As I am thinking about the horror of the dehumanizing assault on Gaza by Israel, I stumbled across an interview with Judith Butler some years back. Her words have a resounding relevance right now. As progressive Jews, we must grief out loud for those we continue to dehumanize, over and over. For me, as a progressive Jew, that would just be the death of Judaism itself, since, in my mind, one of the most valuable things about Judaism has always been its insistence on public grieving, and its insistence that an entire community needed to come together to grieve. It won’t do just to grieve one’s own. We need to extend our notion of who is grievable so that we are not just grieving on the basis of established identifications. Until we learn that other lives are equally grievable and have an equal demand on us to be grieved—especially the ones that we’ve helped to eliminate—I’m not sure we’ll really be on the way to overcoming the problem of dehumanization. Judith Butler.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 19:28:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015