Jews - Nearly Everything You Wanted to Know* *But Were Too Afraid to Ask - Peter Cave
8. Is there a Future for Jews and Judaism Outside of Israel?
Jews - Nearly Everything You Wanted to Know* *But Were Too Afraid to Ask - Peter Cave
Peter Cave [+]
The Open University and New York University (London)
Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, sits on the Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and is Patron of Humanists UK and of Population Matters. He has published many papers, light and serious. His books include This Sentence is False: an introduction to philosophical paradoxes and three ‘beginner’s guides’: Humanism; Philosophy; and Ethics. His most recent work is The Big Think Book: Discover Philosophy Through 99 Perplexities. He has written and presented philosophy programmes for BBC radio, and often takes part in public debates.
Peter lives in Soho, central London, enjoys opera, lieder and chamber music (well, he thinks he knows what he likes), even delights in religious music, despite his atheism — and is irritated by builders’ drillings, pointless burglar alarms and unnecessary thuds of music in cafes, restaurants and shops. He is often to be found with a glass of wine — or two.
Dan Cohn-Sherbok [+]
University of Wales (Emeritus Professor) and Rabbi
Dan is the author and editor of a number of books dealing with Israel including Israel: The History of an Idea; The Palestine-Israeli Conflict (with Dawoud El-Alami); Debating Israel and Palestine (with Mary Grey); The Politics of Apocalypse: The History and Influence of Christian Zionism; Introduction to Zionism and Israel: From Ideology to History; The Palestinian State: A Jewish Justification. He has also published several books of cartoons.
Dan lives in Kensington (and Wales) with his wife Lavinia and his Burmese cat. He is frequently to be found drawing cartoons in his London club.
Description
When Zionism emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, secular Zionists argued that Jews would never be secure in the countries where they resided. In 1897, at the first Zionist Congress, Max Nordau, a co-founder of the World Zionist Organization, spoke about the condition of Jewry. Wherever Jews lived in large numbers, he declared, they were subject to misery. Proponents of Jewish emancipation argued that if legal restrictions against Jews were lifted, this would result in the amelioration of Jewish deprivation. This happened in the West, yet human beings do not live by bread alone. The old forms of misery, he stressed, have been replaced by new ones. Antisemitism exists even in the most enlightened countries. In The Jewish State, published prior to the Congress, Theodor Herzl argued that his campaign for a Jewish homeland was not utopian theory: rather, the enterprise was a realistic proposal arising from Jewish oppression and persecution.