Shaul Magid is an eminent Jewish-American scholar, rabbi, and public intellectual. He currently serves as a Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and has held a long-standing professorship at Indiana University.
Magid is a leading authority on Hasidism, Jewish mysticism, and the history of American Jewish thought. His works, such as Hasidism on the Margin and American Post-Judaism, challenge traditional narratives of Jewish identity. As a rabbi, he explores the theological value of the Diaspora. His in-depth commentary in publications like Jewish Currents has profoundly influenced the intellectual formation of a new generation of progressive Jewish thinkers.
Magid’s stance, which he terms “Counter-Zionism,” argues that the soul of Judaism lies in the moral sensitivity cultivated by life in the Diaspora, a spirit he believes has been alienated by the modern nation-state. He sharply critiques the dispossession of Palestinians and calls for a re-imagining of Jewish safety that does not rely on territorial sovereignty. He has argued: “If Jewish sovereignty requires the permanent subjugation of another people, then that sovereignty is both theologically and morally unsustainable. Our task is to reclaim a Jewish tradition that flourishes without the necessity of state violence.”