Yigal Bin-Nun (Hebrew: יגאל בן-נון; born 1950) is an Israeli historian, biblical scholar, artist and social activist. His research concerns the modern history of North Africa, particularly Morocco, as well as biblical historiography, the development of Judaism and the history of Israeli art movements.
Early life and political activity Bin-Nun was born Yigal Vanunu in Casablanca, Morocco, and immigrated to Israel at the age of eighteen. He served in the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade and subsequently studied Jewish history and French literature at Tel Aviv University, where he participated in the university's student union.
During the early 1970s, Bin-Nun was among the founders of the Tel Aviv branch of the Israeli Black Panthers and served as its spokesperson. He left the organization in 1973 following disagreements with former Knesset member Shalom Cohen and disputes concerning the involvement of Matzpen and Rakah activists in the Jerusalem branch.
Bin-Nun was associated with the poet and intellectual Yonatan Ratosh and with members of the Canaanite movement. In 1973, he helped establish the Nimrod Movement, an organization of secondary-school and university students that advocated changing the Israeli school curriculum in accordance with Canaanite conceptions of Hebrew identity.
In 1974, he participated in establishing the Council for the Advancement of Education in Development Towns, which sought to redirect some of the activities of the Nahal military program toward Israel's development towns. He was then employed as a secondary-school history teacher.
Bin-Nun joined the Democratic Movement for Change in 1976 and was placed sixty-first on its list for the 1977 Israeli legislative election. In June 1977, he headed its slate in the election for the Tel Aviv Workers’ Council. Following the dissolution of the Democratic Movement for Change, he headed the Shinui faction in the Histadrut and served on the Histadrut's coordinating committee. He also directed the joint socioeconomic council of the Histadrut and the Manufacturers Association of Israel.
Artistic and cultural activity Bin-Nun served as chair of the Histadrut's Department of Culture and Art. He was among the initiators of the Smartut performance group and the 1981 Festival of Degenerates, directed by the performance artist Honi Hameagel. He also served on Israel's Council for Culture and Art and on the board of the Art for the People organization. His artistic and critical work addressed performance art, interdisciplinary art and postmodern dance. He later taught courses on Israeli art at Bar-Ilan University and published essays on the development of Israeli performance art and postmodernism.
Academic career During the 1990s, Bin-Nun moved to Paris, where he lived for fourteen years. In 2002, he completed a doctorate at Paris 8 University Vincennes–Saint-Denis. His dissertation examined clandestine relations between Israel and Morocco and Jewish emigration from Morocco between 1955 and 1966. In 2009, he completed a second doctorate, with distinction, at the École pratique des hautes études. Supervised by biblical scholar Thomas Römer, the dissertation examined editorial strata in biblical texts concerning the origins and traditions of the Kingdom of Israel. Bin-Nun has taught the history of North Africa after the Second World War at Paris 8 University. He has also been affiliated as a research associate with the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University.
Research
Israel and Morocco Bin-Nun's research on Morocco examines the political status of Moroccan Jews following the country's independence in 1956 and the clandestine relations between Morocco and Israel. He argues that the first years following independence offered educated Moroccan Jews opportunities to enter the civil service and assume positions formerly held by French officials.Frédéric Abécassis. Questions about jewish migrations from Morocco. Questions about jewish migrations from Morocco, Jun 2012, Jérusalem, Israel. pp.73-82. ⟨halshs-00778664⟩
His work also examines the efforts of the Israeli government and international Jewish organizations to secure permission for Jewish emigration from Morocco. Bin-Nun contends that Israeli emissaries sometimes interpreted the position of Moroccan Jewry through expectations of imminent danger that did not adequately correspond to conditions within Morocco. According to his interpretation, these policies contributed to the dissolution of a community then experiencing considerable social and cultural development. Bin-Nun has also studied Morocco's involvement in the Six-Day War. He argues that King Hassan II, while publicly expressing solidarity with Egypt and other Arab states, maintained clandestine relations with Israel and dispatched Moroccan forces primarily as a symbolic gesture. The troops did not reach the Egyptian front before the war ended.
