Are anti-Zionists beyond the pale of peoplehood?
In 1918, rabbis in Odessa came together to participate in the most unusual of Jewish experiences: an excommunication. They made the determination that Jews who had participated in the Bolshevik Revolution committed an act so egregious, so counter to Judaism, that they had to be removed from the community in the most binding of ways.
Whether or not the validity of this excommunication still stands the test of time (although given how much of anti-Zionist rhetoric is straight out of the USSR, I would argue that it does), one has to consider whether or not there is a modern-day example of an ideological sin that would irrevocably put one outside of the Jewish community, and, to be provocative, I want to offer an opinion: perhaps Jewish anti-Zionists have put themselves outside of the pale of acceptable Jewish opinions.
Sara Hirschhorn recently said that those who are not watching the hostages as they emerge from captivity are not participating in a fundamental Jewish imperative – with all the implications therein. While perhaps this is a strong statement, even for me, I understand the moral impulse behind it: whether or not you can *actually* watch the hostage releases themselves, people who do not feel themselves bound by a common fate to those held in Gaza, those who do not feel the relief and anxiety of their return as an expression of Jewish peoplehood, are those who have put themselves outside of even the broadest expression of the Jewish people.
Now, to clarify, I don’t mean people who are agnostic when it comes to the State of Israel or people who are deeply critical of its policies. I believe that anyone who is willing to be part of the conversation and part of the debate about the role of Israel in the Jewish experience is part of the Jewish people. But those who do not agree that the State of Israel has the right to exist, or for whom the State of Israel is seen entirely within the frameworks of internalized antisemitism, I would argue are acting as egregiously as the Trotskys, Kamenevs and Zinovievs of old.
It’s not just because I disagree with them, which I do, or because I find their opinion fundamentally immoral, which I do, but because their position is both an expression of a lack of Jewish knowledge and a lack of commitment to Jewish peoplehood. Hear me out:
They fail to understand the realities of Jewish history.
People who believe that the State of Israel does not need to exist are fundamentally not knowledgeable about the realities of Jewish history. They assume that the relative calm of the post-1945 era is the natural state of the Jewish people. Unfortunately, in the truly post-Holocaust world that began on October 7th, our vacation from history ended and we have entered a new era – or, really, one that is merely a return to form. The line between the fates of Diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews ended that day, when in cities the world over, people celebrated the death of our brethren. It ended when antisemitic attacks skyrocketed, when synagogues and Jewish day schools came under attack. It demonstrated something fundamental: that overt antisemitism may have become “unacceptable” after the Holocaust, but that period is now over. And to make matters worse, we now find ourselves the targets of three extremist groups: the far right, the far left, and Islamists. And for those who argue, as many anti-Zionists do, that antisemitism is the result of the actions of the Jewish state, may I ask: what was the source of antisemitism prior to 1948, then?
They put themselves outside the fundamental connection between Judaism and the State of Israel.
Israel and Judaism are inextricably connected, both historically and religiously. Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot all commemorate times when Jews had to return to Jerusalem in order to make sacrifices at the Temple. Chanukah is about the Jewish desperation to stay in Jerusalem and Judea. Yom Kippur was the only time when the High Priest could enter the Kodesh ha’Kodeshim in the Temple. Tisha b’Av, a day of mourning, is for our lost temple and independence. For 2000 years, Jews longed to return to Israel and rebuild the Temple; on Yom Kippur and on Pesach, we shouted “next year in Jerusalem” from 12th century Spain, 15th century Italy & 20th century Poland. It was also far from just an internal drive; in the rise of nationalism in 19th and 20th century Europe, Jews were seen as outsiders to said ambitions, and calls for them to “go back to Palestine” proliferated the continent. To ignore those facts in favour of claims of colonialism and diasporism is intellectually dishonest.
They are seeking safety from outside rather than from within.
Whatever you feel about the State of Israel and its current government, there is a fundamental reality: Israel’s existence is a rejection of two thousand years of statelessness and powerlessness, a rejection of the inability to protect ourselves. Those anti-Zionists who proliferate on university campuses, who make calls of genocide and colonialism, are aligning themselves with those outside of the Jewish community, particularly in the feeling that safety can be found in acceptance from without.
The problem is, they too ignore history. Take interwar Warsaw, for example. BUNDists, or Jewish socialists, felt that protection would come first and foremost from the negation of Jewish sovereignty and the connection with Polish socialists. They worked hard to build connections with non-Jewish workers, believing it the path to reducing antisemitism and gaining acceptance. But when the BUNDists found themselves on the other side of the ghetto wall, those relationships that they had long sought to create came to almost nothing; what loyalty they thought they had inculcated disintegrated the minute it became difficult or inconvenient for their former allies. Those who believe that rejecting the Jewish universe of obligation in favour of non-Jews misunderstand something fundamental: when the tables are turned, we are almost never in anyone’s universe of obligation, no matter how frequently we try to include others in ours.
They represent the insidious nature of internalized antisemitism.
Last but not least, Jewish anti-Zionism is a fundamental manifestation of internalized antisemitism. This isn’t to say that those who are deeply critical of the State of Israel are internalized antisemites — I will admit to a pervasive dislike and distrust of the contemporary government, one that gets me in trouble at times. I am referring to people who protest the State of Israel’s existence, who argue — absent data — that it is a genocidal state, who frame the Jewish return as colonialism, who argue Jews are “white nationalists” and that Zionism is racism (apparently fundamentally differently from every other nationalist movement). Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are the same when manifested in three ways: delegitimization, demonization and the application of double standards. If they too delegitimize, demonize, and ignore those pesky double standards, then they have put themselves in the position of antisemites.
I understand that this is provocative, but it bears consideration. Are die-hard anti-Zionists acting in ways that are fundamentally anti-Jewish any less than the Bolshevik leaders, or, more recently, the on-campus “Jews for Jesus” that were firmly put on the outside as well? The commonalities between these two are that they are linked to movements deeply opposed to fundamentals in Judaism. Is anti-Zionism not the same?
So, bearing the concept of “two Jews, three opinions” in mind, let’s have it. What do you think?