Maxime Rodinson, Culture, Ghetto and State: the Persistence of the Jewish Question, Al Saqi Books, £5.97
In one of Philip Roth's early stories a schoolboy is horrified as his mother and grandmother meticulously comb through a list of plane crash casualties to find the Jewish names in order to determine the extent of 'tragedy'. For Roth's characters, 'life had fractioned itself simply: things were either ''good for the Jews'' or ''no good for the Jews''.'
From fiction to fact. In issue No 124 of the London magazine City Limits the Jewish Feminist Group advertised that 'their newsletter is now available (for Jewish women only).' This is not to suggest that the Jewish Feminist Group meets to count how many Jews have died in plane crashes. It is to show that the particular form of Jewish nationalism that Maxime Rodinson would call 'Judeocentrism' is not confined to American novels. The recent revival of interest in Jewish culture and identity in left circles means that many old questions need to be looked at again.
Maxime Rodinson's new book Culture, Ghetto and State: the Persistence of the Jewish Question was compiled as a deliberate polemic against a 'Judeocentric' outlook on these questions. In a fascinating collection of essays written over 15 years, he tackles most complex aspects of the Jewish question from the point of view of the 'non-Jewish Jew' who refuses to be claimed by Zionism and religious dogma.
It is by no means easy reading. The essays are dense and exhausting. Because of the time gaps between essays it is hard to trace the development of Rodinson's thought.
Although one has to marvel at Rodinson's mammoth intellectual effort, his political conclusions are a stunning disappointment. For those with a keen interest in the topic — and lots of stamina — the book is well worth the time and effort. Casual readers will probably find it indigestible.
Some may find Rodinson's introduction alone disconcerting. He allows himself frequent outbursts of passionate self-defence against his Zionist attackers. He expresses exasperation at the moral blackmail which has allowed the Judeocentric outlook to claim unchallenged authority on all matters relating to Jews. He points to the European ethnocentrism which has elevated the slaughter of white European Jews in Auschwitz to a 'metaphysical phenomenon' — to a horror somehow qualitatively different from the suffering of millions of non-Western others. Without minimising Jewish suffering, he expresses repugnance at the narrow viewpoint that would ignore the rest of the world.
The book is also admirable for its rigorous scholarship. Rodinson is even careful to begin with a detailed definition of what is a Jew. There are also two valuable essays written for the Encyclopeadia Universalis. 'Nation and Ideology' is not specifically about the Jews, but the topic is obviously a starting point for anyone examining Jewish history and politics. Rodinson shows that modern nationalism is not a timeless element of the human condition, but is a product of a certain period of history. Likewise, he shows that various ideological forms of group identification go back to ancient times. Unfortunately, an encyclopaedia must be concise, and it is difficult to do justice to so huge a topic in a short piece. The result is rather head-spinning.
The second encyclopaedia piece, 'What is Zionism?' flows better. It is one of the best short pieces on the origins and early history of Zionism. It suffers from an apparent attempt at 'even-handedness'. Some statements which were dodgy in 1972 when the essay was written are utterly ridiculous today. Rodinson claims, for example, that Israel has had some beneficial consequences for Jews: economic and military success, leading to improvement in their world image, as well as a 'secure refuge for persecuted and harassed Jews'. Had the essay been written in 1984, it is unlikely that Rodinson would have been so generous. However this is a minor irritation in an otherwise sound piece.
One of the high points of the book is the controversial essay 'From the Jewish Nation to the Jewish Problem'. It was written as an introduction to the French edition of Abram Leon's classic The Jewish Question: A Marxist Analysis. Leon, a Belgian Trotskyist who died in Auschwitz, set out to prove that there was no spiritual or mysterious quality that exempts Jews from the general laws of history. The Jews survived not because of religion, but in spite of it. He elaborated the theory that Jews, like other peoples, constituted a 'people-class'. In other words, Jews played a specific social role in the societies in which they dwelled which prevented their total assimilation. Rodinson examines this theory in the light of historical information unavailable for Leon. He has some substantial criticisms of Leon's material, but claims to be expounding upon his fundamentally sound analysis.
It is obviously impossible here to outline the points of this debate, and one needs very specialised knowledge to determine the validity of the critique. But for those interested in further reading, there is a reply to Rodinson in the American edition of Leon's book. Nathan Weinstock, author of Zionism: False Messiah, criticises Rodinson severely for his objections, and upholds Leon's original material.
Their differences notwithstanding, Leon, Weinstock and Rodinson all agree on the two fundamental issues. First of all, as Rodinson explains, 'Judaism is explained by history and not outside it'. And secondly, that Zionism has offered no panacea to the problems of world Jewry, but has aggravated them. Finally, Rodinson pays homage to Leon's courage and lucidity in producing so innovative a work in the dire conditions of the Belgian resistance to Nazi occupation. He delivers an inspiring message to everyone, particularly Jews, to follow Léon's example in trying to halt the process set in motion towards more and more reactionary options.
A curious inclusion in the collection is a 45-page mea culpa of Rodinson's 21 years in the French Communist Party. He needn't have wasted the reader's time. For, unfortunately, in the only essay written since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Rodinson comes out with a solution to the Palestinians Israel conflict which is virtually indistinguishable from any CP's position. The title alone should arouse suspicion: 'Conditions of Co-existence' puts forward the astonishing position that, with good will and understanding on both sides, an Israeli state and a Palestinian state can live side by side.
Rodinson rejects the PLO position for a democratic secular state where Muslim, Christian and Jew can live together. He believes that the Israeli Jews are not a traditional religious community as such. Rather, he believes that despite their disparate origins, the Israelis now constitute a nation-in-formation. Therefore both Palestinian and Israeli nations need a political structure — a nation-state — of their own for the foreseeable future. The Arabs, he says, would have to accept an Israeli state. He allows that this is a tough one, given the ruthless manner in which the Zionists succeeded in their original project. He does not allow for a second that Jewish colonisation on Palestine was legitimate, but he is prepared to accept the fait accompli.
On the Israeli side, Zionists would have to define the limits of their borders for once and for all, and promise not to step out of line. Secondly, they would have to show more patience and understanding to Arab public opinion and acknowledge 'that the Arabs of Palestine had primordial rights to this land, which they inhabited and cultivated. Their renunciation of these rights can be negotiated, but it cannot be expected that they will acknowledge that they never existed'. An astonishing statement indeed. It is mind-boggling that someone of Rodinson's calibre would ultimately [illegible] to so simplistic and pragmatic.
Whether or not there is now an Israeli nation as opposed to a Jewish nation is a valid ongoing debate among Marxists. Certainly, just as nations can be destroyed, they can also be created under certain circumstances. Even if, for argument's sake, we accept Rodinson's position on the Israeli nation, his conclusions do not necessarily flow. In an interview with Moshe Machover which appears in Weinstock's above-mentioned book, he speaks of an Israeli-Jewish nationality and a Palestinian-Arab nationality. His conclusion is that the most favourable scenario for coexistence is a voluntary socialist union of the Arab East. This internationalist socialist viewpoint is far less utopian than waiting for Shamir and Sharon, or even Peres and Rabin to limit their horizons.
PAM SINGER is a socialist in the NUR and an activist in the Palestine solidarity movement.