The Battles Over Jewish Indigeneity (with Shai Hershel)

Vision Magazine · TNS 062: Battles Over Jewish Indigeneity (with Shai Hershel)

Following a controversial comic published in Jewish Currents that criticized the shallow use of postcolonial buzzwords by the hasbara community, Yehuda HaKohen and Vision organizer Shai Hershel discuss the broader debate between pro-Israel & pro-Palestinian Diaspora Jews over the question of Jewish decolonization & indigeneity to Eretz Yisrael.

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Guest: Shai Hershel

Hosted by: Yehuda HaKohen

First I respect Rabbi yehuda and shai is a solid kid too, but I gotta take issue with the entire premise of this podcast today. I have learned a lot about Jews, Judaism and Jewish indigenous status from Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Gavriel. I do however also think that your attempt to appeal to the left is resulting in you throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

the Idea that pro israel organisations somehow “made it worse” by talking about indigenous status is sheer and utter nonsense. The left and specifically pro palestinian activists, didnt suddenly start hating jews in 2006 when the discourse began to gain more momentum.

I don’t believe that all pro israel organisations started talking about it in a shallow way but I do agree that many basically just took the language without manifesting any authentic decolonialist work or actions.

decolonising in a Jewish sense would mean leaving behind diasporic nonsense, leaving behind the self abnegation and sucking up to the arabs, pretending that they have a claim on par with your own.

I also think you need to stop perpetuating the leftist bullshit about power dynamics, in fact power dynamics have nothing to do with indigenous status, we are not indigenous because we are weak, but because we are in fact of the land. its the same with Jews.

Jewish currents is about as Jewish as a ham and cheese sandwich on challah bread, their attempt to “debunk” indigenous status by mocking Jewish indigenous status was a joke. if I was to do something similiar to the left and their ridiculous attempts to suck up to arab colonisers, I get death threats, this is the difference here.

anyway, to me the bottom line is that Jews in general have had to watch as arabs stole their story, stole their identity and literally changed definitions to attack Jews.

I like Vision, you do good work, but sometimes I strongly disagree with you, this would be one of those times. the arabs are treated the way they are because of their own actions, not because of some “oppression” by Jews. if you really decolonised, it would mean dealing with the arabs the way king david would. that would not go very well internationally.

1 Comment

Ryan Bellerose says:

October 21, 2021 at 8:19 pm

First I respect Rabbi yehuda and shai is a solid kid too, but I gotta take issue with the entire premise of this podcast today. I have learned a lot about Jews, Judaism and Jewish indigenous status from Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Gavriel. I do however also think that your attempt to appeal to the left is resulting in you throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

the Idea that pro israel organisations somehow “made it worse” by talking about indigenous status is sheer and utter nonsense. The left and specifically pro palestinian activists, didnt suddenly start hating jews in 2006 when the discourse began to gain more momentum.

I don’t believe that all pro israel organisations started talking about it in a shallow way but I do agree that many basically just took the language without manifesting any authentic decolonialist work or actions.

decolonising in a Jewish sense would mean leaving behind diasporic nonsense, leaving behind the self abnegation and sucking up to the arabs, pretending that they have a claim on par with your own.

I also think you need to stop perpetuating the leftist bullshit about power dynamics, in fact power dynamics have nothing to do with indigenous status, we are not indigenous because we are weak, but because we are in fact of the land. its the same with Jews.

Jewish currents is about as Jewish as a ham and cheese sandwich on challah bread, their attempt to “debunk” indigenous status by mocking Jewish indigenous status was a joke. if I was to do something similiar to the left and their ridiculous attempts to suck up to arab colonisers, I get death threats, this is the difference here.

anyway, to me the bottom line is that Jews in general have had to watch as arabs stole their story, stole their identity and literally changed definitions to attack Jews.

I like Vision, you do good work, but sometimes I strongly disagree with you, this would be one of those times. the arabs are treated the way they are because of their own actions, not because of some “oppression” by Jews. if you really decolonised, it would mean dealing with the arabs the way king david would. that would not go very well internationally.