Origins of North African Jewish communities Bin-Nun rejects the proposition that North African Jews descended principally from Berber tribes converted collectively to Judaism. He instead describes North African Jewry as the product of prolonged interaction among Judeans integrated into Hellenistic culture, Hellenized North Africans who adopted Judaism individually and other regional populations. In his reconstruction, the Jewish revolt in Cyrenaica and Alexandria between 115 and 117 CE marked an important stage in the formation of Jewish communities west of Egypt. He maintains that successive migrations, conversions and cultural assimilations preclude the treatment of North African Jewry as a single, genetically homogeneous ethnic population.
Biblical historiography Bin-Nun's biblical research treats the Hebrew Bible as a collection produced through successive processes of composition, transmission and editorial revision. His work distinguishes traditions associated with the northern Kingdom of Israel from those originating in Judah and Jerusalem.
In A Brief History of Yahweh, published in Hebrew in 2016, Bin-Nun argues that religious practice in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah was characterized by the worship of several deities and by multiple sanctuaries containing cultic representations. He questions the historicity of a unified kingdom comprising twelve Israelite tribes and maintains that most early Israelites emerged from the indigenous Canaanite population, with a smaller component originating among groups that migrated from Egypt.
Bin-Nun has also argued that circumcision was not generally practised in Israel and Judah during much of the Iron Age and Persian period. He dates the theological presentation of circumcision as a covenantal rite in the Abraham narratives to the late Persian period. This interpretation is not generally accepted within biblical scholarship.
His 2023 Hebrew-language book When Did We Become Jews? examines the formation of Judaism, Christianity and Islam through critical readings of the New Testament, Mishnah, Talmud and Quran. The book considers the transition from ancient Judean identities and sacrificial cults to the religious traditions of late antiquity.
Bin-Nun has advanced revisionist positions concerning the dates of the canonical Gospels and the relationship between early Christianity and the Quran. These arguments differ from prevailing scholarly chronologies and interpretations.
Selected publications Ancient Israel & Biblical Studies
Bin-Nun, Yigal. “The Kingdom of Judah and the Pan-Israelite Idea.” In Nation and Language: Studies in Honour of Uzzi Ornan. Tel Aviv, 2013, pp. 57–66. (in Hebrew) Bin-Nun, Yigal. A Brief History of Yahweh. 2016. (in Hebrew) Bin-Nun, Yigal. When Did We Become Jews? Dvir, 2023. (in Hebrew)
Moroccan Jewish History & Israel Relations
Bin-Nun, Yigal. “Between Euphoria and Disappointment: The Jewish Community after Moroccan Independence.” Gesher, no. 148 (2004), pp. 45–59. (in Hebrew) Bin-Nun, Yigal. “The Image of the Jewish Community in Independent Morocco in the Eyes of Israeli Emissaries.” REEH, no. 9 (2005), pp. 57–70. (in Hebrew) Bin-Nun, Yigal. “The Struggle against Anti-Jewish Expressions in the Moroccan Press, 1962–1963.” Kesher, no. 36 (2007), pp. 123–130. (in Hebrew) Bin-Nun, Yigal. “The Collapse of the Meknes and Fez Underground Branches after the Distribution of the Israeli Leaflet in February 1961.” In Fez and Other Cities in Morocco. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2013, pp. 359–396. (in Hebrew) Bin-Nun, Yigal. “The Affinity of the Jewish Community in Morocco to France and French Culture on the Eve of Moroccan Independence.” In French Jewry: Between Particularism and Universalism. Bar-Ilan University Press, 2015, pp. 55–74. (in Hebrew)
Art, Dance & Performance Studies
Bin-Nun, Yigal. “Provoking the Boundary: Transformations in the Language of Performance from the 1970s to the 1980s.” Studio, no. 20 (March 1991), pp. 16–19. (in Hebrew) Bin-Nun, Yigal. “The Transition to Postmodernism in Performance Art and Dance.” Dance Today, no. 30 (August 2016). (in Hebrew)
References
External links Yigal Bin-Nun publications at the National Library of Israel Academic publications Articles by Yigal Bin-Nun in Haaretz