A Queer Way Out

Hila Amit

Description

Winner of the 2019 Association for Middle East Women's Studies Book Award

The very language of Zionism prizes the concept of immigration to Israel (aliyah, literally ascending) while stigmatizing emigration from Israel (yerida, descending). In A Queer Way Out, Hila Amit explores the as-yet-untold story of queer Israeli emigrants. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Berlin, London, and New York, she examines motivations for departure and feelings of unbelonging to the Israeli national collective. Amit shows that sexual orientation and left-wing political affiliation play significant roles in decisions to leave. Queer Israeli emigrants question national and heterosexual norms such as army service, monogamy, and reproduction. Amit argues that emigration itself is not only a political act, but one that pioneers a deliberately unheroic form of resistance to Zionist ideology. This fascinating study enriches our understandings of migration, political activism, and queer forms of living in Israel and beyond.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Israel, Zionism, and Emigration Anxiety

2. Points of Departure: The Standard Emigration Story and Queer Israeli Emigrants

3. The Israeli Collective and Emigration: Left-Wing Queers and Unbelonging

4. The New Hebrew Diaspora: Queer Israeli Emigrants in Cyber Space

5. Queer Interruptions: The Temporal Regime of Israel and Queer Israeli Emigrants

6. The Queer Act of Emigration: Avoidance and Unheroic Political Activism

7. A Queer Way Out: Israeli Emigration and Unheroic Resistance to Zionism

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Gay Studies

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 22 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438470122
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Queer Way Out
A Queer Way Out
The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel
HILA AMIT
On the cover, A Piece of Land (2010), by Naomi Safran-Hon
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Amit, Hila, author.
Title: A queer way out : the politics of queer emigration from Israel / Hila Amit.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017033589 | ISBN 9781438470115 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438470122 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Israel—Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. | Sexual minorities—Israel. | Gay immigrants—Israel. | Zionism.
Classification: LCC JV8749 .A55 2018 | DDC 304.8086/64095694—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017033589
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Julia
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Israel, Zionism, and Emigration Anxiety
2. Points of Departure: The Standard Emigration Story and Queer Israeli Emigrants
3. The Israeli Collective and Emigration: Left-Wing Queers and Unbelonging
4. The New Hebrew Diaspora: Queer Israeli Emigrants in Cyber Space
5. Queer Interruptions: The Temporal Regime of Israel and Queer Israeli Emigrants
6. The Queer Act of Emigration: Avoidance and Unheroic Political Activism
7. A Queer Way Out: Israeli Emigration and Unheroic Resistance to Zionism
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations Figure 1.1 Birthright offers Jews all over the world free tours in Israel. Figure 1.2 Birthright trips land at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. Figure 1.3 Jewish Americans encouraged to serve in the Israeli Army. Figure 1.4 Benefits and financial support offered to Returning Citizens and American Jews. Figure 1.5 “Come Study with Us”: Israel to convince American Jews to Study in Israeli Universities, and receive financial support. Figure 1.6 “They will Always Remain Israelis. Their Partners May Not Always Understand What It Means.” Figure 1.7 “They will Always Remain Israelis. Their Partners May Not Always Understand What It Means.” Figure 3.1 Cinema Sderot–Israelis with popcorn and chairs cheering as missiles strike Palestinian targets. Figure 3.2 Cinema Sderot–Israelis with popcorn and chairs cheering as missiles strike Palestinian targets. Figure 3.3 Saluting the National Erection, queer demonstration in Tel Aviv. Figure 3.4 Saluting the National Erection, queer demonstration in Tel Aviv. Figure 3.5 Activist’s video art project No Democracy Here . Figure 3.6 Activist’s video art project No Democracy Here . Figure 5.1 Before Aba Becomes Daddy, It’s Time to Return to Israel . Figure 5.2 Before Aba Becomes Daddy, Its Time to Return to Israel. Figure 5.3 Before Aba Becomes Daddy, Its Time to Return to Israel. Figure 5.4 Parody on the Israeli campaign for returning Israeli emigrants, Before Hav-Hav Becomes Woof-Woof Figure 5.5 Parody on the Israeli campaign for returning Israeli emigrants, Before Hav Hav Becomes Woof Woof. Figure 5.6 Parody on the Israeli campaign for returning Israeli emigrants, Before Chanukah Becomes Christmas—Leave Today . Figure 5.7 Parody on the Israeli campaign for returning Israeli emigrants, Before Chanukah Becomes Christmas—Leave Today .
Acknowledgments
