Who Am I without Exile? Revisiting “Exile within Sovereignty” (vols. 4–5, 1993–1994)

Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin returns to his formative article “Exile within Sovereignty,” which appeared in two parts in issues 4 and 5 of Theory and Criticism (1993–1994). With the perspective of the 25 years that have passed, Raz-Krakotzkin reexamines key concepts such as exile, binationality, and Mizrach and discovers that he is still asking the same questions and still deals with the same concepts. The dramatic historic changes since then in Israel/Palestine – first and foremost the peace process and its collapse – increase the relevance of the question that lay at the heart of the original article: How is it possible to base Jewish existence in the Land of Israel on the vision of equality between Jews and Palestinians? In this article Raz-Krakotzkin refines his thesis and argues that the key to such existence is based on a turn to exile as an act of accepting responsibility.