The Jewish state of Israel and the organized Jewish communities abroad have constituted the Zionist Jewish people, whose aggrandizement has replaced liberalism as the Jewish social principle. This outlook has also deeply affected the Jewish left, who have abandoned the classical liberalism of the Enlightenment and emancipation, which rejected Zionism categorically, for a minimal critique of Israel’s “occupation” of the territories conquered in 1967, etc.
The article has three sections, “The Establishment,” “The Jewish Left,” and “Noam Chomsky.” It is 17,000 words plus notes, the merest introduction to the subject. It is in the final issue (#38) of Left Curve. The article is online, in PDF form, at The End of Modern Jewish History. A summary of EMJH was read at a publication party held at the Emerald Tablet Gallery in San Francisco on July 9.
“The End of Modern Jewish History” is an emerging theme. See Enzo Traverso, La fin de la modernite juive (Paris, 2013). An English edition was published by Pluto Press in 2016:
An English review of the French edition is at
Judaic Studies at Brown offers a course, “The End of Modern Jewish History”. See JUDS 1716, 2/3 of the way down this page
JUDS 1716. The End of Modern Jewish History
Publication of Left Curve #38 was delayed by the passing of the editor, Csaba Polony, on March 9, 2014.
“A memorial to Csaba last night at an SF art gallery was SRO … The audience was a who’s who of who remains ambulatory in the North Beach culture scene,” wrote a friend in an email. RIP Csaba, you have gone to your reward. Alas, #38 proved to be the last issue
Number 38 also contains an article by Rahela Mizrahi: “Usurping Art: Patterns of Expropriation, Conversion & Appropriation of Palestinian Heritage by Israeli Fine Arts.”
LC #37 contained a fine poem on the 30th anniversary of the Sabra/Shatila massacre by James Scully.
The question of Palestine 