if you don't mind my asking, what is a doikaytist? I couldn't find any google results for it :/
doikayt or דאָיקײַט is a Yiddish word meaning "hereness" that was coined around the time the Jewish Labor Bund / דער יידישער ארבעטער־בונד formed and is directly in contrast to the zionist "thereness" of yearning for / actualizing the colonization of Palestine.
“The concept of doikayt was central to the Bundist ideology. The Jewish Labour Bund did not advocate ethnic or religious separatism, but focused on culture, not a state or a place, as the glue of Jewish nationhood, within the context of a world of multicultural and multi-ethnic countries.”
(the article linked above is by a Black Jewish Doikaytist woman and rules. also i hope the Yiddish words didnt fuck up the formatting of this post too bad)
i want to tag in @flamingkorybante who is very deep in do'ikayt work, both publishing (academic articles + also zines) and leading incredibly powerful workshops, for additional resources 🖤
HELLO
Doikayt is the yiddish word for "here-ness" ("do" = "here" and "kayt" = "-ness").
Here is a lil excerpt from the zine I wrote a few years about this, and you can read the full zine about here! I will also include the video of a talk I gave at the Jewish Left conference on Do'ikayt, mystical anarchism, and the Jewish Left!
This is the Yiddish word “do’ikayt” which translates to “hereness” – the Bundist principle that “wherever we are, there is our homeland.”
“A different here, a different now…a connection to the Here, where one lives, including its histories, but also a demand to change, to improve that Here. Do’ikayt insists that this change cannot wait, and will not be easier anywhere else.” – Madeline Atkins Cohen
Shmuel Alexandrov, a 1900s Belarusian Rabbi, believed that we would know Olam Haba’a by the melting away of all borders and laws before the divine light. He said even the border between Shabbat and the other days of the week would crumble away, allowing the holiness of Shabbat
to infuse into every day.
Alexandrov wrote that the statelessness of the Jews is holy; as Hashem cannot be contained within any borders or walls, to share that quality is to share an
aspect of divinity.
The destruction of borders is holy work. Every wall that falls sings the shehechiyanu as it lands.
In the principle of Doi’kayt, we can find a Jewishness that is both revolutionary and mystical.
We can make of our lives portals through which Olam Haba’a can be born, and that’s going to look like fighting our asses off.
And HERE is a link to a paper I published in '23 about do'ikayt, surrealism, and trans embodiment! (If you can't access the article there, drop me a line and I'll send you a PDF!)
Do'ikayt was developed around the same time as, and in response to, the early form of zionism. When we study it, we are reaching back to our revolutionary ancestors to ask them: Are you with me? Can we be in this fight together? And they are opening up space in the holy books to dance with us between the lines of text. I'm excited that so many more people are learning about do'ikayt and exploring its magical possibility, because I believe that if we do not explore and engage with and work to heal the lines of generational trauma that have resulted in our collective vulnerability to the zionist narrative, and we just staple pro-Palestine talking points on top of our alienation and isolation, our solidarity will be hollow and our work will fall down. Instead, leaning into do'ikayt gives us an opportunity to reject the striving for the redeeming externality of a utopian elsewhere and instead root deeply into the places where we already live and work, to celebrate the holiness of the entire earth, not just a little slice of it, to work hand-in-hand with all other oppressed peoples to topple empire and rise together. Blessed is the source of life from which rivers of holy light flow and wash away every border until the peace of Shabbat fills the earth!
