A Pathologically Abnormal Situation: Le Cercle Gaston Crémieux and the [Im]Possibility of an Anti-National Jewishness

This paper examines the diasporist French Jewish political group, Le Cercle Gaston Crémieux, founded in 1967 “to promote a diasporic existence without subjugation to synagogue or Zionism”. In contrast either an assimilationist model which demanded acceptance of national identity public sphere, Zionist nationalism, offered state exile and diaspora becomes constitutive identity, positioned as alternate mode being-in-the-world defined against white Christian European nationalism. Yet expose historically constructed, socially contingent nature nationalisms that claim status organic natural, had imagine particular narrative historical construction Jewishness, this social constructionism conflicted with almost ontological, metaphysical they wanted accord otherness. Thus failed anti-national but failure sheds light on larger fault lines possibility politics. The concludes Cercle’s imaginal Jewishness tries enable articulation other forms minority suggesting may nonetheless prove politically productive.