The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance

A progressive, boundary-pushing collection of essays on the Jewish community's relationship to Zionism and exile.

What is exile? What is diaspora? What is Zionism? The present state of Jewish identity has been shaped by prior generations' answers to these questions, and the future of Jewish life will depend on how we respond to them in our time. In The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, celebrated rabbi and scholar Shaul Magid offers an essential contribution to this intergenerational collective process, and an invitation to pick up and investigate the historical pieces that shape our political moment.

On many levels, Zionism was conceived as an attempt to "end the exile" of the Jewish people, both politically and theologically. In a series of incisive essays, Magid examines the price of trying to diminish or even erase the exilic nature of Jewish tradition. A thought-provoking work of political imagination, The Necessity of Exile seeks to rethink exile as a positive stance for constructive Jewish engagement with IsraelPalestine, antisemitism, diaspora, and a broken world in need of repair.