Nationalism is a very destructive human tendency. As it includes a selective collectivism, which is still a collectivism of sorts, it appeals to the very basic need to be part of something, and in that limited way, is a good. But the selectivity of Nationalism is its corruption. That selectivity ultimately seeps through and corrupts all other tendencies.
We see this in extreme forms in Naziism and Zionism. Perhaps to the more insidious effect in Zionism. Judaism itself is the religion of hospitality--of bringing together. Jews are correctly seen as the religious elite in their earlier levant epoch. The ones who created and served the Temple, which actually served more than just Jews.
And so the story of Cain and Abel, correctly told, is the story of violating the rules of hospitality. Of not putting others ahead of oneself. It comes to no good end, the parable tells us.
But Zionism is exactly that. Of their being a special place "for us." Where the rules of hospitality don't apply. Where "they" don't get to say what's what.
I saw Zionism overcome Judaism in my youth. The roots of Judaism, the boundless hospitality, were gradually overcome by a more selective hospitality, long long after the holocaust and more aligned with increasing Zionist dominance after the 1967 military victory and the beginning of the occupation.
Zionism was one of several forces that I long felt destroyed my youth. More and more, it didn't make sense to me, it contradicted my sense of justice but all my friends, who were all Jewish and Zionist, couldn't see the problem. I had no Jewish anti-Zionist friends, though I see better now that some of my Jewish friends had a tendency towards that, and probably would be if they were still alive today. I still struggled to keep it together with people I knew and loved in other ways, but the old feeling of family was now more complicated, I didn't know what to say next, and I let too many friendships fade away.
Nationalism is wrong because it drives more people apart than together. What is most right, then, is universalism.
We see this in extreme forms in Naziism and Zionism. Perhaps to the more insidious effect in Zionism. Judaism itself is the religion of hospitality--of bringing together. Jews are correctly seen as the religious elite in their earlier levant epoch. The ones who created and served the Temple, which actually served more than just Jews.
And so the story of Cain and Abel, correctly told, is the story of violating the rules of hospitality. Of not putting others ahead of oneself. It comes to no good end, the parable tells us.
But Zionism is exactly that. Of their being a special place "for us." Where the rules of hospitality don't apply. Where "they" don't get to say what's what.
I saw Zionism overcome Judaism in my youth. The roots of Judaism, the boundless hospitality, were gradually overcome by a more selective hospitality, long long after the holocaust and more aligned with increasing Zionist dominance after the 1967 military victory and the beginning of the occupation.
Zionism was one of several forces that I long felt destroyed my youth. More and more, it didn't make sense to me, it contradicted my sense of justice but all my friends, who were all Jewish and Zionist, couldn't see the problem. I had no Jewish anti-Zionist friends, though I see better now that some of my Jewish friends had a tendency towards that, and probably would be if they were still alive today. I still struggled to keep it together with people I knew and loved in other ways, but the old feeling of family was now more complicated, I didn't know what to say next, and I let too many friendships fade away.
Nationalism is wrong because it drives more people apart than together. What is most right, then, is universalism.
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