Should We Bring Joy to Progressive Jewish Anti-Zionists?

What story can we tell to inspire reconnection with the Jewish people and awaken the sleeping love for G‑d in the heart of every Jew?

There’s a land that I’ve heard of once in a lullaby
– Isidore Hochberg, Somewhere Over The Rainbow (1939)

Progressive anti-Zionist Jews trigger deep disgust in other Jews, who see the Progressives swimming in stunning ignorance and wilful blindness. But are they “wicked”, like the irreligious son at the Passover Seder? Does it matter that their “hostile behavior” is, in today’s terms, more likely indicative of self-hatred that grows partly from an internal Jewish emphasis on victimization and suffering? Could mixing a teaspoon of joy into the Jewish identity do the trick as a remedy?

For Jews of the last century, Zionism was a desperate response to systematic attempts to make Europe uninhabitable for Jews, and then, as doom approached, to rescue the Jews who the West essentially corralled into the Holocaust.[1] (The historian Walter Russell Mead describes Zionism as “a weird, crazy, desperate stab at survival.”) With visceral revulsion, conventional Jews impugn the inverted morality that parades and demonizes Zionism and Israel as the last embodiment of Western sins.

The Progressives’ unhinged ahistorical and moral worldview bears no resemblance to the direct experience of many Western Jews. These Jews learned from their grandparents how the Russian Empire pursued ethnic cleansing with draconian laws that impoverished Jews,[2] sadism, terrorism, rape, and murder.[3] In their lived reality, they were traumatized by images of mounds of corpses being shoveled into the pits of the Holocaust and emaciated victims staring out helplessly from concentration camps. Propaganda constantly shamed Jews as weak, passive, and feminine. They were subjected to antisemitic caricatures aimed to dehumanize and demonize by portraying the Jewish people as physically ugly, including recycled Nazi-era propaganda depicting Jews with large, hooked noses.[4]

From a traditional Judaism perspective, the Progressive anti-Zionist Jew may be deemed “wicked.” Every year, Jews sit together for a Passover meal and consider the “wicked” child who says mockingly “What does this service mean to you?”[5] He is treated with contempt as a ben neichar (“one who serves a strange god”)[6]– and given a stinging reprimand (to “blunt his teeth”) because he is not seen as interested in answers and will never be satisfied with any explanation.[7] According to Maimonides (Hilkhot Teshuva 3:11), it is the sinful Jew who “separates himself from the community” and “goes his own way”–“such a person has no share in the World to Come” (even if he observes the Commandments). That being the case, can it be doubted that the Progressive Jew sins by denying Jews a safe place to live?

In earlier times, these Jews who lend support to the haters of Israel would have been chased away and ostracized as trouble-makers.[8] But there is an understanding in Judaism, born of newfound sensitivity, that one’s love for the wicked should be equal to one’s love for the righteous. In the wake of the Shoah, this concept was paired with a profound reverence for the value of every Jewish soul. According to the Rebbe, Rav Schneerson (zt”l), we have the ability and the promise to ensure that no Jew will be left behind.[9] Can those who disassociate from Am Yisrael undertake repentance (teshuvah) and rejoin the Jewish community? The Rebbe believed that those who head in the wrong direction and go astray are to be covered with love (Isaiah 58:7) and shown their shortcomings, a process that will one day cause their Jewish core and essence to shine. Is this inevitable? The Rebbe had faith, grounded in his belief that Jews reflect G-d’s complete goodness, and that their relationship is unconditional.[10]

To cultivate a loving and constructive engagement, should we not first seek to understand what informs the Jewish anti-Zionist woke mindset? Is it an act of self-harm triggered by an infection of “Islamism soaked in Maoism” that semantically bleaches and weaponizes Zionism[11] and feeds on self-hate?[12] If so, can we tackle this parasitic pathogen by ministering to the afflicted’s self-loathing borne of relentless transgenerational antisemitism, anxiety, and fear? What story can we tell to inspire re-connection with the Jewish people and awaken the sleeping love for G‑d in the heart of every Jew? 

There are many views on how best to inculcate Jewish community and values (as many as the versions of blame for Jewish assimilation, particularly in America). Orthodox Jews, living in closely connected communities that champion Jewish day schools and centers for outreach and Torah study, do not seem to face this problem. (A vocal exception is a very small group of Haredi Jews who oppose the State of Israel, believing that return must be a product of divine intervention.)[13] By contrast, secular Jewish communities tend to distance themselves from Judaism. The education provided to their youth is largely abbreviated and depressing. In reaction to the twinkling of Christmas trees, parents dull the glow of Hanukkah candles by telling their children that it’s not a major holiday. They teach them about slavery and the Exodus from Egypt, and then skip forward to the Holocaust. While everyone else embraces their identity with delight and pride, these children are force fed stories of immiseration, victimhood, and Anne Frank. Whether or not everyone else loves stories of dead Jews, Jewish children do not.

