In this book, Boyarin argues that Jewish peoplehood, as it is understood today, is a symptom of historical Jewish chauvinism of which Zionism is its most egregious symptom. Rejecting traditional categorizations of “the Jews” as either a religious community in historical exile or an ethnic group uniquely discriminated against based on racial differentiation, Boyarin advocates for a Jewish Diasporic nationalism without territorial sovereignty in the form of the state of Israel.
The author bases this proposal upon two core principles, doykayt (“hereness” in Yiddish, or a commitment to local collectives) and Yiddishkayt (a commitment to the Jewish diasporic nation). Boyarin argues that only when we recognize that a Jewish national future without Israel is a “significantly better way to organize human/Jewish cultural vitality,” can Jews begin to live “without sacrificing the claims for universal justice” (xii).
Boyarin’s methodology is, in his own words, Talmudic in nature, referring to the layers...