The modern name for this Other who is “supposed to believe” in our stead is the “people”. …When Golda Meir was asked whether she believed in God, she said: “I believe in the Jewish people, and the Jewish people believe in God.” This statement …does not imply that the majority of the Jews believe in God. [Meir’s] statement …implies …a certain fetishization of the “people”: even if (to go the extreme) no individual Jewish citizen of Israel believes, each of them presupposes that the “people” believes, and this presupposition is enough to make her act as if she believes. (In Defense of Lost Causes, p227)

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