kwart voor twaalf: bejaardenbed- & droomtijd ...


The diasporic Jew throughout history is a trickster pas excellence.
The term "diasporic" is not so much in contrast with "Palestinian" or "rabbinic" as it is a reference to the decentered national life of all Jews since the enormous growth of the Diaspora in the centuries before Christ. This thinking has been much influenced by the work of Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin & Uri Davis since the 60's.
Also others have reminded me of an excellent early version of a Jewish trickster tale with a hidden trans-cript: in 3 Maccabees 7:10-16, Jews who have remained steadfast in the faith trick their Ptolemaic masters into allowing them to execute those who have become apostates on the king's orders by "using the clever argument that those who were disloyal to their own commandments could not be trusted to be loyal to the king. Hence those who had actually resisted royal orders triumph over collaborators by posing as protectors of royal interest. This is a typically rather clever interpretation of the passage and quite a convincing one?! That social system enabled the continued existence of the Jews as a deterritorialized cultural entity for nearly two thousand years. The rabbis built a much more durable political system than had any of the earlier leaders, whether tribal elders, kings, or priests, who were only partially succeccful in confronting an imperial world and in maintaining some partial semblance of Jewish sovereignty. Part of the durability of the political, and thus cultural system that the Rabbis built was founded on antiphallic modes of resistance and the exercise of power, the use of the "weapons of the weak." And of course, I am not claiming uniqueness for the Rabbis in this. Also Cicero warns against the slippery ways of Greeks and Asiatics, which are to be connected, he says, with thier lack of political power. By implication, those who have been conquered behave like other dominated groups, women, slaves and children. Already in the first century AC we can read as well, that Persians love truth, as opposed to the lying slanders of the clever Greeks. What we learn from Jewish texts of late antiquity is that this was not only an accusation from without, but a valorized representation from within at least one dominated group. Such modes of resistance, moreover, were coded from within the Jewish cultural system as feminized. We need only think of the Book of Esther, the paradigm of Diaspora politics, to see that this is so. Note well that the point is not only that Esther, a heroine, represents the Jewish people in the book, but also that the modes of 'war' action employed by Mordechai are also tricksterlijke and thus representable as feminized! I still feel it: they shiver my bones ... Kortom: als je als jochie van 12 niet meer mee wilt naar kerk of school en niet meer braaf wilt 'doorleren & -werken', als je geen soldaat wilt worden in de verplichte militaire dienst en de
gek steekt als het ware bij wijze van spreken en schrijven met 'dwangmatige andersgelovigen' & doorgaat
met roken & drinken i.p.v. bidden & psalmzingen, als je gaat zwerven door tientallen landen & de lokale mensen na-aapt, imiteert in hun religieus & politiek gedrag, er grapjes over maakt & liedjes zingt of hoe dan ook allerlei mensen tegen de haren instrijkt, dan merk je vanzelf wel dat het handiger is om je taal &
tekens wat beter te verhullen, te verbergen, te verstoppen & met wat korreltje zout [en licht!] te nemen?
Ander speel je letterlijk en figuurlijk met je leven! Men wil je slaan, opsluiten, executeren omdat men niet in staat is om enige tegenspraak of kritiek te dulden, laat staat humor, relativiteit, sarcasme & cynisme ...
Laila tov, ojasseminasai & droom er maar heerlijk van! Nationalisme is slechts 'n tijdelijke noodoplossing.
Er is meer op de wereld dan alleen maar dat? Maar daar zouden we nog uren over door kunnen gaan ...
blozen
engel
cool!
geschokt
OK!
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11 jul 2008 - bewerkt op 11 jul 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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