T his book is based on my doctoral dissertation, which was supervised by Rahul Rao, whom I thank wholeheartedly, not only for his academic support, wisdom, and guidance, but also for his patience and knowledge while allowing me the room to work in my own way. A special mention goes to my enthusiastic second supervisors, Yair Wallach and Aeyal Gross, who were a truly dedicated supervisor team. I also thank Jack Halberstam and Adi Kuntsman for being wonderful examiners and for their critiques, which helped to shape the arguments in this text. This book benefitted greatly from reading and reviews by Sarah Schulman, David Shulman, Merav Amir, Omri Raviv, Chen Misgav, and Ruth Presser.
I am additionally appreciative to all my interviewees, for sharing their personal stories so willingly. This research project has been, to some extent, an investigation of my own life and my own decision to depart. The participants of this study have not only supported this research, but also supported me in many important ways, and I am grateful to the ones who are still in my life and hopefully will remain to be part of it.
Ultimately, I am thankful to my father, Igal, for being there behind the scenes and supporting every step I take. I also want to thanks Naomi Safran-Hon, for not only agreeing to contribute one of her artworks for the cover, but also for thinking with me about potential images and searching her archive for this beautiful piece. Finally, but by no means least, I thank my partner Julia, who makes everything seem possible.
Introduction
I n 2003, when I graduated from high school, I decided not to join the Israeli Army. In order to be exempt from service, I decided to feign clinical depression. This was an easier task than appealing to a conscientious-objection committee or pretending I was an Orthodox Jew, two other ways one can be exempt from service. A psychiatric exemption was the simplest and quickest method, one chosen by most Israeli youngsters who do not wish to do military service.
Upon my release from army service I joined a left-wing education NGO and spent three years working in the social margins of Israel. At the end of the first year, a good friend of mine, who also did not join the army, left to study in Boston. A year later, one of my best friends, Michal, moved to Paris. Michal was the first person I had “come out” to, and she was the one to introduce me to my first girlfriend and to the queer scene in Tel Aviv. In the years to follow, two other close friends left for New York. As the number of violent events was rising, the acceleration in the number of queer left-wing activists emigrating was undeniable. The implication of this movement abroad was starting to be felt in the (even then) very small community of Tel Aviv left-wing queers.
The political situation in the early 2000s was nowhere near a solution, and the area was again and again inflamed by violent events. From 2000 to the present, Israelis and Palestinians suffered from nonstop terror attacks in Israel, side-by-side with the ever-occurring sieges on Palestinian villages, check-points built in the West Bank, the building of the Separation Wall, the blockade of Gaza beginning in 2007, and so on. Five wars took place: Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Operation Cast Lead in 2008–2009, Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012, and Operation Tzuk Eitan in 2014. It is not surprising then that in those years emigration became a constant theme, and leaving became a visible and significant discourse. The people departing were declaring that they would not return until the situation improved. People were either applying to study abroad or finding other ways to settle down somewhere in Europe or North America. When I left for the UK in the summer of 2012, after several disappointing years of working in the field of human rights in Israel/Palestine, it was more than obvious to me that the emigration of queers was no longer confined to sporadic cases, but an actual phenomenon: a queer Israeli departure.
This observation was reinforced by the establishment of a few cyber forums. The most obvious one was the Facebook group the New Hebrew Diaspora (NHD), which was opened in August 2011. This group, established by two queer individuals, one living in Berlin and one in Paris, was formulated as a queer left-wing space for Israeli emigrants in various locations. In addition, the blog The Land of the Amorites ( Eretz Ha-emori ) was founded in February 2010 by two queer individuals, one based in Israel, and one based in New York. The blog, whose establishers later joined the NHD Facebook group, invited its readers to write about the departure from Israel, as one of many themes. The third one was a group of Israeli migrants in the United States who established on November 2012 the Israeli Opposition Network (ION), aiming to impact the situation in Israel/Palestine from the diaspora. These forums became an integral part of the phenomenon of emigration itself. Michal, who was at the time celebrating six years in Paris, sent me an invitation to join the Facebook group of the NHD, a group I had no idea even existed. I was invited once I had my mind set on leaving, and even before my plan was executed. When I joined the group, I realized that many of the left-wing queers of Tel Aviv were already there, in the cyberspace, but also in the diasporic space, outside of Israel.
My departure process is entangled with queer Israeli emigration in various complicated ways. Queer Israeli emigrants were a community that was alive and active before I left, and in a way, the existence of this community enabled my own departure, my own path into becoming a member of it. I was loo