Jewish Land-Based Communities: Diasporism as a Political Movement (WGF - Dissertation Fieldwork Grant)

This resource is an application for a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. In the US and UK, there is a growing movement of Jewish people cultivating Judaism without Zionism. Many of these Jewish people have embraced what Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (2007) called ‘diasporism’, espousing a political commitment to solidarity and a belief in a Jewish history and future independent of a national homeland. Jewish community farms are one manifestation of this diasporism. These farms present a particularly compelling example of political diasporism because they represent a commitment to rootedness outside of Israel/Palestine and a compelling contrast to the kibbutzim, land-based settlement projects that represent the Zionist movement to so many. The farms in this research go beyond imagining a new political identity and ways of being to enactment, demonstrating a praxis of radical imaginaries. This research explores diasporism as a political movement by asking what experiences, identities, or beliefs lead Jewish community farm members to embrace diasporism as a political identity, and how this commitment in turn shapes their continuing subject formation. This project, moreover, attends to how the material realities shaping these Jewish community farms influence members’ political commitments and imaginaries. Finally, it considers what impact this political movement might have on discourse of Jewish identity and diaspora conceptualization more broadly.