WHERE FROM, WHERE TO? Returning to ambivalent nostalgia in the past-present-future of the Jewish diaspora

The dominant narrative asserts that there is no viable politicocultural future for Jewish people other than Zionism. But as Jewish Zionist hegemony is collapsing, many Jews are faced with an existential crisis: what now, what next? In reimagining what “return” can mean in the Jewish context, I redirect this dilemma into a quest of where from and where to? Through auto-ethnographic reflections from my own ancestral return, I examine the necessity of ambivalent nostalgia in this past-present-future moment. This research provides one model of return for my fellow wandering diasporic kin, and those yet to wander beyond the beaten path.