After Gaza, American Jews Are Increasingly Divided Over Zionism and Israel

Recent events in Gaza have revealed growing divisions within the American Jewish community with regard to their relationship with Zionism and the state of Israel. Many Jewish voices are speaking out on behalf of Palestinian victims of Israel’s assault upon Gaza. In their view, while expressing shock over the brutal attack by Hamas, the mass killing of civilians in Gaza violates humane Jewish moral and ethical values.

Sara Roy, senior research scholar at the Center for Middle East Studies at Harvard University, whose parents survived the Holocaust while 100 members of her family were killed in Poland, wrote an open letter to President Biden (London Review of Books, Nov. 2023)

She writes: “when does the death of a Palestinian child become unacceptable? Or perhaps I should ask the question this way: when will you assign a Palestinian life the same sanctity you assign an Israeli one? Yesterday, Israel bombarded the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza. Part of the camp was destroyed and at least 100 people were killed or injured. My friend the poet Mosab Abu Toha, his wife and children moved to Jabaliya recently after Israel warned them to leave their home in Beit Lahiya, a city north of the camp, because Beit Lehiya would be shelled. It was and Mosab’s house was destroyed. I have just heard from him after two days of frantic worry. ‘The bombing in Jabilya Camp was just 70 meters away from us,’ he said. ‘A whole neighborhood was wiped out.’”

Largest Of Gaza’s Refugee Camps

Dr. Roy writes that, “Jabilya is a familiar place to me…It is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, with 26 schools, two health centers and a public library. More than 116,000 are in an area of 1.4 square kilometers. Do you have any idea what it means to crowd over 100,000 into half a square mile? I must also tell you that as a Jew and child of Holocaust survivors, I was welcomed into every home I visited in the camp. In fact, I was embraced…I don’t know if my friends are among those murdered or injured by Israel. But I do know that this is not the first atrocity, and it won’t be the last if the barbarity continues to be justified by you and the others with the power to stop it. You call for a ‘humanitarian pause,’ which I do not understand. What does a pause mean in the middle of the carnage? Does it mean feeding people so they can survive to be killed the next day? How is that humanitarian? How is that humane?”

Professor Emeritus Yakov M. Rabkin of the University of Montreal, author of the book “What Is Modern Israel?” provides this assessment (Pressenza, Nov. 1, 8, 2023): “The new state of Israel placed Palestinian Arabs under military rule, which lasted nearly two decades. Refugees and exiles who tried to return to their homes were killed, expelled, or arrested…The murderous attack of Oct. 7, 2023, obviously enraged most Israelis. But instead of taking pause, military and political leaders immediately subjected Gaza to massive bombardment followed by a ground invasion. This caused a humanitarian crisis.”

In Rabkin’s view, “Vengeful demonization of the Palestinians has become common. Even the soft-spoken president of Israel claimed that there were no ‘innocent civilians’ in Gaza. Meirev Ben-Ari, a parliamentarian from Yesh Atid, which in Israel passes for a liberal centrist party, said in reference to thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli bombardment, ‘The children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves! We are a peace-seeking nation, a life-loving nation.’…Many Jews…have been trying to come to terms with the contradiction between the Judaism they profess to adhere to and the Zionist ideology that has taken hold of them. A new variety of Judaism has taken root in Israel: National Judaism…Among its most fervent followers one finds the assassin of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had attempted to find an accommodation with the Palestinians, and prominent members of today’s Israeli government.”

“Does Israel Really Keep Jews Safe?”

In an article, “Does Israel really ‘Keep Jews Safe?’,” (Truthout, Dec. 11, 2023), Carolyn Karcher, professor emerita at Temple University, writes that, “In the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, many supporters of Israel have doubled down on the idea that Jews can only be safe in a state whose government they control through majority rule and laws favoring Jews over non-Jews. This idea—-a fundamental tenet of Zionism, first articulated by Theodor Herzl in ‘The Jewish State’ (1896) —-is what led the U.N. to vote for creating the state of Israel in 1948, despite the united opposition of Palestinian and Arab spokespersons…How has this belief held up in the light of the past 75 years? Have even the most draconian methods succeeded in stamping out the resistance of the indigenous Palestinian population to military rule and forced displacement?”

