Sublime

Zhang Binglin

of ethnic cleansing, brutal militarism, racism of several stripes, and even “pinkwashing”—exploiting its liberal policy toward lesbians and gays to

homeland.

He saw Zionism as “the light secreted in the soul” of the Jewish people.

of center and Israel’s center-right.

For Shimen, the “community” is a set of concentric circles beginning with his (dead) family, extending to Gerer Hasidim, and extending further to others committed to the Jewish way of life; the farther out the circle, the less weight it earns in Shimen’s calculus.

And forty-two years after he had arrived in Palestine, David Ben-Gurion stood at the podium under an enormous portrait of the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl.

While Shimen wants freedom to participate in a specific communal project that connects the past with the future and that gives his life meaning and purpose, Heidi wants freedom from such projects.

Avishai,