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PARTISAN REVIEW
The people of every nation have a complicated and significant rela–
tionship with the Jews living there; some of the relationships are especially
complicated and burdened, like the Germans'. Non-Jews can also say:
"Jews are citizens just like us, let there be no racial distinction! And now
Jews themselves initiate the making of racial distinctions? If the Jews stand
apart, they will be made to stand apart by others as well. Do they really
want this?" If they consider themselves a people, then they do the same as
the other minority fundamentalists and autonomists. There are ethnic hard
liners in every community. Isn't it a more fortunate and safer choice to stay
behind the fortifications of constitutional patriotism?
In the big cities, plural societies are being formed, with members
mainly drawn from the majority nationality, but other groups are sewn in
too, retaining some of their particularity, consciousness, language, unique
civilization, and keeping contact wi th another country, where they came
from, or where their relatives are, a country which most likely stands up
in
their defense. The limits of integration are blurry by nature: hard, sharp
definitions do not fit, since there are many Jews throughout the world who
are bourgeois, non-practicing, and possibly even avoid the life of organized
denomination; they may nevertheless have several Jewish relatives, friends,
and acquaintances; in other words, they are connected to Jewishness by real
life bonds, connected to Jewish society, which can even be called a global
society.
Following emancipation, ethnic nationalism expelled Jews from the
community of those with equal rights. Zionism was a realistic response–
another ethnic-nationalist solution. The nation-state is the key concept of
this option, the sovereignity of the nation-state as the value of first rank.
Seeing Israel, I believe this alternative was rightful and successful, as one
solution.
For the Jews who remain in the Diaspora, another realistic response is
a kind of worldly universalism compatible with Western-type liberal
democracies and with the position protecting human rights first and fore–
most, a position offering security to Jews, among others. Outside of the
state of Israel, worldly Jews demand ethnic-national self-definition that is
as non-res tricting as possible. Talent transcends religious-ethnic circum–
scription. Important for the Jewish minority is the question of behavior it
considers exemplary with respect to the non-Jewish majority. The societal–
political-cultural position of the Jews is plural; it is difficult for them to
conceive of themselves as a homogenous national minority with common
interests and positions. There are places where they represent themselves
