The Necessity of Exile

Essays from a Distance

De: Shaul Magid

Narrado por: Shaul Magid

A timely, progressive collection of essays on the Jewish relationship to Zionism and exile.

What is exile? What is diaspora? What is Zionism? Jewish identity today has been shaped by prior generations’ answers to these questions, and the future of Jewish life will depend on how we respond to them in our own time. In The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, celebrated rabbi and scholar Shaul Magid offers an essential contribution to this intergenerational process, inviting us to rethink our current moment through religious and political resources from the Jewish tradition.

On many levels, Zionism was conceived as an attempt to “end the exile” of the Jewish people, both politically and theologically. In a series of incisive essays, Magid challenges us to consider the price of diminishing or even erasing the exilic character of Jewish life. A thought-provoking work of political imagination, The Necessity of Exile reclaims exile as a positive stance for constructive Jewish engagement with Israel|Palestine, antisemitism, diaspora, and a broken world in need of repair.

©2023 Shaul Magid (P)2024 Ayin Press

Reseñas de la Crítica

“If it wasn't clear already, these essays establish Shaul Magid as America's most insightful writer on the relationship between Zionism and Judaism.” —Peter Beinart, author of The Crisis of Zionism

“The complex relationship between exile and diaspora, so brilliantly articulated with regard to Afro-Caribbean experience by George Lamming, is fruitfully and rigorously revisited in Shaul Magid’s forceful essays on contemporary Jewish thought and politics. His efforts to bend difficult pleasure toward transformative necessity deserve admiration and rigorous critical attention.” —Fred Moten, Cultural Theorist, Poet, and Scholar at New York University

“Shaul Magid's essays on exile, Israel, and Zionism make a vital contribution toward reimagining Jewish futures unmoored from the moral failures of so-called liberal Zionism. Well-argued, well-written, and deeply nuanced, these essays collectively move us forward on the most vital dialogues that Jews must be having right now.” —Daniel Boyarin, author of The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto

Very clarifying frameworks

I found this book very clarifying of the layers of issues in Zionism and antisemitism. Ultimately the understanding of exile and sovereignty being in dialectical rather than temporally linear relationship is what I will take with me as a heart of this book’s meaning. The book has been very helpful to me, giving space to expanded aspects of history and of experience, escaping crazy making conflations. I very much appreciate the range of understandings from the philosophical to the mystical.

Important Work

Well researched and articulate. This book help to lay the groundwork for new possibilities.