with varying degrees of resistance or willing accommodation by carriers of these traditions. This co-opting may result in either the de-politicization of what the statist view would see as religion or the religionization of the state's own civic and so-called secular holidays

Nacionalismo, religião e (des)igualdade de sexo em Israel pelo prisma do direito da familia

Este artigo mostra que o conflito violento e duradouro mantido por Israel com os seus vizinhos árabes está pesando de modo decisivo sobre as relações de gênero. Aos olhos de muitos judeus israelenses, trata-se de uma luta pela sobrevivência do Estado judeu, que eclipsou a maioria das outras questões de ordem civil e social – tais como a igualdade dos sexos e os direitos das mulheres – julgadas ‘secundárias’, por comparação. Daí a perpetuação de práticas discriminatórias, até a sujeição aberta das mulheres em Israel. O artigo trata mais especificamente da questão do matrimônio e do divórcio, tomada como revelador. Ela joga luz sobre o papel que os movimentos feministas – religioso judeu, de um lado, e árabe-palestino, do outro lado – exerceram na reforma do direito da família. 

Jalal’s Angels of Deliverance and Destruction: Genealogies of Theo-politics, Sovereignty and Coloniality in Iran and Israel

This article discusses the historical context of the famed dissident intellectual Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s (1923–69) travelogue documenting his visit to Israel in early 1963, posthumously titled Safar beh velayat-e ʿezraʾil (Journey to the Province of the Angel of Death), focusing on (1) the political and intellectual context and reception of his controversial essay, in particular the brief infatuation of Iranian anti-Soviet socialists in the League of Iranian Socialists with socialist Zionism; (2) Al-e Ahmad’s discussion of political sovereignty and theo-politics in modern Israel and the important insights and observations provided therein; and (3), finally, the shifting sands of Al-e Ahmad’s engagement with Israel and Zionism and their relation to how he understood the politics of anticolonialism in the context of modern Iran following the 1953 coup d’état, which overthrew the nationalist government of Mohammad Mosaddeq, the Shah’s “White Revolution” and the Arab–Israeli War of 1967. The development of his views from ones of curiosity, fascination and ambivalence to condemnation echo less a simplistic and psychologized “return to religion” or “quest for authenticity” than an integration of the category of coloniality in relation to a wider field of struggles then unfolding across the global South during the 1960s, and provided the basis for a critique of not only Iranian social democrats, but several leading lights of the French left

CheapStat: An Open-Source, “Do-It-Yourself” Potentiostat for Analytical and Educational Applications

Although potentiostats are the foundation of modern electrochemical research, they have seen relatively little application in resource poor settings, such as undergraduate laboratory courses and the developing world. One reason for the low penetration of potentiostats is their cost, as even the least expensive commercially available laboratory potentiostats sell for more than one thousand dollars. An inexpensive electrochemical workstation could thus prove useful in educational labs, and increase access to electrochemistry-based analytical techniques for food, drug and environmental monitoring. With these motivations in mind, we describe here the CheapStat, an inexpensive (<$80), open-source (software and hardware), hand-held potentiostat that can be constructed by anyone who is proficient at assembling circuits. This device supports a number of potential waveforms necessary to perform cyclic, square wave, linear sweep and anodic stripping voltammetry. As we demonstrate, it is suitable for a wide range of applications ranging from food- and drug-quality testing to environmental monitoring, rapid DNA detection, and educational exercises. The device's schematics, parts lists, circuit board layout files, sample experiments, and detailed assembly instructions are available in the supporting information and are released under an open hardware license

Traditionism

This essay aims at conceptualizing—and naming—a certain, rather popular, stance toward tradition, that fits neither of the polar opposites of the secularist–rationalist vs. religious–conservative dichotomy. Arguing that this stance should be viewed as a “stranger” (following Zygmunt Bauman’s conceptualization of the term) that challenges and threatens the binary constructs which are central to positivist notions of modernity, tradition, and secularism (such as the “modern vs. traditional” and “religious vs. secular” binaries), the essay highlights the ways in which this stance embodies a more nuanced understanding of the very concept of tradition. The essay does so by both studying the phenomenology of this stance (both conceptually and through the socio-historical case of its appearance in a Jewish–Israeli context), and developing a view of tradition that transcends the above-mentioned dichotomies. It also highlights the distinction between this stance and another, dominant phenomenon of professed loyalty to tradition, namely conservatism

Al-e Ahmad, Guardianship, and the Critique of Colonial Sovereignty

In this article we seek to think with and against the Iranian intellectual and dissident, Jalal Al-e Ahmad (d. 1969), and his exploration of the concept of velāyat in the context of his 1963 visit to Israel/Palestine. Through his idiosyncratic use of the term and its cognates, well-established in Islamic mysticism, Shiʿi theology and jurisprudence, he pursues a decolonial critique of the political theology of sovereignty. By placing Al-e Ahmad’s thought in relation to broader debates in the history of political thought vis-à-vis the “extraordinary” character of political foundings, sovereignty and statelessness, and their complex interrelationship, we contend that in addition to delineating, what he refers to, as the “guardianship state”, Al-e Ahmad pursues a critique of the latter as a specific kind of modern sovereign power, which exceeds, but is inextricably bound up with the nation-state and its colonial forms. In contradistinction to this state-form, Al-e Ahmad espouses a distinct kind of being-together and form of life, namely, a being-in-common (ejtemāʿ), which refuses those iterations of difference e.g. national/foreigner, majority/minority, civilized/barbarian that have emerged as staples of the modern nation-state and capitalist modernity. We seek to bring out these aspects of Al-e Ahmad’s thought in relation to Arendt’s reflections on freedom and plurality