This post will attest to the benefit of bloggers checking their referral log to see who is reading and linking to them. Had I not done this I wouldn’t have come across one of the most interesting web sites I’d seen in months. It is Jewdas: Radical Voices for the Alternative Diaspora. The website name conceals multiple meanings: first, there is the reference to Judas, by which the site mocks the notion that radical Jews are somehow betraying their faith and also attacking the prevailing Christian culture; second, the ‘das’ in the title refers to the Hebrew word for “religion” and when yoked to the notion of Judas as Jesus’ enemy, also conveys an a certain animus toward the religious aspect of Jewish identity.
This just one helluva funny website and I hope a few quotations will illuminate some of the wit that is there. Here’s the About page (warning: there is a bit of inside Brit Yid references and humor):
Probably you’ve clicked here because you’re rather baffled by the rest of the site. Probably this is because you’re not Jewish. Or American. Or (g-d forbid) both!
…A few years ago we came across a great find. Amidst a large pile of rubble, in a dark corner of East London, we found the book of Jewdas. And lo, it was very good.
It had been written in Jerusalem thousands of years ago, by a cabal of radical scribes, and yet we discovered it by the back of a kebab shop in Dalston.
Written in Yiddish (which turned out to be a far older, more authentic language than Hebrew), it teaches of the great radicalism of Jewish tradition, a tradition of dreamers, subversives, cosmopolitans and counter-culturalists. It waxes lyrical on the virtues of cosmopolitanism, putting loyalty to ideas of international justice over tribalism and parochialism, and attacks the oppressiveness of the ‘natural’ in favour of ethics designed to meet the face of the other. It preaches of the need to widen Judaism beyond the boundaries of those born Jewish, towards an ethic of wider concern, a Judaism that might at times stand in critique of the Jews. It prophesied a rise of ‘international subversives’ who would undermine power wherever they found themselves, who would preach veganism, pacifism and pickled cucumbers.
The book also made very clear that man would rise up, known as Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and that he would not be the messiah, but rather a very naughty boy.
The book was not only passive, it also made active demands. A quick bible code style analysis determined that the book was instructing us to mercilessly satirize Anglo Jewry, suggest new and more radical ways of being Jewish, and also throw excellent parties. Who were we to disobey?
So here we are. Hope that made some sense. If not lets just say this- whatever your background if you: prefer stirring things up to keeping the peace, prefer dreaming of the utopian rather than settling for the prosaic, and think that culture and ethnicity should be springboards for overthrowing the state, then you’re a Jewdaser at heart. Lets storm the barricades together.
There is much at this site which reminds me of my own days as a radical Jewish college student in the 1970s: the heroes are almost identical (they’ve added Naomi Klein as a latter-day saint); there is merciless satirizing of the tradition; the courage in the face of a massive, alienating Jewish communal consensus. This is a perfect example of plus ca change, plus la meme chose (or whatever is the Yiddish equivalent).
Jewdas brings to mind the wonderful blurb Donald Barthelme wrote for his friend, Grace Paley’s astonishing Enormous Changes at the Last Minute:
Grace Paley is a wonderful writer and troublemaker. We are fortunate to have her in our country.
That is the spirit of Jewdas and mirrors perfectly my embrace of their contrarian Jewish ethos. What can I say? I love Jews like these.
Thanks for pointing out this site, Richard. Naomi Klein may be their saint, but Spinoza must be their guardian angel. More power to them.
Yes, I should do a post on some of my Jewish heroes. Among them would be Kafka, Spinoza (of course), Yochanan ben Zakkai, Yehuda Ha-levi, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Rabbi Akiva, Hillel, Marek Edelman, Elisha ben Abuya, Emma Goldman, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. You get the idea.
Their critique of Dispatches Israel lobby episode is spot on, particularly the conclusion:
I love the dismissive, yet hilarous tone of their critique. It’s great.
I looked through the website and although I am not Jewish, I had a wonderful enjoyable time.
Gem of the day, from a commenter on the website:
“Every day, Israel takes a shit on my dignity.”
Well said.
Yay, I love lists. On the subject of great Jewish dudes (or dudettes), I realize no one asked, but here are my Jewish heroes: Andre Previn, Daniel Barenboim, Gustav Mahler, Noam Chomsky (greatest linguist of the 20th century, easy call, and also one of our most insightful political thinkers), Marcel Proust, Harold Pinter (‘The Homecoming’ particularly blew me away when I first read it), Kafka, Einstein, and I’ll throw in Jacques Derrida for good measure, what the heck. Those are the top ones for me, in more or less that order.
So we share Kafka at least, that’s a good one to share. Your list is maybe a tad more nerdy academic than mine. When I get frustrated by the American Jewish establishment consensus line(s) when it comes to our foreign policy and whatnot, in my admittedly totally subjective way I tend to think of the above guys as the ‘real’ thing and the right-wingers as the imposters, when it comes to authentic Jewish values.
Daniel Barenboim is particularly a shining star for me. Not only is he a tremendous musician and artist, but his whole outlook and worldview is very powerful and compelling, imo. Far be it for me to tell Jews who to look toward or emulate, but I want to say, ‘psst, look over there, here’s someone who’s got maybe a deeper & healthier relation toward the world and human family as a whole than we perhaps commonly see among many right-wing Israelis and right-wing nationalist Jewish Americans’.
One of the things that’s powerful about Barenboim is how he inhabits various cultural fault lines and fissures in a striking way (we see this perhaps most intensely in his deep love and attachment to the music of Wagner). He understands the interconnectedness of Western culture and world culture, how say it’s pretty difficult to musically/artistically understand Mahler and Schoenberg without understanding Wagner and so on. He’s an old Enlightenment universalist; he seems to see the whole while respecting difference. And that’s pretty rare in our current era of ethnic chauvinism and identity politics.
(Plus, he lives in Berlin and that’s a cool city.)
Yes, I’m with you on Barenboim, one of my heroes too. Here are a few more including Israelis (& I’m going back a ways): Jacob Talmon, Yeshaia Leibowitz, Nechama Leibowitz, Abie Nathan, Nahum Goldman, Pierre Mendes France, Grace Paley, David Broza, Paul Simon, Ahad HaAm, Arthur Hertzberg.
And Naomi Klein, of course! She is massively cool. She’s right up there, I’ll put her after Proust. How could I leave her out?!!