Tel Aviv University
Prophetic Politics: Political Theology in early 20th Century Jewish Thought and the Question of the Legitimacy of the State - Landauer, Buber, A.D. Gordon
At the heart of Yotam Yzraely’s PhD project is an examination of the theological-political matrix of the modern polity and how it threatens to undermine the thread work of human rights and civic institutions in liberal democracies. However, this is not only an institutional problem regarding religious and civic legislation – it rather touches upon the deeper fundamental theological/metaphysical concepts of legitimacy of the polity’s claim upon its citizens. He examines classic voices of Jewish political radicalism in the early twentieth century – whether Zionist or not – who are concerned with the very possibility of human political life, i.e., the very nature and meaning of law and authority, and how it’s imparted to the pursuit of freedom and justice in modernity.
Yotam Yzraely is a researcher of religions and lecturer on issues of Judaism and culture. He is a doctoral student at The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archeology at Tel Aviv University.