The scenes of jubilation that took place last week in the Knesset on the occasion of the ceasefire agreement and the release of the hostages nevertheless left a strange aftertaste: that of seeing a people who had become sovereign show such deference to a foreign sovereign who had come to save them, and what’s more, in the disturbing person of Trump. The question of allegiance, then, calls into question the meaning of Zionist politics and, more generally, the path taken by those who dream of power politics: Was Netanyahu not defying the reality of Israel’s growing isolation by proclaiming its future as a “super-Sparta” just days before embodying the position of “court Jew” before Trump? This week, Danny Trom draws on Hannah Arendt’s reflections to examine what has enabled Israel to ward off this fate of Spartan isolation under guardianship until now, and what could therefore be a resource to counter Netanyahu’s downward spiral. But underlying his argument is a European question. Arendt thinks in the context of the nation-state bristling with weapons becoming criminal, and a new model of sovereignty emerging: that of horizontal recognition between states limited by law, both externally and internally. Mirroring the political alternative that Israel will have to face, it is the crisis of a Europe where reactionary nationalisms are on the rise again that is being reflected.
Misplaced pride and a disregard for the lessons of history are not a bad way to describe what has enabled the Law and Justice (PiS) party to rule Poland for almost a decade. While a centrist coalition took power at the end of 2023, the Polish project of combating antisemitism and addressing the memory of the Holocaust remains largely unfinished. As part of our series of investigations in partnership with DILCRAH, Paula Sawicka provides a lucid assessment of what remains to be done in this area, but also of initiatives that offer some hope.
Fortunately, there are also a handful of countries where Jews have had a more positive history. Looking back at this report, Clément Girardot and Yoann Morvan give us an insight into the surprising case of Georgia, a small country between Europe and Asia that never harbored antisemitism, and early on regarded Jews as an integral part of the nation. What are the origins of this philosemitic exception? And why is the Georgian Jewish community still alive and well today, but on the verge of extinction? To answer these questions, we invite you to embark on a journey of Georgian Jewry.
