Edito

If further proof were needed of the authoritarian slope on which the Israeli government is currently sliding down on, it can be found in the treatment it reserves for critical intellectuals. Such is the case of Eva Illouz, a long-standing contributor to the K.: her nomination for the Israel Prize has just been challenged by the Israeli Minister of Education on the grounds that she is spreading an “anti-Israeli ideology”, an accusation which in its latest developments is evolving towards that of a betrayal of the Jewish people. To revisit this affair and what it reveals about the state of Israeli democracy, Eva Illouz agreed to answer our questions. In this interview, she discusses her uncomfortable position, in which the vice tightening its grip on Jews who have not forgotten their attachment to progressivism is refracted: “traitors” to left-wing universalism for their defense of the Zionist idea, “traitors” to Israel for their criticism of the authoritarianism of its government and for their defense of the rights of the Palestinians…

That after the Armenian genocide and the Shoah, the genocidal passion is by no means extinguished is revealed by the crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994, by their unprecedented scale and their systematic nature of execution of each member of the Tutsi people, targeted both individually and indiscriminately. At a time when the survivors are growing old and the denial of the crime that struck them continues to circulate, and when the contemporary uses of the term genocide denote a desire to anathematize rather than to make the situation intelligible, it seemed necessary to us to recall what the memory of the genocide entails. This is why we are republishing a report written in 2007 for Charlie Hebdo by Stéphane Bou, who questions the duration of the Tutsi genocide and the memorial work specific to this ordeal.

Everyone appreciates chocolate eggs, and the flavor of Easter lamb (or whatever is used instead) is ultimately fairly consensual. More discriminating is the appetite for the miracle of resurrection and the redemption of sins. But if there is one exceptional dish that only some people know how to appreciate, it is that of the exchange of words. On the occasion of Passover and the Seder meal, Ivan Segré has entrusted us with a text questioning what we find to sink our teeth into during this “feast of words”, where the story of a liberation that is still in the process of being accomplished is shared. Comparing it to the Greco-Roman banquet, he highlights the Jewish opposition to the use of freedom and speech exercised by the masters.

What can the individual do in the face of an increasingly complex social reality? It is the question that, as our world undergoes drastic upheavals, cannot fail to arise for each of us. However, just because it needs to be asked does not mean that it is being asked, and even less that a satisfactory answer is being given. This is demonstrated by the feeling of powerlessness currently prevailing in our democracies, which serves as fertile ground for the populist promise of regaining control over reality through its outrageous simplification. But it is also illustrated by two modern myths, one classic and one pop, analyzed by the philosopher Julia Christ. In Goethe’s Faust and the series Breaking Bad, the temptation to escape powerlessness is addressed through a demiurgic act of passage, the destructive side of which is always carried out by a strangely Judaized devil. How can we counter this disastrous slope of modernity, which seems to inevitably unite thought and Jews in a community of sacrificed destiny? Only the social sciences, reconnecting with their original impulse, could prevent our political debacle: by producing an interpretation of the world that allows for its effective transformation, not its negation in the form of enjoyment.

If the feeling of powerlessness results from a poor description of the situation in which we find ourselves, an effective diagnosis opens up the field of possibilities for thoughtful action. The interview with Israeli feminist activist Hadas Ragolsky that we are publishing this week, at a time when the protest against the Netanyahu government is in full swing on the streets of Israel, could have a beneficial effect in this respect. Let’s hope so. It is a chance to read about the decisive issues currently facing Israeli democracy, in a political power struggle that will decide the country’s future. The Jews of the diaspora cannot remain indifferent to these issues, nor can they be content to pay lip service to them. Ragolsky’s stirring appeal serves as a reminder: “The Jews of Europe could well be the last supporters of a democratic Israel”.

