Here’s why progressives should read Gad Lerner

On the Albanese left and from the river to the sea – where the view is that the Israelis massacred on 7 October had it coming, the hostages who were raped and tortured deserve to be ignored, and the missiles fired at Tel Aviv are an act of resistance – there is one intellectual who is trying to challenge this. Gad Lerner’s interview with La Repubblica stems from the controversy in Reggio Emilia (Reggio Children, a delegation of Israeli teachers, a charter of values on the rejection of genocide, and the reactions of certain representatives of the Jewish communities). Lerner describes it as “a serious mistake” to ask educators “as Jews” to distance themselves from the Israeli government and defends the value of cultural exchanges with Israel.

For months now, the journalist has also been trying to rescue the ‘cursed’ word, ‘Zionism’, from demonisation and exploitation. Lerner is trying. He is trying despite the fact that the left to which he belongs seems to have decided to perform an exorcism on Israel. And it sounds like a stubborn attempt to keep a space for complexity open. Lerner belongs to those who recognise in Israel not only a political entity to be criticised, but a family history, a historical salvation, a place where seven million Jews have nowhere else to go. It is precisely for this reason that he rejects the logic of renunciation.

Another figure in the circle, Erri De Luca, had shown unusual courage on the left by saying the unspeakable: that Jewish culture is our mother, that Israel and Zionism are more than legitimate, that what happened in Gaza was a war and not genocide, and that he will not sit on the same stage as those who seek the destruction of Israel. De Luca was overwhelmed by a mountain of hatred and attacks so vast that not even the Tav high-speed rail line could penetrate it. To reject this logic of renunciation is to accept that a politics of solidarity incapable of distinguishing between and preserving cultural ties ultimately only serves to impoverish itself.