Can morality justify stupidity? This is indeed what the recent adoption by the EHESS of a motion calling for the “suspension of cooperation” with Israeli universities leads us to fear, without clearly naming what is being targeted: the boycott. For if it is France’s most prestigious social science institution – to which K. ‘s academics are attached – that places itself in the vanguard of the boycott camp, in defiance of any reflection on the political efficacy of its actions, then docte and sanctimonious stupidity has a bright future ahead of it. Fortunately, within the progressive left, the voice of European political and historical responsibility has not yet been silenced. At the end of November, Raphaël Glucksmann and Daniel Cohn-Bendit made their voices heard in the columns of Le Monde, with an article condemning the form of the war being waged by Israel, and clearly indicating the political course their authors believe should be followed. The editors of K. were keen to give it some echo, and so we are publishing the interview given by Daniel Cohn-Bendit to Julia Christ and Danny Trom. It discusses his relationship as a “non-nationalizable” European Jew to Israel and Zionism, the unbearable situation in the Middle East and its paradoxical echoes here at home, as well as the stumbling blocks of European construction and integration. Above all, it highlights the need to fight against the foolishness to which the left has fallen victim, and of which the desire to boycott institutions that produce knowledge, reflexivity and criticism is only the latest occurrence.
After the success of the K. on stage evening at the Théâtre de la Concorde in Paris two weeks ago, dedicated tothe theme of With the Last Jews of... , we wanted to make the performances available. This week, you can discover or rediscover the text of Ruben Honigmann’s speech, in which he evokes the strange equivocation of Hebrew, which associates the end and the continuation, as if the Jews were never finished.
For our re-run this week, David Nirenberg’s lecture, “Anti-Judaism, Critical Thinking, and the Possibility of History”, examines how anti-Jewish ideas have shaped Western thought and culture over centuries. Nirenberg explores how influential thinkers—from the ancient world to modern times—have used Judaism as a symbol of everything they oppose in their quest for universal truth. By exposing these patterns, Nirenberg challenges historians to recognize the biases that shape historical narratives and to rethink the possibilities of history itself.
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