“Today, I only feel Jewish,” said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, on the occasion of the publication of his book Souvenirs d’un apatride, published by Flammarion. We are therefore republishing the interview he gave us last December. He said he felt like ‘a Jew without being Jewish, while being Jewish without being one’. It is worth noting that in the space of a few months, he has become more confident…

It is perfectly normal for the State of Israel to be concerned about antisemitism and to organize an international conference in Jerusalem on the subject, since the Zionist project was born out of a diagnosis of Europe’s insurmountable hostility towards Jews. The mechanism known as the Law of Return is, in this sense, the institutional translation of the reciprocal link that unites this State designed for Jews and the Jews who, throughout the world, are potentially in search of shelter. But the current spokespeople of this State are taking the initiative of inviting forces whose Jews know full well that the switch to anti-antisemitism is purely opportunistic and their sincerity more than doubtful. The form taken by this initiative of the Ministry of the Diaspora sounds, let’s be clear about this, like a betrayal of the diaspora. We can try to relieve ourselves by telling ourselves that this initiative is the result of ignorance of the situation of the Jews, a hypothesis that the abysmal lack of culture of the right and the extreme right wing of the government makes plausible. But make no mistake: what the guest list for this conference reflects is nothing less than a deliberate alignment with the most reactionary and authoritarian forces already in power in certain countries, and firm support for those who aspire to it. The latter hope that the road to Jerusalem will open the doors of power to them, in a context, it must be said, where the radical left in France, Great Britain and elsewhere has now openly pre-empted the antisemitic discourse. This confusion, which K. has repeatedly echoed, does not prevent us from seeing clearly: the guest list for the Jerusalem Conference on Antisemitism, barely concealed under the sprinkling of honorable invitees, outlines the plan to make Jerusalem the capital of the Reaction. Those, fortunately numerous, who are truly concerned about antisemitism can only decline this poisoned invitation. The text of the great German historian of Judaism, Michael Brenner, says loudly and painfully what can no longer be ignored: that the State of Israel, through its official bodies, is organizing its own blindness in the face of the trap in which the Jews are caught, and is demonstrating a drift that puts it at odds with the values that have guided Jewish history and, with it, the Zionist project. We are also publishing the text of David Hirsh, director of the London Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, explaining why he decided to cancel his participation in the conference. With this, the internal division of Israeli society is being reflected in the international arena, and therefore concerns us directly. This is why it is important that a clear word be spoken to counter this disastrous trend.

The Jewish condition, from whatever angle it is viewed, is no mean feat. It is characterized rather by a constitutive restlessness, where the pleasure of momentary consolation is not without a mistrust of that which comes to reassure. So anyone who, forgetting that good questions are not meant to be closed, claims to know what the phrase “Jewish identity” covers would be very clever. The fact remains, and it never ceases to amaze, that some people recognize themselves in this insecure identity. It is this mystery that Romain Moor has chosen to investigate, based on a notion that makes it even more opaque. What is a “crypto-Jew”? When it is not the object of antisemitic fantasy, “crypto-Jew” denotes an obscure trace in family history which, when followed, seems to point irresistibly to hidden Jewish roots. In the four corners of the globe, Moor investigates the quest for identity of those who, on the borders of reality and fiction, make their “Neo-Marrano coming-out”.

Once again, fire is raining down on Gaza. Neither the demands for the return of the hostages addressed to their captors and torturers have been heard. Nor those for negotiations to take precedence addressed to an Israeli government, that is reinforced in its policy of force and which revels in the perpetuation of war. (We are republishing the report of Day 210 after October 7. K. dove into the protests for the liberation of the hostages.) Once again, the declared desire to eliminate the Hamas leadership is being paid for with an unjustified number of Palestinian civilian deaths, and the victims are piling up in the midst of a polarization that no responsible political discourse, in either camp, is able to stop. Such a discourse would presuppose that the current dominant trend, which sometimes seems on the verge of sweeping everything away, is finally being countered: the trend that inclines towards unbridled nihilism, the nature of which has yet to be diagnosed.

In terms of such a diagnosis, it is equally striking to see that what brings us closest today, in our regions, is the reflection that arises from the apparently irrepressible surge of antisemitism. What do antisemitic people believe in? Answer: Nothing. But in this case, it is a Nothing that becomes all-powerful and all-consuming. It proliferates in the period we are living through. The important thing here is the gesture that denies, because when speech is decreed powerless, all that remains is to oppose it with the perspective of an act that would have the immense capacity to exhaust all meaning. From this arise those apocalyptic dreams, half-exalted and half-anguished, in which the possibility of finally finding a world to match oneself emerges for the subject who is sustained only by this negation. But it is also the breeding ground in which strange acts flourish – a misery of current political affairs – which, in order to present themselves on the public stage, nevertheless radically refuse to be interpreted. For those curious about the origins of this resounding nihilism, which is specific to an era that exalts the immediate over representation, and its deep affinities with antisemitism, the philosophical reflection proposed this week by Gérard Bensussan will be a valuable contribution.

