examined Puritanism and radicalism, turned later to the Hebrew Bible in Exodus and (1985). Aaron Wildavsky shifted his attention from bureaucracies and policy implementation to issues of leadership in the Jewish tradition (The Nursing Father: Moses as a Political Leader, 1984). Two of our Fellows, Ken Wald and Herbert Weissberg, published extensively on American politics before they became interested in American Jewish political behavior. Sociologist Lenore Weitzman was acclaimed for her studies of divorce policies and women in the Holocaust Introduction prior to taking up the issue of contemporary Agunot. Nancy Sinkoff worked on the early East Zvi Gitelman European Haskalah before turning to American Jewish political ideas. Brian Horowitz wrote about Russian-Jewish intelligentsia before Vladimir Zhabotinsky as a politician. Thus, most important studies of Jews and politics are by well-trained scholars whose original interests lay elsewhere. I hope the work of the Frankel Institute’s Fellows in 2011–12 will stimulate social scientists and others to work on the political thought and behavior of Jews across space and time. How have Jews thought about politics and how have they acted politically? What can we **** learn about political life by comparing Jews to other ethnic or religious groups? During the Broadly speaking, Jewish ideas are absent from academic year 2011–12, sixteen Fellows of the the academic study of political theory, and, in Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies turn, political analysis has almost no place in addressed several dimensions of Jewish political Judaic Studies. The study of political theory experience: political thought and political be- conventionally begins with and , havior, both as a sovereign and diasporic people. and usually includes no Jewish texts, other Only in the last twenty years has than those of Jewish-born a Jewish political tradition been widely recog- and . True, “Classic” Jewish literature nized. The recent pioneers in reviving the (Bible, Talmud) contains no systematic, com- subject, including the late Daniel Elazar and prehensive works of political thought. However, Stuart Cohen, a participant in one of our concepts in that literature have informed the Symposia, were followed by political theorist political thinking and behavior of Jews and Michael Walzer. They made signal contributions others for several thousand years. The idea of with their historical-analytic studies of Jewish constitutional monarchy, for example, probably political institutions. Walzer, whose first book finds its first expression in the Hebrew Bible

4 (Deuteronomy 16) and is concretized in Samuel Jewish communities without power had I, 7. Other political concepts include: limited authority (the ability to command behavior sovereignty, division of functions and powers, without using force). Their communal self-gov- popular participation, covenant (Genesis 12,14, erning bodies (kehillot) could oversee religious, Deuteronomy 23, Joshua 1, 2) akin to “social educational, health and welfare interests of contract,” and treaties (Genesis 21, Joshua 9). Jews. Local and regional kehillot in Europe The Talmud deals with such fundamental developed remarkably modern institutions: concepts as eminent domain, the public interest, burial , communal assemblies, chari- and individual . Later rabbinic com- table organizations, infirmaries, and schools. mentators such as in his “Hilchot These were not democratic institutions but Melachim,” which ranges across issues of they presaged the modern welfare state and governance, elaborate on these ideas. In the planted seeds of self-governance and auton- last two centuries secular political ideologues omy, keeping alive administrative and organi- concerned with the Jewish people emerged as zational skills that were to serve a sovereign Zionists, Bundists, and Territorialists, while state in the mid-twentieth century. religious thinkers grappled with issues such as The establishment of the State of Israel Jewish statehood, its nature and boundaries. in 1948 launched a new era in Jewish politics. A second important dimension of Jews’ What exactly is a “Jewish state”— one with a relationship to politics is political behavior. Jewish majority, one guided by Jewish Jews have experienced politics as both a sov- (halacha), or where Jewish culture predominates? ereign people and dispersed minority. They Is it an ethnic state, devoted to the interests have faced challenges of ruling and of being of a particular people, or a civic state, which ruled. Despite many failures, Jews managed to unites people of different ethnicities under survive through strategies of the weak, espe- a common democratic ideal? Can Israel be a cially shtadlones (intercession), exemplified in “Jewish state” and still be a when the Biblical Book of Esther. Jewish strategies one of five Israeli citizens is not Jewish? How shifted in the late 19th century to mobilization can one combine an ethnic state with de- and assertiveness, though tactically Jews often mocracy? One Fellow, Sammy Smooha, has failed. The rise of such political movements as pioneered in this area and created empirical Bundism and both symptomized mod- bases to study intra-Jewish and Arab-Jewish ernization and caused its further development. relations. A third dimension of Jewish politi- The following pages reveal some of cal experience is communal autonomy within the range and possibilities of studying Jews larger and sovereign states, a remarkable and politics honed in weekly workshops and example of authority without sovereignty, le- frequent colloquia. There, we broadened our gitimacy without power. Lacking armies, police, horizons, tested our ideas among friendly and the force of state law, Jews had few instru- critics, and brought some of the fruits of our ments of power (the ability to coerce). However, labors to broader audiences. We are all grate- because the medieval state was limited in scope ful for the opportunity to work in a lively and ambition, it permitted centers of authority, and supportive academic setting and thank such as the church, land-owning aristocracy, the director and staff of the Institute for the religious and ethnic minorities, considerable opportunity to do so. latitude in running their own affairs. Thus,

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