Description
This paper explores the political theologies of Martin Buber (1878–1965) and Yehoshua Radler-Feldman (1880–1957), focusing on their critiques of mainstream Zionism and the liberal nation-state. Active in early-twentieth century Palestine and aligned with binational Zionist movements, both Buber and Radler-Feldman rejected the liberal political order as incompatible with Jewish theology. They regarded state sovereignty as a form of idolatry that usurped divine authority and assimilated Jewish political identity into a Christian-secular nation-state model. Their understanding of the Jewish collectivity as being constituted in relation to God and Torah, rather than by human agency alone, challenges IR theory’s conventional assumptions about autonomous group self-determination. Their vision also disrupts IR’s territorial assumptions: the Biblical land of Israel, for them, was not a sovereign possession but a theologically charged space that resists incorporation into legal regimes of property and statehood. This paper situates Buber and Radler-Feldman within post-secular debates in IR, arguing that their thought challenges IR's core assumptions about sovereignty, identity, and space. By recovering their political theologies, the paper calls for a re-examination of foundational IR concepts in light of traditions that resist supposedly secular paradigms.
