Emily, thanks for engaging with Stacey and Sam. I feel that Zionism is not as complicated as people make it out to be. There are 57 Muslim countries in the world and 157 countries with Christian majorities. If one feels that the Jews have a right to have a country in their ancestral homeland, that person is a Zionist. The way the country came to be may have been contested, but it was put into being at the same time as India (which is majority Hindu) and Pakistan in 1948 after a population transfer. The issues with a country and how they deal with their minority populations and disputed territories can certainly be debated. This is with all countries. But to single out Israel for destruction is not reasonable. There are ultra orthodox sects who oppose the state for reasons that deal with the coming of the messiah. And there were anti Zionist diaspora Jews before WW2 that felt they would be treated as a 5th column if they supported a state. Turns out it none if the reasons mattered. And after 10/7… it is more obvious that what a Jew believes is a distinction without a difference to Jew haters. I am glad that this discussion is taking place within our small tribe, but calling yourself an anti Zionist Jew is quite a stretch if you believe my premise. And it just gives succor to our enemies who are happy to find Jews among their fellow travelers. And history shows that at the end of day…a Jew is a Jew.
This really isn't a theoretical debate. Zionism is only the belief that there should be a Jewish state in Israel. It's a yes-or-no question. The Zionist position is yes. And Israel is a sovereign, independent nation, not a theoretical concept to debate. The definition of Zionism doesn't specify anything about which political party you support or oppose in Israel. It is also not a theoretical issue because the *fact* is that for years, Hamas has been building up a store of weapons and a supply chain that was more advanced and more extensive that had been imagined. It is a fact, not a theory, that Hamas had 50 tunnels leading into Egypt for smuggling people, weapons and laundered money. The realistic question is whether fighting Hamas in the war as it has been conducted made things better or worse. I am not a military expert. I listen to a broad range of views from those of Joathan Conricus to those of Yair Golan. Now Biden has to deal with the problem of what happens to 200,000 Israeli refugees and possibly a million Gazan refugees. But it appears that a large part of the Hamas war infrastructure has been dismantled. Where are all of the refugees going to do? These are all real issues, not theoretical issues. What it means as an ideology for different strains of American Jewish experience is not Israel's problem.
I think an even simpler definition of Zionism works: Israel is a country that is entitled to exist, as is. Period. I may not (and do not) like a lot of what the Israeli government does but that is a different issue. What infuriates and upsets me the most is anti-Zionists who think they have the right to dictate Israel's future by imposing various requirements, e.g., it must be a non-Jewish state; it must accept the right of return of Palestinians; it must allow the creation of one "respectful" entity from the river to the sea; etc. etc.
As Tracy said in this piece, "I see Israel today as a country that exists with real people who live there, and a societal infrastructure, a culture of its own, language, and institutions. I see it as just a real place where people need to be able to continue to live just like every country in the world." Period.
The question of definitions is really at the center of the issue. I've heard the argument that we should just stop using the word "Zionism" altogether. Should political movements be tied to their original definitions or be subject to new definitions based on the actions of affiliated people or should those terms just expire when the goals are fulfilled? What is this obsession with "Zionism" anyway, and who are the people who use it most, and why?
Good question. I think the haters may use it the most! Jews seem to mostly think in terms of "I support Israel's right to exist [as is]." But that's too long. And pro-Israel seems to not include those who believe in Israel but who are critical of its government.
Zionism is not an obsession. It's not a theory. Zionism was real people, like my grandfather's brother, deciding that they weren't going to be slaves of Stalin taking over of the farms and treating the farmers as feudal serfs and decided to return to their ancestral land. They *bought* the land. They didn't steal it. They made the desert bloom. They lived out in the desert with nothing. they gave up their former nearby urban life of Chernivtsi, Odessa and Kiev. They gave up the wonderful farms they built in Soroka, the apples and the walnuts and the melons they grew. Zionism is the simple proposition that there should be a Jewish state in Israel. The majority of Jews there are from families that weren't in the European diaspora. They really don't care what Americans on the West Coast theorize. It's their homeland and has been for millennia.
