Criticism of Israel is not Antisemitic. But ‘Anti-Zionism’ is. This is why
Russell Shalev argues that human rights movements cannot adequately address anti-Jewish discrimination, harassment or violence without recognising the mutual connection between Judaism and Zionism, and therefore between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Judaism, he points out, is at once a religion and a nation. Since the inception of the Jewish people, Zion, the Land of Israel, and a national covenant have formed a central role in Jewish self-understanding. The modern Zionist movement is merely a reformulation of the ancient Jewish yearning for national renewal in its ancient homeland. Beginning in the Emancipation, Jewish equality was often conditional on the renunciation of these national ties. Contemporary anti-Zionism is an ideological heir to this antisemitic pressure. Anti-Zionist antisemitism demonises Jewish national identity, marginalises Jews, and legitimizes exclusion, hate and even violence against Jews regardless of their political affiliation, and sometimes even regardless of their personal connection or support for Zionism or the State of Israel.
I once called Zionism an infinite ideal, and I truly believe that even after we achieve our land, the land of Israel, it will not cease to be an ideal. Zionism, as I see it, entails not only an aspiration for a piece of land legally ours, but also for moral and spiritual integrity. – Theodore (Binyamin Ze’ev) Herzl
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom. – Israeli Declaration of Independence
Liel Leibovitz: No, Jews Aren’t White
IF YOU WERE a completist or a pedant, you could simply insist that viewing the world and its inhabitants through the lens of race is a creepy 19th-century affectation that excited mainly the most feeble-minded of Germans and led to a good bit of savagery. You could marshal Martin Luther King Jr. to your defense and say that you take the line about content of character over color of skin seriously. That kind of talk is earnest, but it won’t get you very far with those for whom race alone—and not, say, poverty, or lack of community, or a debilitating exposure to mind-rotting digital platforms—shapes every thread of the human experience.At CUFI gathering, Christians and Jews alike vow to fight BDS ‘economic anti-Semitism’
Next, you can try and argue that the category itself—“white”—is ridiculous. Go tell Giuseppe, for example, that his granddaughter is now considered a member of the rarified white elite, even though he and his fellow immigrants were pelted with racial insults, discriminated against, and murdered. We got Columbus Day, for example, after 11 Italian Americans were lynched in 1892, leading President Harrison to instate a daylong celebration he thought would never become a tradition. Or inform Paddy that while, back in his day, the Irish were talked about, to quote one sickening periodic refrain, as “negroes turned inside out,” his grandson may now rest assured on the top of the racial-grievance food chain.
And yet, even these objections, solemn as they may be, don’t begin to capture the weight of the argument that Jews are somehow white. Take a moment to acquaint yourself, even in passing, with our stiff-necked people, and it’s the following observation that is likely to register very near the top: We stand out precisely because we don’t fit in. Is Judaism a religion? Sure. Are Jews a nation? Yes. Do we share genetic traits? Offer us dairy and find out. Do we come in all shapes, sizes, and skin colors? Amen selah. This is why I, a ninth-generation Israeli whose ancestors arrived in Jerusalem from the backwaters of the Austrian Empire, can amble into the Slat al-Azama synagogue in Marrakesh, or the Beth Yaakov Synagogue in Geneva, or the Ohel Leah Synagogue in Hong Kong, look around and see faces that vary wildly, and yet rest assured that when services start we will all recite, in more or less the exact same fashion, the ancient words that Jews have spoken in daily prayer for millennia.
If this kind of image—black Jews and white Jews, European Jews and African Jews, educated wealthy Jews and barely literate poor Jews all understanding one another perfectly because they belong to the same strange family—strikes you as too flimsy, consider the criteria put forth by José Martínez Cobo, an anthropologist engaged by the United Nations to serve as special rapporteur on discrimination against indigenous populations, as to what makes a people “indigenous.”
To fit the bill, he argued, peoples and nations should display one or more of the following: occupation of ancestral lands; common ancestry; a shared culture or religion; and a shared language. By any and all metrics at our disposal—archeology, history, theology, even DNA tests—Jews, if anything, are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, from which they might have been exiled now and then but to which they always return.
Still, to the zealots who shout that Jews are white, all that matters is the following steely argument: that for the last few decades, American Jews have benefited from the rewards that come with being among our society’s most educated and best compensated few.
If day one of the Christians United for Israel 2021 summit was about honoring Israel, the next day’s focus at the organization’s annual conference held this year in Dallas was a call to action.
The more than 700 invited CUFI leaders and donors at the two-day conference on July 18-19 arrived early in the morning for the start of the marathon conference day that covered every topic from Iran, BDS and anti-Semitism among others.
Rather than the pep rally for Israel last Sunday, Monday offered attendees the nuts and bolts of the U.S.-Israel relationship, which they enthusiastically received, and set the course for the following year of activism.
Like the previous day, the proceedings began with another speech by CUFI founder Pastor John Hagee, who came onto the stage holding a bulging folder.
“I hold in my hand legal documents from 33 states that stops BDS—which is Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions—dead in its tracks in 33 states. BDS is economic anti-Semitism,” he said in a thunderous voice as he lifted the folder for the attendees to see. “Christians United for Israel is not a briefcase toting, paper shuffling, sit around the table and talk about it all day organization. We are a get-it-done group of people.
“I say again, dialogue without action is a waste of time, and I don’t dialogue really long. I want to find out what you’re going to do and then go do it.”
Hagee said that those present were leading the charge and winning the BDS fight in America.
“We will not stop until every state in the union has the policy to stop this economic anti-Semitism against the State of Israel,” Hagee said as the audience, seated at round tables with blue-and-white tablecloths in the Hyatt Regency ballroom, applauded with enthusiasm.
Im Tirtzu: The Zionist Salon – Joseph Cohen
Join us for a fascinating discussion with Joseph Cohen, founder of the Israel Advocacy Movement and one of the most recognizable faces in Israeli advocacy whose videos have been viewed by millions of people across the world.
Joseph and Im Tirtzu's Tamir Baram discuss a range of topics including his personal story, anti-Zionism, Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria, and more.