Introduction: Materialist Approaches to Jewish Culture
- IntroductionMaterialist Approaches to Jewish Culture
As we conclude writing this introduction, the israel-hamas war is on its 262nd day.
As we write, we feel that it is impossible to discuss the intersection of materialist critique and Jewish cultures without touching on the ongoing devastation in Palestine/Israel, particularly in Gaza. First and foremost on our minds are the destruction of human bodies and the loss of human lives. Yet, one cannot overlook the destruction of the environment, both human-made and natural. The escalating cost of expected reconstruction and the increasing uncertainty of environmental restoration bode ill for the future.1
The unfolding devastation in Gaza put an end to what until October 7th seemed "normal," a modus vivendi that had persisted for the past two decades or so. This modus vivendi allowed some to live in relative material affluence while subjecting others not only to material precarity but also to the precariousness of their very existence and physical bodies. It was upheld by the power dynamics between the State of Israel, the Palestinian entities in the West Bank and Gaza, and the international community, as well as by internal societal and economic structures within each of the parties.2 Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7th and the ongoing Israeli retaliatory actions have exposed the contradictions and fissures that underpinned this modus vivendi — now recognized as unsustainable.
The war stripped away the masks of normality and modus vivendi, revealing starkly different realities for Israelis and Palestinians. In Gaza, and to a lesser extent in the West Bank, the illusion of autonomy was painfully exposed in the face of Israeli power as the decisive factor. The war underscored not only that the Palestinian economy and society are molded in terms of collaboration (or cooptation) and resistance in relation to the power exerted by Israel, but also the lengths to which Israel would go to ensure the continuation of this dependency.3
In the aftermath of October 7th, it seemed for a brief moment as if Hamas had succeeded in shifting the balance of precarity between Israelis and Palestinians. [End Page 1] Suddenly, Israelis found themselves exposed to a level of violence previously reserved for Palestinians. The sexual violence that accompanied Hamas's attack underscored the vulnerability of Jewish bodies (the presence of non-Jews among the victims of Hamas's attack is often overlooked and forgotten) and, along with media images of material destruction within the 1967 Israeli borders, stirred anxieties that many, both in Israel and worldwide, immediately linked to the Jewish Holocaust. However, the subsequent Israeli retaliatory military operation and the unprecedented devastation it caused quickly reinstated the previous differential of precarity. Without diminishing the pain and suffering of the victims and survivors of Hamas's attack, one cannot help but contemplate the significance of October 7th in light of the extent of the suffering in Gaza and the profound and very tangible uncertainty about the viability of future Palestinian — or any other — lives there.
The ongoing war highlights the intersection of colonialism and capitalism, with Palestine/Israel serving as a primary site where the encounter between the Global North and the Global South — a haunting presence for the Global North — is continually replayed. This may indeed account for the schizophrenic response of the governments of the Global North to the war: they condemn the horrific toll of the war and provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians, yet they also supply the funding, arms, and fuel that enable Israel to continue its military strikes without interruption. Colonialism and neocolonialism — as Israel simultaneously denies and insists that it controls the Gaza Strip (and insists that it should continue to do so) — rely on the asymmetry between the (neo)colonizers and the (neo)colonized. This asymmetry becomes all the more deadly when neocolonizers conclude that the "use-value" of the neocolonized population is minimal and that the only remaining course of action is to keep that population at bay. Initially, colonial asymmetry is indifferent to distinctions — whether class-based or otherwise — among the colonized. However, the more resistance the colonized show, the more committed the colonizers become to erasing all...
