Time to reclaim Jewish indigeneity

A few days ago it was the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. In light of that, this is a reminder that the Am Yisrael, the nation of Israel, the Jewish people are an indigenous people. Indigenous to the land of Israel. We were born of the land, from the moment Avraham was commanded “Lech lecha”, and to that land we will always belong.

In a few days’ time, it is Tisha B’av, which is another timely reminder of our indigeneity to the land of Israel. Tisha B’av is one of the saddest days in the Jewish calendar marking a series of disasters that befell us. One of the earliest being the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and subsequent exile of our ancestors from our homeland by (to use the lingo of the zeitgeist) the colonising forces of imperial Babylon. On the eve of Tisha B’Av we recite Psalm 137, written by the prophet Jeremiah but carved into the consciousness of popular culture through the Rastafarian beats and later cover by Boney M.:

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept, as we thought of Zion. There on the poplars
we hung up our lyres, for our captors asked us there for songs, our tormentors, for amusement:
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’  How can we sing a song of the LORD on alien soil? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither; let my tongue stick to my palate, if I cease to think of you, if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory, even at my happiest hour.” (Psalm 137:1-6)

The traditional text read on Tisha B’av, Lamentations, also believed to be written by the prophet Jeremiah, describes the destruction of Jerusalem and her people vividly:

“Her gates have sunk into the ground, He has smashed her bars to bits; Her king and her leaders are in exile; Instruction is no more; Her prophets, too, receive; no vision from the LORD…My eyes are spent with tears; My heart is in tumult; My being melts away…My eyes have brought me grief; Over all the maidens of my city; My foes have snared me like a bird; Without any cause; They have ended my life in a pit; and cast stones at me; Waters flowed over my head; I said: I am lost!” (Lamentations 2:9,11 & 3:51-54)

These are the anguished cries of an indigenous people dislocated from their homeland. And that anguish is recalled and relived through text and rituals of mourning, every year at this time.

Even the very first convert, Ruth, understood the centrality of land to our identity as a people. When Ruth insisted on leaving her home in Moab and returning to Bethlehem with Naomi she said “For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” (Megillat Ruth 1:16). Here, Ruth declared her embrace of place and people even before she mentioned God!

Our texts serve as constant reminders that we are an indigenous people who have a deep connection to our ancestral land and that connection is thousands of years old. As people of the book, the power of our texts, of our words, transcends simple utterings or inscriptions. For us, words are like threads that bind us to our homeland. The words are in the land and the land is in the words. For the more religious theologists, words may indeed be an actual manifestation of God that serve as an anchor for faith. They are our Songlines, that we read, sing, wail and feel.

Across the world there are thousands of people, marching and screaming different kinds of words; insults and libels at Jews for having the audacity realise the dream of any indigenous people – to return to our ancestral land and claim sovereignty in that land. The anger of our deniers in the face of the most successful decolonisation project in human history is highly flammable and often explodes into genocidal slogans and even violence. At this point in time, words, which so often serve to tether us to country, and people, and God, have betrayed us. The perversion of the word Zionism by those who seek to delegitimize and destroy us, has powerful momentum and reach. So many young impressionable minds have been indoctrinated in the hallowed halls of elite universities worldwide to think that we Jews just popped out of magic eggs in the soils of Poland or pavements of Brooklyn. Perhaps Ruth could teach them a lesson or two! They do not know or understand Jewish indigeneity. They do not accept that the Jewish connection to the land of Israel is ancient and real. That connection has come to be termed Zionism, and it took on a political, nationalist shape in the 19th century along with many other nationalisms. It motivated our return home through waves of migration, knowing we couldn’t always feel at home in the lands we’d been exiled to. Ironically, the very chants of the anti-Zionist zombie-mob reinforce this reality.

But our connection remains that of an indigenous people to homeland, to country. It is deeper than politics and even deeper than history. For indigenous people there in an inexplicable quality to that connection. Since October 7, I have found myself weeping into my morning coffee or silently screaming into my pillow as I feel the pain and grief of my people. That pain is cellular and it transforms into a yearning to return home. The pull on my heart is visceral. Like a magnetic force. My chest tightens, my throat constricts, tears well up in my eyes, and in that moment, I am fully aware of what it means to be connected to country. And I am not alone, this I know for sure. It is a nation cry, a collective ache and a collective pull. Of course, when we return to country, we are home. We feel rejuvenated and renewed, spiritually, culturally, socially and physically. That feeling stirs our soul and makes our cells sing. The energy that connects me, connects us, to our ancestral home runs through our blood and through our memory. Even if we do not live there permanently, we know we are home.

I, along with half the Jewish world, do not live in Israel, and we are referred to as the diaspora. Diaspora is an Ancient Greek word meaning dispersed, defined as a people dispersed from their homeland. That’s who we are, the Jewish Diaspora is an indigenous people separated from our ancestral homeland. Am Yisrael Chai.