Dr. Karcher notes that, “I would argue that the killing of approximately 1200 Israelis by Hamas on Oct. 7 actually shows the opposite of what many are claiming. Rather than proving that the state of Israel keeps Jews safe, the bloodshed shows that Israeli Jews cannot expect to enjoy security by imposing a brutal siege, erecting walls, multiplying checkpoints, demolishing homes, confiscating land, dehumanizing, imprisoning, or killing any Palestinians who stand up for their rights, whether nonviolently or violently.”

Beyond this, argues Karcher, “Zionism triumphed with the creation of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians paid a high price for the solution that the Western world chose to compensate Jews for the Nazi Holocaust. Between 1947 and 1949, Zionist militias drove 750,000 Palestinians, amounting to half the country’s Arab population, out of their native land and destroyed more than 500 of their towns and villages. The Jewish Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has called this ‘the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.’…Never has the need to envision alternatives seemed more urgent than now, as we face the horror of the genocide that Israel is perpetrating on Palestinians—-with the full support of the U.S. and much of the Western world…Consequently, increasing numbers of Americans—-Jewish and non- Jewish alike—-are repudiating the unconditional championship of Israel that our government is mandating.”

Recalling the American Council for Judaism

Recalling an earlier period of Jewish opposition to Zionism prior to Israel’s creation, Karcher points out that, “The American Council for Judaism, founded by Reform Jews in 1942, campaigned vigorously both to liberalize U.S. immigration policy and to establish a ‘democratic, autonomous government in Palestine, wherein Jews, Moslems and Christians shall be justly represented and endowed with equal rights and equal responsibilities.’”

Prof. Wendy Pearlman, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Studies Program at Northwestern University, wrote an article, “Collective Punishment in Gaza Will Not Bring Israel Security” (New Lines Magazine, Oct. 30, 2023). She writes, “The current siege of Gaza has shifted…to uprooting it entirely. Indeed, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s declaration that Israel is fighting ‘human animals’ points to an even more startling biological metaphor. It not only casts all of Gaza as a fair target, but also deploys dehumanizing rhetoric of the kind that scholars have long recognized as genocidal.”

Dr. Pearlman concludes: “Bombardment, siege, forced displacement and the denial of humanitarian access might satisfy the desire for revenge, but these actions cannot bring Israelis security. As long as self-determination is denied, Palestinian resistance will continue. There is no military solution to the… political problem of two peoples seeking to live with freedom and dignity on the same small piece of land. Security requires peace, which can only be obtained through a negotiations process grounded in respect for international law and the human rights of all people.”

Zionism Is Incompatible With Judaism

Rabbi Alissa Wise of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council states: “History will ask: what did you do to stop the Israeli genocide of Palestinian people? Have an answer…Zionism is incompatible with Judaism. The point of fasting today because of destruction and losses and trauma our ancestors suffered is to prevent us from doing the same to others. Instead, the ‘Jewish’ state uses the state to destroy and traumatize Palestinians. By design, under Israeli law, Palestinians have an inferior status to Jews legally, judicially, politically. This is apartheid.”

Rabbi Brant Rosen of Congregation Tzedek Chicago states that, “After the horrific massacre of Israelis by Hamas…the collective Jewish world entered into an acute and unprecedented period of mourning. Our hearts then cracked open again—-and continue to crack open—-as thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli bombs and an Israeli ground invasion…This latest violence did not occur in a vacuum. It is but the latest manifestation of an injustice that Israel has been perpetrating against Palestinian people for decades. We must shine an unflinching light on the roots of this violence…For the past 75 years, Israel has been violently dispossessing Palestinians in order to make way for a majority Jewish state. And for just as long, the Palestinian people have been resisting their dispossession…”

Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University declares that, “It is important to note that opposing Israel’s war crimes has absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism. This point has been made eloquently in an open letter by dozens of Jewish writers. Netanyahu doesn’t speak for Judaism. The Israeli government violates the most sacred of all Jewish injunctions, to protect life (Pikvach Nefesh) and to love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). The message of Jewish ethics is found in the words of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 2:4) inscribed on a wall directly facing the U.N.: ‘They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.’”

