Two Conceptions of Jewish Identity

Critics of religion who regard it as illusory and harmful, from Marx and his associates and followers to militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, assume implicitly that religions are monolithic. However, studies of major religions like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism show that they are anything but monolithic, with multiple internal divisions, and adherents who take opposite positions on every moral issue. Take, for example, Buddhism in Sri Lanka, where ‘Sinhala Buddhists’ linked to the state have engaged in the persecution and mass murder of opponents and people from minority communities, while other Buddhists have opposed them on the grounds that their religion stands for the equality of all human beings and prohibits killing. In such circumstances, it makes no sense to refer to ‘Buddhists’ – much less followers of all religions – as a homogeneous category.  

A striking characteristic of the aftermath of the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 is the sharp divide in the way Jews reacted to it. On one side, political and military officials of the state of Israel carried out a genocidal attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza,[1] while the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and illegal settlers incarcerated, killed and displaced Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem at an accelerated pace.[2] On the other side, Jews have played a pivotal role in campaigning for a ceasefire in Gaza,[3] recognition of the Israeli military campaign there as genocide,[4] and a long-term solution that safeguards the human and democratic rights of Palestinians in the whole of historic Palestine.[5] The latter group has faced criticism and condemnation from Jewish supporters of the state of Israel.[6]

Review of Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India: Popular Mobilisation in the Long Depression by Jörg Nowak

The central argument of this book is that ‘Only a theory of strikes that goes beyond a focus on trade unions and the workplace will be able to grasp the forms of labour conflict that affect the majority of the world population, and the global working class, which lives in non-core countries’ (p.3). Jörg Nowak states that this claim emerges from his investigation of two strikes in the Indian automobile sector and three in the Brazilian construction sector, in the course of which workers created new forms of organisation and allied with other actors who were not all waged workers.