Jewish Political Studies Review
The Themes of the Jewish Political Studies Review
Daniel J. Elazar
The founding of the Jewish Political Studies Review marks yet
another major step in the emergence of the field which can be
said to have begun twenty years ago with the publication of the
first bibliographic essay on the subject in the American Jewish
Yearbook. In the intervening twenty years, courses in Jewish
political studies have been introduced in over twenty
universities around the world, a basic literature has been
published, and some half a dozen conferences have been held to
address issues in the field. Regular sessions are held at the
World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, the annual meeting
of the Association for Jewish Studies in Boston, and at the
annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. An
annual Workshop in the Study and Teaching of the Jewish Political
Tradition, that brings together scholars from throughout the
world, is entering its seventh year. At least one systematic
theory has been developed to frame the field and parts of it are
already being challenged by younger scholars, a sure sign of
having "arrived."
With all of the foregoing, the obvious next step is the
establishment of a journal as a vehicle for further stimulation
and dissemination of scholarship in the field, whether empirical
research, political thought, or systematic commentary on Jewish
public affairs. The Jewish Political Studies Review is
designed
to serve that purpose. The interests of this journal will be as
broad as the field itself -- in space, in time, and in subject
matter.
The work that has been done in the field to date demonstrates
that the Jews continued to exist as a polity throughout the years
of exile and dispersion. Nevertheless, in terms of conscious
perceptions of matters political, the field emerged because of
the decision on the part of large numbers of Jews to become
political as Jews, and not just as individuals, in their
respective societies. The Zionist revolution, the establishment
of the State of Israel and the carry-over in the diaspora,
particularly the United States, some fifteen or twenty years
after the establishment of the State of Israel, gave all this an
additional impetus.
The study of Jewish modes of self-government, political
perceptions, and exercise of political responsibilities is the
subject of Jewish political studies and therefore of this
journal. Our approach to the field rests upon certain
lunderstandings. The first is that the Jewish people is a
corporate entity by definition, that it must find some way to
function as a polity under any circumstances in order for it to
pursue its interests and aspirations, whether these be defined as
survivalism, as seems to be the case for much of contemporary
Jewry, or whether they be defined in traditional theo-political
terms as the pursuit of malkhut shamayim (the Kingdom of
Heaven),
or anything in between. Jews sooner or later -- usually sooner
rather than later -- come to the conclusion that the Jewish
people must function as a polity in order to pursue their
normative ends. Therefore, the Jewish people will always seek
ways to function as a polity.
Central to the Jewish political tradition is the idea of covenant
(brit in Hebrew) and its application to the world of action.
The
constitution of the Jewish people as a whole reflects a mixture
of kinship and consent. In other words, people born into a
particular set of tribes consented through covenant to function
as a community. One can read the Sinai Covenant from a political
point of view as the establishment of Israel as both am
(people)
and edah (congregation or assembled community). In Jewish
political terminology harking back to the Bible, an am is a
nation (goy) with a God-given vocation. For the Jews, that
vocation was established by covenant. The am becomes the kin
consenting while the edah is the organized product of that
consent -- the polity.
The second understanding is that exploration of the Jewish polity
can be undertaken with the tools of political science. We are
not merely reviewing Jewish history, philosophy, or sociology
under another "hat," however much we draw upon these sister
disciplines. Rather, we are bringing our own tools and
perspectives, and, therefore, adding another dimension to
understanding Jewish phenomena.
The third understanding is that Jews have continued to function
as a polity throughout their history. ONe of the most
intellectually interesting aspects of the discipline is the study
of the continuing adaptation of what is, after all, the oldest
extant polity in the Western world. Its closest rival in
longevity is the Catholic Church, some 1500 years younger at
least. Interestingly, these two oldest polities of the Western
world operate on diametrically different principles of
organization with regard to the allocation of authority and the
organization of power. The Catholic Church is hierarchical; the
Jewish people, covenantal or federal (based on the Latin
foedus =
covenant). The intellectual opportunities for exploring the
adaptation of two long-lasting political frameworks operating on
such diametrically opposed principles is in itself a potential
contribution to the study of political science.
In the very first essay on the subject, the subfields of Jewish
political studies were delineated and listed. That list bears
repeating as properly defining the scope of this journal:
- Jewish Political Thought
- Religious Movements, Ideologies and Public Persuasions
- Defining the Boundaries of Jewish Society
- Jewish Political Culture
- Jewish Political Behavior
- Jewish Political Organization
- Jewish Public Law
- Jewish Political and Communal Institutions
- Jewish Organizations and Interest Groups
- Civic Education
- Public Personalities
- Israel
- Subdivisions of the Jewish People
- Country, Community and Area Studies
- Intercommunity Relations
- External Relations
- The Course of Jewish Public Affairs
- Contemporary Issues
- Research Approaches and Methods
As the foregoing list indicates, Jewish political studies is both
a subfield of Jewish studies and an area within political science
and will inevitably continue to point in both directions, draw
from both sources, and provide a snythesis between the two. What
is surprising is how politics has been in so many respects the
cinderella of Jewish studies. It is perhaps less surprising that
Jewish political affairs other than those relating to the State
of Israel as a political system have escapted the attention of
most political scientists. Nevertheless, in both cases the
disciplines are the poorer as a result and a major area of
Jewish, and therefore human, activity and though ignored.
The Jewish Political Studies Review welcomes articles on
lhistoric and contemporary phenomena within its range of
interests reflecting the results of empirical research, the
analysis of political ideas, normative and empirical theory,
political behavior and policy studies. On these pages we hope to
explore the structure and functioning of Jewish political
institutions, whether in contemporary Israel, previous Jewish
states, or diaspora Jewish communities, past and present. We are
interested in Jewish political behavior, both within the
framework of Jewish politics and because of the unique character
of the Jews as a diaspora people interacting with other
civilizations on the latter's own territory in relation to their
host countries. We are concerned with issues of Jewish public
policy. In short, nothing that deals with the Jewish people or
Jews, functioning in their political capacities, is necessarily
foreign to us.
While we are particularly concerned with scholarship, we are also
planning to deal with the teaching of Jewish political studies,
at first through a symposium on the subject and then in other
ways as well. We also intend to reach out to those active in the
field of Jewish public affairs to hear from them, whether via
first-hand reports regarding policy issues or the functioning of
institutions or in the form of commentary on same. From time to
time we will publish important documents with appropriate
commentary and/or annotation. We intend to keep track of the
literature of Jewish political studies through an active and
serious book review section which will give appropriate attention
to books, public reports of significance, and, where appropriate,
articles that deserve special attention because of their
importance to the field.
We are beginning as a semi-annual publication with the intention
of becoming a quarterly as soon as possible. In both our present
framework and subsequently, we plan to publish open issues
dealing with a wide variety of subjects and special issues
focusing in on particular topics. Our editorial board is drawn
from a variety of subfields within Jewish political studies and
academic institutions so as to give us the broadest possible
scope in matters of approach and opinion.
While the Jewish Political Studies Review will normally
publish
articles of standard length, we have no formal length
limitations. If a subject deserves more extensive treatment, we
will publish articles of considerably greater length. If only a
few pages are needed, we will publish short pieces as research
notes, comments, or in some other appropriate format. We welcome
submissions in all these various fields and formats. Our basic
requirements are that manuscripts be sound in their scholarship
and clear in their presentation so that our journal will be both
academic and readable; a contribution to scholarship, yet lively;
of interest not only to the academic community but to those who
thoughtfully engage in Jewish public affairs. We look forward to
developing a continuing dialogue with you, our readers, many if
not most of whom should also be our contributors.
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