Days of Awe

A study of the shift of American Jews from deep-seated allegiances to the Jewish state of Israel to expressing solidarity with Palestinians.

“In Days of Awe, Omer brings together interviews with activists, historical analysis, and theoretical interventions . . . all in the service of one of the first extended studies of this growing movement of American Jews standing against the Israeli occupation, and standing up for justice for Palestinians.” —Nathan Goldman, The Nation

For many Jewish people in the mid-twentieth century, Zionism was an unquestionable tenet of what it meant to be Jewish. Seventy years later, a growing number of American Jews are instead expressing solidarity with Palestinians, questioning old allegiances to Israel. How did that transformation come about? What does it mean for the future of Judaism?In Days of Awe, Atalia Omer examines this shift through interviews with a new generation of Jewish activists, rigorous data analysis, and fieldwork within a progressive synagogue community. She highlights people politically inspired by social justice campaigns including the Black Lives Matter movement and protests against anti-immigration policies. These activists, she shows, discover that their ethical outrage at U.S. policies extends to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. For these American Jews, the Jewish history of dispossession and diaspora compels a search for solidarity with liberation movements. This shift produces innovations within Jewish tradition, including multi-racial and intersectional conceptions of Jewishness and movements to reclaim prophetic Judaism. Charting the rise of such religious innovation, Omer points toward the possible futures of post-Zionist Judaism.

“Atalia Omer enters this explosive terrain in an attempt to broaden our understanding of the American context of the Jewish progressive left and the way it has cultivated new aspects of Jewish identity and religion. . . . What Omer does in Days of Awe is innovative on several levels. . . . Days of Awe offers us a deeply personal and well-informed ethnographic study founded on interviews with Jewish-Palestinian Solidarity movement participants.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“For scholars working at the intersection of religion and politics, Omer’s argument makes an important contribution, showing how ‘religion participates in transformative social movement’ and the reverse. . . . The book is well-researched and well argued with rich analysis.” —Journal of the American Academy of Religion