Gaza As a Ghetto

Writing in The New Yorker (Dec. 9, 2023), the Russian Jewish author Masha Gessen notes that, “For the last 17 years, Gaza has been a hyper densely populated, impoverished, walled-in compound where only a small fraction of the population had the right to leave even for a short amount of time—-in other words a ghetto… like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany. In the two months since Hamas attacked Israel, all Gazans have suffered from the barely interrupted onslaught of Israeli forces. Thousands have died. On average, a child is killed in Gaza every ten minutes. Israeli bombs have struck hospitals, maternity wards, and ambulances. Eight out of ten Gazans are now homeless.”

Gessen writes that, “The term ‘open-air-prison’ seems to have been coined in 2010 by David Cameron, who was then British Prime Minister. Many human rights organizations have adopted that description. Presumably, the more fitting term ‘ghetto’ would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated…The Nazis claimed that ghettos were necessary to protect non-Jews from diseases spread by Jews. Israel has claimed that the isolation of Gaza, like the wall in the West Bank, is required to protect Israel from terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians. Nazi claims had no basis in reality while Israeli claims stem from actual and repeated acts of violence. Yet both claims propose that an occupying authority can choose to isolate, immiserate—-and, now, mortally endanger an entire population of people in the name of protecting its own.”

The evidence that Jewish Americans are now in the process of re-thinking their relationship with Israel is all around us and is receiving growing attention.

How Core Is A Connection To Israel To Being Jewish?

A report in The Washington Post (Dec.18, 2023) carried the headline, “Gaza War Opens Rifts for Reform Jews.” It notes that, “…the Israel-Gaza war…spotlighted rifts about not just how to address Israel’s military campaign but also about what the word Zionism means and how core a connection to Israel should be to being Jewish…. U.S. Jews’ connection with Israel has been shifting, the Pew Research Center found. Fifty-eight per cent of U.S. Jews say they feel very or somewhat attached to Israel, but that number drops to 48 per cent for Jews ages 18 to 29. Forty-five per cent of U.S. Jews say that caring about Israel is essential to being Jewish; 35 per cent of Jews 18 to 29 say that. But how the past two months will affect those questions is impossible to predict, experts say.”

More and more Jewish voices are being heard objecting to Israel’s bombing of civilian targets in Gaza. Thousands of Jewish and Israeli artists, writers and activists have signed a letter demanding an immediate cease fire in Gaza, allowing aid into the besieged city and “the end of complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes.”

The letter dated Oct. 19, 2023) declared: “Silence at this urgent time of crisis and escalating genocide is not a politically neutral position. Over the last few years there have been significant steps to institutionally address social justice and inequality…There is ample evidence that we are witnessing the unfolding of a genocide in which the already precarious lives of Palestinians are deemed unworthy of aid, let alone human rights and justice….We reject violence against all civilians, regardless of their identity and call for ending the root cause of violence, oppression and the occupation.”

Among the signatories were Nan Goldin, Judith Butler, Eyad Weizman, Rachel Kushner, A.L. Steiner and Adam Bromberg.

Appeal By Staff Members Of Jewish Organizations

More than 500 staff members of Jewish organizations appealed to President Biden to call for a cease-fire. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (Dec. 8, 2023) reported that, “Hundreds of staffers for 140 Jewish organizations signed a letter to President Biden and Congress urging them to press Israel to agree to a cease- fire…The letter is the latest sign that differences among American Jews regarding Israel’s response to Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 invasion are becoming more public and pronounced. A number of Jewish Congress members now back a cease-fire, after having initially presented a unanimous voice in support of Biden’s backing for Israel.”

