The "non-Zionists" of a century ago would be considered Zionists today ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, July 14, 2025

The "non-Zionists" of a century ago would be considered Zionists today

Today's anti-Zionists like to portray Zionism as a fringe movement a century ago, and they claim that they are just following the paths of anti-Zionists of the past.

The argument is knowingly deceptive. The anti-Zionist arguments in the interwar period evaporated after the Holocaust. Opposing Zionism before Israel was reborn was a position against a political idea, opposing Zionism after Israel exists is antisemitism - the opposition to the very existence of the only Jewish majority state.

But there are other nuances to the anti- and non-Zionist stance by Jews in the interwar period.

Something happened a hundred years ago that sounds strange today. After discussions in Zionist conventions in the US and Europe, The Jewish Agency in British Mandate Palestine voted to expand to include non-Zionists.

Here is an article from the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle from July 1925:

Who were these non-Zionists and why did they want to join what was the most visibly Zionist organization - the Jewish Agency?

The non-Zionists of 1925 supported Jewish immigration to Palestine. They supported Jewish presence and growth in the Holy Land. They supported building up Jewish institutions and Jewish culture there. But they were ambivalent, at the time, about the concept of a Jewish national home as a political entity.

Some were worried about appearing to have dual loyalty. Some were worried that a Jewish state would survive and they just wanted to make Palestine a safe haven for Jews.

Yes, there were some real anti-Zionists among the Orthodox and Jewish socialists. But it is they who were were the fringe, even in 1925.

The non-Zionists of the time - the ones who wanted to be involved in building up a Jewish presence and culture and institutions in Palestine - were much different than the anti-Zionists of today. Unlike the "Jewish Voice for Peace" style haters, they cared deeply about the fate of their fellow Jews in Europe, the Muslim world and Palestine itself.

Today's Jewish "anti-Zionists," like the ones who met in Vienna in the "First Anti-Zionist Congress," last month, have nothing in common with the "non-Zionists" of the past. Those non-Zionists would be the first ones to condemn today's anti-Zionists as enemies of the Jewish people.