The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto [Hardcover]

A provocative manifesto, arguing for a new understanding of the Jews’ peoplehood
 
“A self-consciously radical statement that is both astute and joyous.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
Today there are two seemingly mutually exclusive notions of what “the Jews” are: either a religion or a nation/ethnicity. The widespread conception is that the Jews were formerly either a religious community in exile or a nation based on Jewish ethnicity. The latter position is commonly known as Zionism, and all articulations of a political theory of Zionism are taken to be variations of that view.
 
In this provocative book, based on his decades of study of the history of the Jews, Daniel Boyarin lays out the problematic aspects of this binary opposition and offers the outlines of a different—and very old—answer to the question of the identity of a diaspora nation. He aims to drive a wedge between the “nation” and the “state,” only very recently conjoined, and recover a robust sense of nationalism that does not involve sovereignty.A provocative manifesto, arguing for a new understanding of the Jews’ peoplehood“A self-consciously radical statement that is both astute and joyous.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Compellingly delineates a case for a vital Jewish diaspora nationalism rather than a statist and racialized Jewish consciousness.”—Atalia Omer,Journal of the American Academy of Religion

“Trenchant, plangent, and courageous, Daniel Boyarin’s polemic rewrites the ground rules of what has been known for centuries as ‘the Jewish question.’ Any future discussion must take his ’no-state solution’ into account.”—Haun Saussy, University of Chicago

“Daniel Boyarin’s book delves into the very heart of what it means to be Jewish in the world lƒ‚