The creation of the State of Israel was one road taken by Jews in the twentieth century. A new book by Molly Crabapple argues that another road not taken deserves to be recovered and reclaimed today.
The book, “Here Where We Live Is Our Country,” is part family history, part detective story, part manifesto, part intervention. It is a history of the Bund movement, to which Crabapple’s great-grandfather belonged, a socialist, Jewish, anti-Zionist group that has been all but erased in recent years.
We spoke today about Crabapple’s attempt to recover this forgotten history, why she believes the history of anti-Zionist Jews can give modern Jews a greater choice of stories, how her book is giving younger Jews today a lineage they feel to be missing, how the traumas of the twentieth century make honest grappling over Zionism difficult, the connections among Jewish and Black and Hindu histories and stories about safety and homeland, and why she learned Yiddish to write this book.
It’s a remarkable conversation, and I encourage you to check it out.
These live conversations are open to all. If you want to watch the whole video later, become a subscriber to support our work.
This post was originally published on The.Ink.