#stopping myself before i write a whole essay on messianic time and remembrance and the angel of history

[heritageposts]

I also love & take much inspiration from Benjamin in times of intense danger & fear but I’m surprised that you do as well since you are so explicit about your disgust for zionism (I don’t think Israel should exist - I don’t think it’s possible for states to exist ethically, basically - but my relationship with Judaism & thus zionism seems a bit different from yours?). how do you manage his fraught relationship with cultural vs. political zionism in his work?

There isn't really much of a 'fraught' relationship to speak of; in short, Benjamin was never a Zionist. He repeatedly criticized Zionism, warning Scholem as early as 1916 that the whole Zionist movement was underpinned by a "racial ideology."

What I guess might lead to some confusion is Benjamin's concept of cultural Zionism, which he used early on to describe his own work. But this self-described 'Zionism' had nothing at all to do with Palestine; the aim was never to free Jewish culture from the European, but to rescue European culture through Jewish spirituality (and Marxism). Establishing a new center for Jewish culture in Palestine - the way Scholem wanted - never interested him, let alone the prospect of colonizing the land.