Jews are now coming to terms with the idea that Holocaust education, which is routinely misappropriated for activist agendas, has questionable outcomes. Lacking an anchor in Jewish academic history, Jewish children are drawn to trauma bond with other marginalized and oppressed communities, potentially turning against themselves and their own people in the process. If all they learn is the horror of the Holocaust and its outcome, then they don’t have the basis for understanding the validity of the Jewish State. They would likely be surprised, for example, to know that the indigenous Jewish homeland is Judea and Samaria–the area Jordan annexed and renamed the ”West Bank’ after the 1948 War of Independence, to distinguish it from the area of Jordan on the “East Bank” of the Jordan River.”

Rather than focusing on the lowest point in Jewish history—where they were humiliated, despised, and turned to ashes—the emphasis should be on the positive heights of Jewish achievement. Jews have much to be proud of. Israel is the greatest liberation story of a people who came together to change the future. There is much beauty at the heart of the Jewish people, who brought to the world the concepts of linear time, history, future, freedom, progress, and justice. Since 1900, more than twenty percent of Nobel laureates have been Jewish. Jews have starred at the center of popular culture, from the composers Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin, to the singers Al Jolson (star of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer), Amy Winehouse, and Pink. Jews founded Hollywood and Steven Spielberg transformed entertainment. Sam Altman is leading the AI revolution. 

Failure to proclaim widely the beauty at the heart of the Jewish people, their laws, customs, contributions, and accomplishments may reflect an ancient dread of individual and collective punishment for proselytizing, or, perhaps, just a flawed idea that showcasing Jewish identity is simply about external perceptions they don’t value. But such fears and reservations no longer serve well. Times have changed and so have needs. Beyond understanding their history and culture, Jews—especially secular Jews—need an inviting path of joy (Deuteronomy 26:11; 28:47) illuminated by relatable stories they can celebrate.

Endnotes:

1. See, An Extraordinary Introduction to the Birth of Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (with Haviv Rettig Gur), EContalk (Dec. 18, 2023), https://www.econtalk.org/an-extraordinary-introduction-to-the-birth-of-israel-and-the-arab-israeli-conflict-with-haviv-rettig-gur/
2. In November 1914, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was founded. Its initial purpose was to raise and distribute funds to help support the Jewish populations of eastern Europe and the near east during World War I. Between 1914 and 1929, the JDC collected some 78.7 million dollars from American Jews. AMERICAN JEWISH JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE AND REFUGEE AID, Holocaust Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/american-jewish-joint-distribution-committee-and-refugee-aid; cf., S. Ettinger,  Jewish Emigration in the 19th Century, myjewishlearning, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-emigration-in-the-19th-century/
3. Cf., R. Rockaway, Jews Fled Russia to Escape Poverty, Oppression, and Czarist Edicts—and their Own Self-Interested Communal Leaders, Tablet (Oct. 23, 2017), https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/why-jews-fled-russia-great-mirgration
4. Cf., Naomi Lewis’s ‘my big Jewish nose’ essay sparks controversy, CBC News (Aug 22, 2014), https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/naomi-lewis-s-my-big-jewish-nose-essay-sparks-controversy-1.2744061
5. Cf., Exodus 12:26 (“What do you mean by this rite?”), https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.12.26?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
6. In the times of the Temple, a ben neichar would not have been permitted to eat the Pesach offering (korban) that binds individual Jews together as an integrated community. See, Exodus 12:43, https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.12.43?lang=bi&aliyot=0
7. Cf., The Jonathan Sacks Haggadah, Magid, The Four Sons 1, https://www.sefaria.org/The_Jonathan_Sacks_Haggadah%2C_Magid%2C_The_Four_Sons.1.2?lang=bi; Z. Faber, The Four Sons: How the Midrash Developed, TheTorah.com, https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-four-sons-how-the-midrash-developed
8. Cf., D. Denvir, Zionism’s History Is Also a History of Jewish Anti-Zionism – AN INTERVIEW WITH SHAUL MAGID, Jacobin (Jan. 28, 2024), https://jacobin.com/2024/01/shaul-magid-interview-zionism-anti-zionism-judaism-history
9. Cf., T. Freeman, The Wicked Son Redeemed, Chabad.org (Passover 2025),  https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/3983357/jewish/The-Wicked-Son-Redeemed.htm#footnote2a3983357
10. “‘Let sin be destroyed from the world’”, ‘sin’ and not the ‘sinners.’ Their sins should be hated and despised; however efforts must be made to cause them to do teshuvah.” N. Dubov, Chapter 6: To All Israel, Sichos in English, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2312342/jewish/Chapter-6-To-All-Israel.htm
11. See, A. Hirsi Ali, Glastonbury—and the Purge of the Jews, Free Press (June 29, 2025), https://www.thefp.com/p/ayaan-hirsi-ali-glastonbury-and-the?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email; cf., M. Penn & A. Stein, Gen Z, the Useful Idiot Generation, Wall St. J. (July 8, 2025),  https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-useful-idiot-generation-z-young-people-politics-cd42f1ee?mod=opinion_trendingnow_article_pos2
12. Cf., D. Nussbaum Cohen, The New Jewish Self-Hatred, Jewish Telegraph Agency (Jan. 30, 2008), https://www.jta.org/2008/01/30/ny/the-new-jewish-self-hatred

Cf., S. Magid, The Satmar Are Anti-Zionist. Should We Care?, Tablet (May 21, 2020), https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/satmar-anti-zionist