Excellence in Exile: Jewish Exceptionalism in Anti-Zionist Thought

Abstract

Abstract This essay seeks to illuminate an understudied strain of modern Jewish political thought, which is here termed ‘exceptionalist anti-Zionism’. Thinkers of this diverse school strongly subscribe to some form of Jewish exceptionalism and believe that it is precisely this exceptional nature that obviates or undermines the necessity for a Jewish state. This essay presents three versions of this intellectual strain through an analysis of one important thinker who exemplifies each version. Samson Raphael Hirsch offers a religious form of exceptionalist anti-nationalism, in which the divine mission of the Jewish nation requires its perpetual dispersion throughout the world’s civilizations. Franz Rosenzweig offers a philosophical form of exceptionalist anti-Zionism, in which the Jewish nation inhabits an entirely distinct temporal plane that precludes the traditional attributes of national life. George Steiner offers an ethical form of exceptionalist anti-Zionism, in which the Jews’ ethical superiority depends on their status as the perpetually itinerant ‘guests’ of every human society, and therefore naturally rejects any coalescence of national self-identity. These three thinkers, despite their irreducible differences, constitute an important counter-voice within a political discourse that generally conflates nationhood and nationalism, and present an alternative vision for a Jewish diasporic existence.