Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Self-Departure, Exile, and the Critique of Zionism

1. Impossible, Necessary Task

Said, Levinas, and the Ethical Demand

2. Unable to Kill

Levinas Contra Levinas

3. Walter Benjamin and the Critique of Violence

4. Flashing Up

Benjamin’s Messianic Politics

5. Is Judaism Zionism?

Or, Arendt and the Critique of the Nation-State

6. Quandaries of the Plural

Cohabitation and Sovereignty in Arendt

7. Primo Levi for the Present

8. “What Shall We Do Without Exile?”

Said and Darwish Address the Future

Notes

Index