Galut Consciousness

Hello all, welcome to Galut Consciousness. Firstly, a brief note of explanation. The idea of this blog is to keep my friends and family back home in England updated on my progress in New York. It is a fast and convenient way for me to convey my thoughts, observations and feelings to those sufficiently interested to read them.

But why 'Galut Consciousness'? 'Galut', as all students of Jewish philosophy should know, is Hebrew for 'exile'. It refers to the 1800 year period during which the Jews were exiled from their homeland. During the course of the nineteenth-century a number of prominent Jewish intellectuals - amongst them the pioneers of Zionism; philosophers; and theologians - starting discussing galut 'consciousness'. Galut consciousness had a twofold meaning. Firstly, it referred to the physical fact of the Jews' exile: Jews were not in Israel. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it referred to the mental condition of living under exile. The Jews were alienated not just from their spiritual homeland (Israel), but also from their de facto homeland (Germany, France etc). In summary, galut consciousness is about the condition or mental perspective of living in exile.

It could well be argued that, as a Jew living outside of Israel, I myself suffer from galut consciousness. That is a point of contention. But what cannot be denied is that I am about to become an exile - self-imposed, perhaps, but an exile nevertheless. On Monday 13th August I will move to New York in order to begin a 5-7 year PhD in the History Department at Columbia University. Thus will begin my own experience of galut consciousness. Hence, therefore, the slightly pretentious (though I prefer learned) moniker of this blog. I hope that people will come and read my thoughts and look at my photographs and post their comments and suchlike as often as they can.

Thanks everyone!