Successive reforms to secondary and tertiary education have increased the opacity of the selection process and competition between students. Today stressed pupils and their worried parents are faced with a real obstacle course. Combine this fact with the unease felt by Jewish students in France since October 7 and you get a place where promises of academic excellence rub shoulders with those of a guaranteed refuge: the “Choosing a Jewish School” fair. Two years ago, Maëlle Partouche went there for K., to examine the upsurge in enrolments in the Jewish private sector, and its link with the increase in the number of people leaving for Israel. On the occasion of the sixth edition held on January 19, she returned to assess the effects of October 7 on the educational strategies of Jewish families and their relationship to the possibility of Aliyah. A view from the ground.

K., as our readers know, is an exceptionally serious publication. However, this week’s issue coincides with two carnival-like celebrations, since they call for rejoicing in the subversion of the usual established order of power and domination, until their overthrow. So what can we do to avoid losing our reputation as killjoys? We have found no other solution than to explore the meaning of these festivals, which, if we want to avoid them being reduced to mere masquerades, they must retain a tangible sense of festivity.

Purim is a festival linked to the political condition of Jews in exile, in the sense that it reflects the central issue at stake: that of their protection as a dispersed people. In principle, the Jewish state – which is dedicated to this task of protection – should make the experience of the tension contained in the Book of Esther inaccessible, and therefore Purim obsolete. Yet Purim continued to be celebrated, even where its meaning was most remote. On October 7, by highlighting the function of the Jewish state and its limitations, this progressive derealization was called into question. So much so that, for this year’s Purim, there are calls for Israeli children to adopt the Batman costume worn by Ariel Bibas. But what exactly does this call to update the diasporic festival par excellence in Israel mean? Danny Trom invites us to consider the meaning of Purim, in its disjointedness depending on whether one is in the diaspora or in Israel, but also in its convergence.

What is International Women’s Day if not a procession of calculated tributes, a choreography of sycophantic bows, a high mass of warm feelings where the patriarchy goes to the trouble, once a year, of pretending to bury itself? That, at least, is the opinion of our author Valeria Solanstein who, pastiching Valerie Solanas’ famous SCUM Manifesto of 1967, tells us about the reality of the female condition in the Jewish community on all the days when we don’t pretend that male domination is dying. K. believes that we must hear this cry of rage from a young Jewish woman who is trying to exist in a world that does not want her if she cannot stay put “in her place”. When it comes to women’s emancipation, the Jewish world is no worse than the rest of society, but it is no better either, is what this voice painfully echoes.

It was equally painful to see Jewish women and feminists being rejected again from demonstrations in honor of International Women’s Rights Day. Like last year, this procession, which was supposed to advance the struggle for women’s emancipation, turned into an anti-Israeli forum, stubbornly refusing to hear the suffering that Jewish women endured on October 7, and later in the Hamas tunnels. All this in the name of a twisted universalism, claiming to work for the emancipation of all. To honor Israeli women, who clearly do not belong to this “all” in the eyes of Western feminists, this week we are republishing the chilling text that Julia Christ devoted to the mass rapes on October 7, and to this false universalism where Jewish women seem not to matter.

Almost a year ago, Jean-Claude Milner published a text in K. taking note of the reconfiguration of relations between the United States and Israel – moving towards the latter being placed under trusteeship – and announced, while regretting it, the probable dissolution of Western Judaism in the American WASP sphere. In his diagnosis, Europe was hardly more than a negligible part, which “cares only about itself”: only the United States mattered. Today, as the Trump presidency seems to be setting in motion an imperial revolution of the international order, by challenging the principle of equality between nation states that was that of post-World War II reconstruction – of which the humiliation imposed on Zelenski at the White House was the grotesque illustration – Milner returns to update his diagnosis, in the sense of its confirmation. The perspective that emerges is commensurate with the situation, which is catastrophic, and there is no question of opposing any kind of irenicism to this. But the reader who does not tell himself stories, and is therefore devastated, will be led to become aware of this fact: in the face of the untenable nature of the situation, the European proposal once again becomes decisive. There can be no question of taking comfort in the hope that Europe, which had effectively fallen into political insignificance, will pull itself together in the face of the threat of its enslavement. But at the same time, it must be recognized that Europe is in fact important for the international order that is currently being redrawn, and therefore not only “for itself”. And, in the act by which it asserts itself, it is also important for Jews, as the place where the unity of the dispersed people can find its realization, in contrast to the tendencies which, in Israel, lead to the forgetting of the significance of Zionism for the whole of the diaspora, and, in the United States, contribute to the dissolution of the latter. From the point of view of Jews as well as from the point of view of everyone else, one should then conclude that Europe is still this democratic space resisting reduction to the logic of the balance of power. Under these conditions, it embodies the last perspective from which a political future remains conceivable.

This choice of a democratic future is the one that was made in mid-February in Austria, with the end of negotiations for a coalition between the conservative party (ÖVP) and Herbert Kickl’s sovereignist and authoritarian party (FPÖ). The disagreement concerned, beyond the maximalist desire of the far right to take over the main ministries, the relationship with the fundamental values of European politics and the way to position oneself in the face of Russian aggression. Finally, a pro-European government has been formed, led by Chancellor Christian Stocker and bringing together conservatives, liberals and social democrats, which is very much to be welcomed. Fearing Kickl’s accession to power, K. had asked Liam Hoare for a portrait of the man who proposed to build the “Fortress Austria”. We are publishing it in an updated version, as a testament to what Austria, and Europe, have escaped.

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The Brutalist, after enjoying great success in theaters, has just won three Oscars. But how does Brady Corbet’s film capture the story it intends to tell, that of a famous Hungarian-Jewish architect who survived the Shoah, at the risk of distorting it? Albert Levy reviews this successful film, adding to the informed details of the architect the sensitivity of someone who knows that you don’t leave the United States for Israel simply because “The whole country is rotten”.

Three coffins paraded in front of propaganda images, against a background of triumphant music, before being handed over to the Red Cross: this was the image that extinguished the hope that, despite everything, had endured since October 7. The return of the bodies of the Bibas children and their mother, and the revelation of their abject murder, reactivate this unfortunately real nightmare, in which antisemitic hatred is unleashed on the symbol of the continuity of Jewish life: children. In the face of this crime, there is really nothing to say, and one should be able to feel one’s rage in peace: those who committed it are already beyond redemption. But some have allowed themselves the luxury of forgetting the perversity of the Hamas exterminators, while others have simply never accepted it: in the face of the crime, in the very face of its victims, they see only “Zionist propaganda”. It is therefore necessary to name things once again. Bruno Karsenti’s text serves as a reminder of what hope the Bibas family was called. And, on the day after the funeral of Shiri Bibas and her two children, we are republishing “Kfir’s Rattle” by Joseph Ziegler, who in December 2023 was able to say a few words that were just right for the thoughts that we had at the time about the captivity of this hostage who had already become a symbol. “Kfir, wherever you are, hope with us,” wrote the author at the time. The hope was in vain.

Fortunately, there are still at least a few crumbs of hope left, and the current situation requires that we know how to seize them when they present themselves. So here’s the good news: the AfD’s scores in this weekend’s German federal elections were certainly significant, but less than what those in the West and the East who already see Europe as dead and buried would have liked. Then, the victory speech given by Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU, attempted to rise to the historic challenge, emphasizing the need to organize Europe’s military independence from Americans who have become “largely indifferent to its fate”. That the man who, a few weeks ago, got a motion through the Bundestag with the support of the AfD is now preparing to become Chancellor of Germany is, on the other hand, less reassuring. One can only hope that the insistence with which he ruled out any collaboration with this far-right party after the elections will survive the reality test that is the construction of a coalition in an increasingly fragmented German political landscape. We are therefore re-sharing the rich and detailed investigation by Monty Ott into the history of the AfD, so that we can appreciate what Europe has just escaped.

The speech delivered in Munich by the American Vice-President J. D. Vance made one thing clear – at least to the fringe of the European conscience that has managed to remain lucid: Europe, which has been lethargic for years now, and this despite the looming threats that Vance only had the dubious merit of pronouncing aloud, must pull itself together. However, pulling itself together – and however important it is to reflect on a common European defense policy – cannot be limited to taking realpolitik into account. On this point, we must be sensitive to the diagnosis in the form of a snub that Vance addressed to us, deploring the supposed divorce of Europe from the democratic values and freedom of expression so dear to the United States, even as the Trumpist regime is taking the path of open authoritarianism and systematic censorship. In the absence of a strong conception of Europe and its political vocation, there is a risk that the same path will be followed. That the lethargy of a liberalism that has long since ceased to reflect on the political basis of its existence will be succeeded by the very real nightmare of a sovereignism subservient to the great powers and playing “democracy” against the law.

In the very short term, that of the decisive federal elections that will take place in Germany this weekend, this nightmare has a name: AfD. We are therefore publishing a text by Monty Ott on the history of this movement, and the democratic cataclysm that the collaboration of conservative parties with the far right would represent. Vance also indicated where his allies were to be found, by meeting the AfD’s candidate for the chancellorship, Alice Weidel, and by describing the treatment of this party as a “denial of democracy”. We also know about the sympathies that unite the international networks of the far right with Putin’s Russia. The paradox is only apparent: the sovereignism of “national preference” becomes subservient to the great policies of national power, insofar as it knows no other policy than force.

It is against this threat that Europe must be able to formulate the exceptional nature of its political project, which is rightly based on a distrust, acquired in the trials of history, of any policy of power. Today, it is the fate of the “small nations”, that of a dizzying experience of the precariousness of their existence, that must illuminate the destiny of Europe and lead it to pull itself together. The clouds are gathering over the very principle of their existence, but, as Ukraine has been able to demonstrate over the past two years, the “small nation” is not without resources. To support this point, we are publishing an account by Joseph Roche of how Odessa, and within it the “small Jewish nation”, was able to survive the war.

And, to accompany this diagnosis, we are republishing Danny Trom’s text “Kundera politique”. It is worth remembering, that for Kundera, Israel was the “small nation par excellence”, and that the political alternative taking shape there makes it the outpost of what Europe must be led to achieve for itself: in adversity, they are united.

The truce between Israel and Hamas, which recent developments suggest may be short-lived, is making for a deplorable spectacle. On both sides, the grim reality of the situation is obscured by boastful proclamations. On the Hamas side, they cry “victory” over a field of ruins and corpses, with utter disregard for the fate of the Gazan population for whom the group has no other agenda than that of martyrdom. On the Israeli side, even as society is moved by the parade of emaciated hostages organized by Hamas, Netanyahu and his allies are rejoicing in the parodies of “solutions” announced with unheard-of levity by President Donald Trump. For a misguided Zionism, any evasion of the Palestinian question is already a victory in itself. Therein lies the secret intelligence that unites the contrasting plans for the future of Gaza: whether the terrorists dig their tunnels again under the feet of destitute civilians, or whether Gaza becomes an ultraliberal paradise for tourists after a forced displacement of its population, it is the political character of the situation that will have been obliterated. Because, on both sides, the aim is to establish a simple balance of power between powers measuring themselves against their capacity for destruction. Faced with this brutal depoliticization of the issues, and their derealization, we wanted to present another depiction of the situation, which cannot be described as a victory for anyone. K. therefore acts as a conduit for a Palestinian voice, that of Ihab Hassan, first published in the American magazine Liberties, who thinks in the only politically viable terms: those of a conflict between two equally just national claims, pointing to the prospect of a two-state solution.

Since this issue seems decidedly devoted to the political question and the difficulties of relating to otherness, we are publishing a reflection on a philosopher who articulated the responsibility involved in confronting the face of the other in its destitution. In his text, Jean-François Rey shows us that Levinas’ thought, far from being confined to the sphere of ethics, has a truly political dimension, which places it where one would not expect it.

Finally, why do some historians of antisemitism absolutely reject any analogy between October 7 and historical anti-Jewish persecution? Matthew Bolton situates this debate, with its far-reaching political implications, on an epistemological level, explaining why “historicists” refuse to conceive of antisemitism as “eternal hatred”. In return, he exposes the flawed nature of their method, which ends up dissolving the very concept of antisemitism by obliterating its historical necessity.