A review of Gilad Atzmon’s new book, The Wandering Who?

Gilad Atzmon, VT’s contributing writer, has just published a study of Jewish identity politics. The Wandering Who? chronicles his journey away from his Jewish identity, and by extension away from all exclusive identities, into an inclusive humanness. It’s a painful journey, a brutally honest self exploration of these internalized tribal impulses. He emerges from the struggle deracinated but emancipated, freed of a destructive load of cultural baggage.

As the poet Allen Ginsberg said, “If you want to be a prophet, you have to tell your secrets.” By being brave enough to expose himself in writing, Atzmon has become a prophet, and his prophecy, as I see it, is a completion of the Mosaic journey, but this time as a mass exodus from Jewishness and all other ethnic bondings that split humanity. After 40 centuries of wandering in the desert of chosenness and separation, Jews and Gentiles alike can finally enter the full humanness of one world family, a secular promised land free of divisive group identities.

Jews have been at the forefront of every progressive movement for the past 160 years, and now it’s Atzmon’s turn. The atrocities of nationalism, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have forced him to the forefront of a movement to abolish all these tribal groupings, starting with his own.

The Wandering Who? is a threat not only to Zionism, but to all religious, ethnic, national, and even gender identities to which people cling. It’s a book of radical liberation and as such dangerous to every orthodoxy and structure of power that separates us into antagonistic camps. Atzmon is a true subversive. Much needed.

Now the survival of our species demands that also Christians, Muslims, Americans, Britons, etc. break out of their group mentalities. We can’t suddenly erase these categories, but we can relegate them to the background where they no longer determine our identity. Our sense of self can then be based on qualities that unite humanity rather than divide it.

Thanks for showing the way, Gilad.

You can now pre-order Gilad Atzmon’s New Book on Amazon.com  or Amazon.co.uk

Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist and writer.

Atzmon’s album Exile was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003. Playing over 100 dates a year,[4] he has been called “surely the hardest-gigging man in British jazz.” His albums, of which he has recorded nine to date, often explore the music of the Middle East and political themes. He has described himself as a “devoted political artist.” He supports the Palestinian right of return and the one-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

His criticisms of Zionism, Jewish identity, and Judaism, as well as his controversial views on The Holocaust and Jewish history have led to allegations of antisemitism from both Zionists and anti-Zionists. A profile in The Guardian in 2009 which described Atzmon as “one of London’s finest saxophonists” stated: “It is Atzmon’s blunt anti-Zionism rather than his music that has given him an international profile, particularly in the Arab world, where his essays are widely read.”

His new book The Wandering Who? is now availble at Amazon.com