Reformedville

Kinship and Consent:
The Jewish Political Tradition
and Its Contemporary Uses

Daniel J. Elazar

Politics is, in many respects, the Cinderella of Jewish studies. Much attention has been lavished on the development of Jewish religious, legal, and social practice; probably even more has been written about the history of Jewish Gentile relations. By comparison, the study of the Jewish political tradition — with all that it entails for an understanding of Jewish modes of self-government, Jewish political perceptions, and Jewish political responsibilities — remains an almost uncharted area.

This omission is surprising. Concerns of an intrinsically political nature, have, after all, constantly lain at the very heart of much Jewish thought and practice. Traditionally, indeed, the validity of Jewish teaching has always been considered to find best expression in a political setting, through a polity in which Jews bear the responsibility for creating the “kingdom of heaven” (Hebrew: malkhut shamayim — the good commonwealth) on earth. Hence, the Bible is replete with examples of political behavior and contains seminal ideas concerning political organization and obligation. In turn, these are reflected and quoted in later texts of Jewish law. Furthermore, and as the entire chronicle of the Jewish diaspora experience indicates, Jewish political practice did not come to an abrupt end with the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent Exile of the Jews from the Holy Land. Throughout their dispersion, the Jews continued to develop and embellish distinctive patterns of communal government, and it was in accordance with these that communal authority was conferred and accepted.

Total uniformity was, of course, impossible. Geographical, temporal and cultural circumstances compelled individual communities to develop in different ways. What is remarkable, nevertheless, is the extent of the similarities and continuities in the political practices of the Jewish people, and the degree to which those practices remained faithful to a commonly acknowledged source. A survey of legal, homiletic and philosophical literature reveals the preservation of a shared Jewish political terminology, a distinctive Jewish political outlook, and a common approach to political institution-building. In short, it confirms the existence of a specifically Jewish political tradition, with all that the term implies in the way of a continuous dialogue regarding proper and common modes of political behavior, accepted institutional forms, and authentic political norms.

There exists a sad irony in the fact that the very existence of a Jewish political tradition should have gone virtually unrecognized in our own time. It might have been expected that the Jewish national revival of the twentieth century would have generated attempts to enhance public awareness of the political tradition of which it forms a part. In effect, the operational resurgence of the concept of a Jewish polity in the modern State of Israel has not been accompanied by an awareness of its historical parallels and roots. Concentrating their focus on what is novel in the present Jewish institutions in Israel and the diaspora, past and present; equally obscured is the evidence which indicates that contemporary Jewry functions — for the most part unconsciously — in the political arena in no small measure on the basis of certain fundamental beliefs and practices which are embedded in Jewish culture. There has been very little regard for the fact that the present behavioral patterns of the Jewish political world, revolutionary though some of them might seem, are in essence extensions and modifications of a tradition which possesses deep roots in the entire course of Jewry’s long and eventful history.

Attempting to correct this situation has initiated a systematic effort to recover the several dimensions of the Jewish political tradition.¹One purpose of this venture is, clearly, scholarly: the desire to demonstrate the extent to which the Jewish political tradition constitutes an integral segment of the entire fabric of Jewish tradition, a sine qua non of that tradition given Jewry’s hallowed commitment to peoplehood and the attainment of Divine redemption through the creation of the “kingdom of heaven” — the good commonwealth — on earth. No less compelling, however, is the contemporary communal importance of the Center’s enterprise. As is often acknowledged, an increasing number of Jews find themselves expressing their Jewish identity principally or substantially through their identification with Jewish political issues — support for Israel, the struggle for the emigration of Soviet Jewry, and the like. In this respect, they may be described as neo-Sadducees, Jews who find their principal means for expressing Jewishness through the public institutions and affairs of the Jewish people. For such people, linkage to the Jewish political tradition may constitute a primary medium of linking them to Jewish tradition in its entirety. Awareness of the tradition, and an understanding of its resonance, promises in effect to enhance and buttress Jewish self-consciousness in our times, and thereby to play a crucial role in contemporary Jewish life in both Israel and the diaspora.

It is in the light of such considerations that it is appropriate to build a comprehensive and fully integrated program in the Jewish political tradition and its contemporary uses. Drawing upon the vast storehouse of accumulated Jewish historiography, and utilizing the methodologies more recently developed in the political and social sciences, such a program can arouse contemporary awareness of both the importance and relevance of the topic. This is a venture which must, of necessity, engage the attention of Jewish political and communal leaders, as well as academics. Such a program will not only fill a scholarly lacunai, but also should make a contribution to the continuing development of a tradition of enduring worth.

Jewish political studies emphasizes the organization of the Jewish community as a polity — a corporate entity whose structure, institutions and processes have reflected the continuing effort of the Jewish people to govern itself under a variety of conditions. As a field, it is designed to recover and enrich the political dimensions of Jewish life in all its manifestations.

The subject matter of Jewish political studies falls into three major divisions: Jewish political institutions and behavior, Jewish political thought, and Jewish public affairs. At least nineteen areas of concern have been identified on the basis of these divisions as reflected in the literature currently available. They include:

Civic Education
Contemporary Issues
Country, Community and Area Studies
Defining the Boundaries of Jewish Society
External Relations
Intercommunity Relations
Israel
Jewish Organizations and Interest Groups
Jewish Political and Communal Institutions
Jewish Political Behavior
Jewish Political Culture
Jewish Political Organization
Jewish Political Thought
Jewish Public Law
Public Personalities
Religious Movements, Ideologies and Public Persuasions
Research Approaches and Methods
Subdivisions of the Jewish People
The Course of Jewish Public Affairs

There are four primary tasks that should occupy the field:

(i) Investigation - research into Jewish political theory and practice, past and present, and the development of Jewish attitudes towards the exercise of political prerogatives.