Emily, thanks for engaging with Stacey and Sam. I feel that Zionism is not as complicated as people make it out to be. There are 57 Muslim countries in the world and 157 countries with Christian majorities. If one feels that the Jews have a right to have a country in their ancestral homeland, that person is a Zionist. The way the country came to be may have been contested, but it was put into being at the same time as India (which is majority Hindu) and Pakistan in 1948 after a population transfer. The issues with a country and how they deal with their minority populations and disputed territories can certainly be debated. This is with all countries. But to single out Israel for destruction is not reasonable. There are ultra orthodox sects who oppose the state for reasons that deal with the coming of the messiah. And there were anti Zionist diaspora Jews before WW2 that felt they would be treated as a 5th column if they supported a state. Turns out it none if the reasons mattered. And after 10/7… it is more obvious that what a Jew believes is a distinction without a difference to Jew haters. I am glad that this discussion is taking place within our small tribe, but calling yourself an anti Zionist Jew is quite a stretch if you believe my premise. And it just gives succor to our enemies who are happy to find Jews among their fellow travelers. And history shows that at the end of day…a Jew is a Jew.
Nobody is calling for the abolition of Pakistan as a country. Israel is being questioned in a way that Pakistan is not.
This really isn't a theoretical debate. Zionism is only the belief that there should be a Jewish state in Israel. It's a yes-or-no question. The Zionist position is yes. And Israel is a sovereign, independent nation, not a theoretical concept to debate. The definition of Zionism doesn't specify anything about which political party you support or oppose in Israel. It is also not a theoretical issue because the *fact* is that for years, Hamas has been building up a store of weapons and a supply chain that was more advanced and more extensive that had been imagined. It is a fact, not a theory, that Hamas had 50 tunnels leading into Egypt for smuggling people, weapons and laundered money. The realistic question is whether fighting Hamas in the war as it has been conducted made things better or worse. I am not a military expert. I listen to a broad range of views from those of Joathan Conricus to those of Yair Golan. Now Biden has to deal with the problem of what happens to 200,000 Israeli refugees and possibly a million Gazan refugees. But it appears that a large part of the Hamas war infrastructure has been dismantled. Where are all of the refugees going to do? These are all real issues, not theoretical issues. What it means as an ideology for different strains of American Jewish experience is not Israel's problem.
I think an even simpler definition of Zionism works: Israel is a country that is entitled to exist, as is. Period. I may not (and do not) like a lot of what the Israeli government does but that is a different issue. What infuriates and upsets me the most is anti-Zionists who think they have the right to dictate Israel's future by imposing various requirements, e.g., it must be a non-Jewish state; it must accept the right of return of Palestinians; it must allow the creation of one "respectful" entity from the river to the sea; etc. etc.
As Tracy said in this piece, "I see Israel today as a country that exists with real people who live there, and a societal infrastructure, a culture of its own, language, and institutions. I see it as just a real place where people need to be able to continue to live just like every country in the world." Period.
The question of definitions is really at the center of the issue. I've heard the argument that we should just stop using the word "Zionism" altogether. Should political movements be tied to their original definitions or be subject to new definitions based on the actions of affiliated people or should those terms just expire when the goals are fulfilled? What is this obsession with "Zionism" anyway, and who are the people who use it most, and why?
Good question. I think the haters may use it the most! Jews seem to mostly think in terms of "I support Israel's right to exist [as is]." But that's too long. And pro-Israel seems to not include those who believe in Israel but who are critical of its government.
Zionism is not an obsession. It's not a theory. Zionism was real people, like my grandfather's brother, deciding that they weren't going to be slaves of Stalin taking over of the farms and treating the farmers as feudal serfs and decided to return to their ancestral land. They *bought* the land. They didn't steal it. They made the desert bloom. They lived out in the desert with nothing. they gave up their former nearby urban life of Chernivtsi, Odessa and Kiev. They gave up the wonderful farms they built in Soroka, the apples and the walnuts and the melons they grew. Zionism is the simple proposition that there should be a Jewish state in Israel. The majority of Jews there are from families that weren't in the European diaspora. They really don't care what Americans on the West Coast theorize. It's their homeland and has been for millennia.
Zionism was hardly a theory for the Jews who knew what Stalin was doing to anyone who wrote a little bit of poetry.