About this Blog
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this blog is to develop and articulate a Liberal, Leftist Zionist worldview. This involves:
My Liberal Zionism is part of my more general Liberal Judaism. So I will also discuss other issues relevant to the Jewish world and Jewish civilization that may not be directly connected to Zionism.
SOURCES:
Here are a few of the most important sources that have shaped my views on the issues related to this blog:
OTHER NOTES:
The purpose of this blog is to develop and articulate a Liberal, Leftist Zionist worldview. This involves:
- examining historical, cultural, and linguistic facts about Jews
- clarifying what we will mean by 'Liberal', 'Leftist', and 'Zionist'
- testing the worldview by commenting on past and current events
My Liberal Zionism is part of my more general Liberal Judaism. So I will also discuss other issues relevant to the Jewish world and Jewish civilization that may not be directly connected to Zionism.
SOURCES:
Here are a few of the most important sources that have shaped my views on the issues related to this blog:
- Abu El-Haj, N. (2012) The Genealogical Science. University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London.
- Morris, B. (2001) Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict. Vintage Books, New York, NY.
- Morris, B. (2008) 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Niezen, R. (2003) The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.
- Petrovsky-Shtern, Y. (2014) The Golden Age Shtetl. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
- Tessler, M. (2009) A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. 2nd Ed. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
OTHER NOTES:
- content management - I welcome thoughtful, well-intentioned comments from anyone, even if we thoroughly disagree. That said, I reserve the right to manage the contents of this blog, including by deleting comments.
- anonymity - Because Zionism is an incendiary subject and can damage careers, I will stay strictly anonymous. But you should feel free to identify yourself if you want to.
- terminology - One incredibly frustrating feature of discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the terminology. People on both sides often insist on describing elements of the conflict using normatively- or emotionally-loaded words that make it impossible to conduct a rational debate. For the most part, I'm going to try to avoid this. Thus, for example, I will use the phrase "The Holy Land" to refer to the geographic region that is sometimes called "Palestine", "All of Palestine", or "Eretz Israel". I think that this terminological choice is fair and neutral, because the land is indeed holy to all peoples who assert claims to it. I could have used "The geographical region lying between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea, bounded in the north by the Lebanese border and in the south by the Egyptian border and the Red Sea". But that is a mouthful.
- historical background - I am striving to make this blog more accessible to people who have limited knowledge of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and about Jews and Palestinians in general. But, presenting the history in full is too big a task for this blog. If you need any background to be filled in, please request this in the comments!
- comment feature - I am looking into ways to improve the comment feature on this site. Meanwhile, it's wise to pre-type your comments in Word, NotePad, or the like, and then copy and paste them into the comment box and post from there. This way you'll avoid retyping anything if the comment feature doesn't cooperate.