Declaration of Independence of Diaspora

Declaration of Independence of Diaspora: Still from the video

Our true birthplace was in Exile. Not when one man plotted out land and called it his, not when another built a palace and some elders declared him king, not when his son built a Temple and made it the center of his Land, but when we were kicked out of Eden—it was then that we were born.

It was while wandering the desert, not when carving it up with fences, that we learned to let its flowers bloom.

It was not statehood that made us, but slavery in Egypt, captivity in Babylon, and scattering like seeds across the coasts of imperial Rome.

We have seen our mothers’ mothers kidnapped to Assyria and Persia, and banished back again. We have seen uncles and nephews in the libraries of Alexandria, the gardens of Granada, in the schools of Vilnius and the market stalls of Salonika, until they had to leave there too. 

We have also seen friends trudging past the Himalayas, Balkans, and Carpathians to play for the Nations’ cabarets and courts, to fix the Nations’ pots and sharpen their knives. We have seen sisters and brothers driven from Africa, to work so that the Nations could have rights and states. We have seen others lost in every forest and thrown by the waves of every sea, floating on the backs of capsized rafts, turned back from every Nation’s shore.

We have seen our cousins chased at gunpoint from their homes and fields, sent from their ancestral lands in the name of ending exile. In the name of making us a Nation like the others. We have had enough of that kind of Nation.

We do not want to learn from them the arts of home design. We have learned the art of homesickness, so that we can see the homesickness of others. We have learned to roam, sojourn, stray, dawdle, loiter, and meander, also kick about, straggle, gallivant, trespass, traipse, flâner, drift, and sometimes stroll. But when the Rulers and Oppressors weren’t looking, we also learned the arts of struggle. We have seen suffering, but we have also climbed to the mountaintops and seen that the world is large. It was when we stood there, knowing that we have not yet found the world’s center and may never reach its ends—it was then that our nation came of age and realized it needs no fatherland or motherland or promise-land.

In the name, therefore, of Jews, half-Jews, crypto-Jews, impostor Jews, Jew-curious and barely Jew-ish Jews, as well as Gentiles, and everyone beyond or in between, let us HEREBY DECLARE THE INDEPENDENCE OF DIASPORA from all states, including, but not limited to, the State of Israel.

We make special appeal to the Israeli inhabitants of Diaspora to participate in its upbuilding on the basis of full and equal representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

THE RIGHT OF RETURN to Diaspora will be open to all

·       persons born of Jewish mothers, with proof of their mothers’ Jewishness as evidenced by the signatures of at least two rabbis;

·       persons with at least one Jewish grandparent, without proof;

·       Jewish persons living in the State of Israel, who question whether they belong there;

·       persons living outside the State of Israel, who may like to visit someday, but not right now;

·       persons vaguely interested in, fascinated by, or confused by Jewish tradition;

·       persons who don’t care in the least about Jewish tradition;

·       non-Jewish migrants and refugees in the State of Israel;

·       Palestinians thrown into Diaspora by the State of Israel;

·       all people, anywhere, who have no home;

·       all other people, everywhere.

DIASPORA makes no guarantees, but it calls on all who live in it, irrespective of religion, race, or sex, to struggle for their rights and the rights of their fellow travelers.

WE EXTEND our hand to all the Nations as they prepare to renounce their states, and to all states, if they are willing to forget their Nations.

THE BORDERS of Diaspora are everywhere and nowhere, and can be crossed at any moment.

THE A-NATIONAL ANTHEM of Diaspora is declared to be a medley of “Di Shvue,” “The March of the Unemployed,” “Wayfaring Stranger,” “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” and “Djelem, Djelem,” with several measures open for improvisation.

THE OFFICIAL DIASPORIC LANGUAGES will include Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, Shami Arabic, Shawi Arabic, Circassian, Judeo-Marathi, Amharic, Judeo-Tat, Polish, Czech, Ge’ez, Aramaic, modern Hebrew, Yoruba, Kuki-Chin languages, Armenian, Romani, Ukrainian, Rusyn, Polynesian, German, Russian, Italian, Tamil, Esperanto, Slavic English deprived of articles, dialects, pidgins and patois languages of all kinds, and badly pronounced Hebrew inflected with chapped lips and the slippery cadence of shtetl mud. This list of official languages will be continually adjusted and indefinitely expanded.

DIASPORA HAS NO FLAG, but it may freely decorate the walls of the Nations with stickers and graffiti, especially but not limited to the purpose of covering over fascist slogans. Ships of Diaspora will sail under a flotilla of ANTI-FLAGS.

THE CONSTITUTION of Diaspora will be drawn up when the diasporic people are ready to encode their shared values. Or never. Diaspora is patient and contains multitudes.

THE DIASPORIC ARMY will contain divisions of 1) vagabonds, disciplined by the sunrise and life on the road, 2) workers with strong arms, 3) scholars with sharp pens, and 4) artists trained in tactics of encirclement, ambush, and guerrilla theater.

THE POSITIONS OF PRESIDENT AND PRIME MINISTER will remain vacant until the Revolution comes, enabling all people everywhere to be at home.

PLACING OUR DISTRUST IN CONTRACTS AND COVENANTS, WE SCATTER THIS DECLARATION, UNSIGNED, ACROSS THE LANDS OF DIASPORA.

IT GOES INTO EFFECT IMMEDIATELY FROM THE MOMENT IT IS READ.

Watch the first reading of the declaration