Jewish Diaspora and the Stakes of Nationalism: Margarete Susman’s Theodicy

Yael Almog

doi:10.3390/rel10020103

Abstract

This article unpacks Margarete Susman’s political and theological arguments at the core of her reading of the Book of Job. As I show through a reading of her oeuvre, Susman rejects political projects that she takes to be based on eschatology such as political Zionism. However, Susman should not be viewed merely as a critic of Zionism. I argue that an analysis tuned to the historical circumstances of her writing should recognize her stance on the nation-building project in Palestine as ambivalent rather than antagonistic. Susman’s conception of the Jewish spirit as rooted in self-sacrifice allows her to appreciate the national aspirations at the core of the Zionist project while rejecting Zionism’s exclusion of other Jewish national projects. I contend that Susman’s understanding of Jewish messianism as immanent rather than teleological informs her ambivalence toward Zionism as well as her original vision of Jewish political action. I argue in closing that Susman’s theodicy offers a novel vision for Jewish ethics that is not limited to the historical moment of its formulation. Susman’s theodicy also resonates within contemporary debates on Jewish diaspora in providing a non-centralized vision of Jewish national projects.

Highlights

Jewish messianism as immanent rather than teleological informs her ambivalence toward Zionism as well as her original vision of Jewish political action
I argue in closing that Susman’s theodicy offers a novel vision for Jewish ethics that is not limited to the historical moment of its formulation
The philosopher Margarete Susman has not drawn the scholarly attention granted to other Jewish thinkers who reconsidered theology in view of the fatal violence against European Jews in the twentieth century

Summary

Introduction

The philosopher Margarete Susman has not drawn the scholarly attention granted to other Jewish thinkers who reconsidered theology in view of the fatal violence against European Jews in the twentieth century. I argue that Susman’s relevance to discussions of Jewish diaspora derives exactly from her complex approach to Zionism In this venture, her references to Job can be seen to constitute a political theology that does not pertain to a sovereign nation state, but rather to multiple national projects. Susman lists Job’s friends, his people, and the entirety of humankind as oblivious to the inner process that Job was going through She concludes that, with Job, the experience of a collective existence in the face of misery has collapsed. In both her “On the Problem of Job in Kafka” and The Book of Job and the Fate of the Jewish People, Susman defines the grounds for Jewish suffering as dual: Jews lack a physical homeland; and their homelessness intensifies their metaphysical disorientation. The loss of God manifested in the unsatisfying dialogue with the divine is the defining motif of the Book of Job—a narrative that Susman takes to model Jewish history

Correspondence with Anti-Jewish Accusations

Susman’s Messianism

Susman’s Theodicy and Current Debates on Jewish Exile