(ii) Interpretation - the analysis of Jewish political behavior and its meaning in light of the constitutional bases and divisions of the Jewish polity.

(iii) Policy Application - the utilization of scholarship in Jewish public affairs.

(iv) Presentation - the dissemination of the fruits of ongoing research to a variety of audiences — academic, professional, and general.

Ultimately, therefore, the selection will not only include immediately appropriate citations from biblical and Mishnaic sources; it will also incorporate quotations from the vast literature of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud; the great halakhiccodes; the entire tradition of rabbinic responsa; various communal and synodal takkanot (ordinances); modern rabbinic pronouncements; communal manifestos; organizational directives; and — in the case of the State of Israel — governmental decrees. Even thus baldly to recite the potential source literature is to reveal the magnitude (and importance) of the undertaking. Few of these sources have been mined from a political perspective — even though research has already dispelled all possible doubts that they might profitably be so mined. Simply rescuing such materials from the obscurity to which they have hitherto been condemned, and attaching to them discreet explanatory notes and short biographical profiles, will make an important contribution to Jewish scholarship.

3. The Structure and Functioning of Jewish Communities. Notwithstanding the vast number of community studies to have appeared during the past century, there still exists a need for a systematic historical examination of the institutional and political dynamics of Jewish life throughout the course of its evolution based on the canons of political science. No less necessary are analytical examinations of the contemporary Jewish world, which might throw light on the nature and form of present Jewish government in both Israel and the diaspora.

What most studies to date have provided consists, in effect, of little more than raw materials — and even then, much of the data is lacking and what there is, is still being collated. The information presently available has now to be reexamined and then restructured, in order that it might present a consolidated picture of the functions and services performed by various agencies within and across Jewish communities throughout the world.⁵

4. The Jewish Language of Politics. The absence of a lexicon of Jewish political terms constitutes yet another lacuna of the field. The omission is particularly deplorable, since it is the language of political discourse — the manner whereby key terms are coined, adapted, and sometimes discarded — which provides one of the most important keys to an understanding of the concepts which they attempt to transmit. Consequently, a historical dictionary of such terms promises to provide a mirror to the development of the Jewish political tradition in its entirety.

Some initial steps have been taken in this direction. The Jerusalem Center has compiled a file index of some fifty major Jewish political terms, noting their frequencies, contexts and connotations. Making use of this information, The Jewish Polity further listed Jewish political terms (old, new, changed, foreign derivatives) epoch by constitutional epoch. Among the initial works in this field are Lawrence Berman’s Lexicon of Medieval Terms(Stanford, 1973), and Gordon Freeman’s The Heavenly Kingdom, Rabbinic Political Thought (University Press of America/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1985).⁶Here, too, however, scholarship can claim to have done no more than scratch the surface of a very deep mine. Yet to be explored in a systematic fashion are the vast storehouses of the Jewish tradition: the Bible, the Talmuds, the great halakhic codes, and the responsa. Now that many of these materials can be computerized, students of the field can look forward to both mastering them and examining them for their specifically political content. In this connection, the Responsa Project at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, is a vital resource.

5. Studies of Jewish Political Personalities. Who have been the principal architects of Jewish constitutional development throughout the ages? Who have played roles as statesmen, leading the edah and its subdivisions within the constitutional framework in which they find themselves? Who have cast their eyes upon Jewish constitutional materials and their implications for the polity, acting as influential commentators on what they see rather than as either a shaper or moulder of constitutional developments?

The Jewish Politywas probably the first work of its kind to ask such questions, and to present such a categorization. the findings there presented have now to be tested and pursued. What this involves is far more than individual studies of whoever is deemed to have been a “prominent personality” in Jewish history. The need is for essentially political biographies, which stress — not only the ‘life’ of their subjects, but also the “constitutional times” within which such lives were lived.

6. Jewish Political Parties. Whatever the truth in the conventional notion that the Jews have always been a factious people, there is no doubt that the formation of particular parties (and in some epochs entire ‘camps’ of parties) has constituted a particularly dominant characteristic of Jewish constitutional history. Indeed, it can be claimed that the great turning points of that unfolding story can be traced almost entirely to the divisive effect exerted on the entire Jewish polity by crucial questions of essentially constitutional import. For example, one need only examine the history of the division of the two kingdoms after the death of King Solomon; the break between the Pharisees and the Sadducees; the Rabbanite campaign against the Karaites; the conflict between Hassidim and Mitnagdim; and the rift caused by the appearance of political Zionism.

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If you are not familiar with what a Kinist or Kinism in here may be some brief helpful links:

Kinism

What is Kinism? - Harry Seabrook

On Kinism and what it is

If one would no know better you would think they stole many of their philosophies and methods right out of the Jews own playbook.

Our problems are not created because of any race, and I still posit Americas problem stem from God’s judgment on the Christian for his failure to fulfill his Kingdom purpose but instead be worshipping at the altar of the government and prosperity, in effect, worshipping other Gods before Him.