By Gilad Atzmon
JVP is moving from strength to strength. Though it didn’t liberate Palestine yet, it certainly managed to convince a few Jews that Jewishness is actually a good thing.
Today we learned that the legendary activist and scholar Noam Chomsky appealed to the general public to donate to the Jews only Group.
In the letter Chomsky admitted that “these days, there are really only a handful of Jewish organizations that honor the traditions of universal equality that inspired me to be an activist so many years ago.”
Chomsky is no doubt a clever boy, he surely knows why there are only a handful of Jewish organizations that subscribe to universalism. Jewish culture and identity politics are tribal. In other words, Jewish politics is anything but universal. Chomsky knows very well that JVP is a Jews only group. Though it is happy to take donation from everyone, its leadership is Jewish. Accordingly, Ahmad, Salem or Ali wouldn’t become JVP’s leaders. They are not racially qualified.
So I am left wondering what Chomsky has in mind when he refers to “Jewish organizations that honor the traditions of universal equality”? Can a Jew only organization be universal? I guess that Chomsky would say ‘yes’, as long as it is universally Jewish.
The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics - available on Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk