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This is a new edition of a classic and highly controversial book that examines the history and consequences of Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. Fully updated, with new chapters and a new introduction by Norton Mezvinsky, it is essential reading for anyone who wants a full understanding of the way religious extremism has affected the political development of the modern Israeli state.

Acclaimed writer and human rights campaigner Israel Shahak was, up util his death in 2001, one of the most respected of Israel’s peace activists – he was, in the words of Gore Vidal, ‘the latest – if not the last – of the great prophets.’ Written by Shahak together with American scholar Norton Mezvinsky, this books shows how Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, as shown in the activities of religious settlers, is of great political importance.

The authors trace the history and development of Jewish fundamentalism. They place the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in the context of what they see as a tradition of punishments and killings of those Jews perceived to be heretics. They conclude that Jewish fundamentalism is essentially hostile to democracy.

Just Language revisits the Weimar period and its representation in the postwar years to explore narratives of linguistic resistance in the works of Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Hannah Arendt, and Paul Celan. How did this generation of exile writers grapple with their experiences of oppression and persecution? How did they create a language of resistance during the decades that prepared the Third Reich and the Shoah?

Facing the devastations of World War I, the book explores how Walter Benjamin analyzed language’s ability to radically break the cyclical violence of war and examines his opposition to expansionism and imperialism in Weimar education and culture. Based on Benjamin’s analysis, Johannßen traces the postwar responses of Hannah Arendt and Paul Celan. While Arendt proposed strategies of metaphorical thinking to counteract the formation of totalitarianism, Celan mobilized silence as a poetic counterforce against oppression and erasure. Just Language argues that every linguistic act and practice, no matter how small or marginalized, entails the ethical task of opposing the normalization and institutionalization of political violence. By tracing how Benjamin and his interlocutors struggled against German fascism, Johannßen presents a memory-based critique of linguistic violence, opening a dialogue between German-Jewish writers and today’s debates on nondiscrimination, propaganda, and social justice.