The signers of the letter stated that, “We are individuals who work for a wide variety of Jewish organizations across the United States, coming together across the broad range of beliefs, practices, backgrounds, and identities that make up the rich fabric of the American Jewish community. We are uniting together in this moment to call for a cease-fire, the release of all hostages, and a commitment towards a long-term political solution that ensures the freedom and collective safety of Israelis and Palestinians.”

The letter suggested to the President that vocal Jewish groups that have opposed the war are representative of a wide number of American Jews. Among the organizations represented are Bend the Arc, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Workers Circle, IfNotNow, and Jewish Voice for Peace. There are also staff members from groups which have opposed a cease-fire, including J Street. There are staff members from synagogues and the Reform and Conservative religious movements.

“False Narratives About Israel” In Jewish Schools

A Boston area rabbi, Tovah Spitzer of Dorsey Tzedek, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Newton, Massachusetts, said, “For the sake of defeating the…ideology of Hamas, for the sake of returning all of the hostages, for the sake of the well-being of all of the Israelis and Palestinians caught up in this war, I urge the Biden Administration to do all it can to bring about a ceasefire as a first step to a lasting, political solution to the conflict.”

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT), whose family members were victims of the Holocaust, wrote: “Thousands of Palestinians, including thousands of children, have been killed. Many more have been displaced, without water, food, medical supplies and fuel. This is inhumane. What is needed is a negotiated bilateral ceasefire that ensures the release of all hostages and paves a path toward peace, security and safety for Israelis and Palestinians.”

Controversy was stirred when graduates of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in the Maryland suburbs outside of Washington, D.C. said that their education was defined by “false narratives” about Israel and called upon other alumni to join them “to help break the cycle of ‘no matter what’ support for Israel.”

“Feeling Alienated By Unequivocal Support for Israel”

According to The Forward (Dec. 19, 2023), the letter signed on Dec. 12 by roughly 130 graduates of the school, declared, “If you are similarly struggling, questioning or feeling alienated by the unequivocal support for Israel that continued to be upheld by the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School as an institution and by the broader Jewish community that raised us—-you are not alone.”

The letter noted that the signatories’ “critique of Zionism and Israel is neither antisemitic nor a betrayal of Judaism or Jewish community; rather, these profound critiques stem from our commitment to Jewish values.” Describing Israel’s war on Gaza as “fueled by genocidal intent,” they said they were “struggling to reconcile “the unquestioned support for Israel’s brutal assault with the Jewish values they were taught.”

The Forward notes that, “Almost all of those who signed the letter taking the school to task graduated in the 21st century. Their relative youth reflects a larger pattern among American Jews, with younger generations taking a far more critical view of Israel…The letter critical of the day school is the latest example of a segment of American Jews rejecting the unconditional support for Israel they were raised with. That’s the theme of the 2023 documentary film ‘Israelism,’ which features Simone Zimmerman. A graduate of Kadema Day School… Zimmerman is cofounder of IfNotNow, an organization which describes itself as working ‘to end support for Israel’s ‘apartheid system.’ In 2017, IfNotNow launched a campaign on social media called ‘You Never Told Me,’ in which young Jews said their Jewish education ignored the history and experiences of Palestinians. Writing about the campaign in 2017, Reconstructionist Rabbi Sarah Brammer-Shlat said: ‘As a generation, we were betrayed by the institutional Jewish world which told us stories of Israel’s glories but no stories of the horror and impact of occupation on Palestinians.’”

A Deeply Misleading Narrative

Columnist Ruth Marcus, writing in the Washington Post (Nov. 22, 2023) makes the point that, “…the narrative of Israel’s founding that Jewish children of my generation were offered in Hebrew school and on trips to Israel was deeply misleading at best, tinged with anti-Palestinian bias at worst. This account utterly failed to acknowledge the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 or consider Palestinians’ legitimate claims to a homeland. The tenor of our rabbi’s sermons, the discussions in my childhood home, were that Israel could do no wrong.”

Her children, Marcus points out, “…grew up in a different environment—-more honest about the contours of the conflict, more complex in the nature of the political discussion, and more fraught. They have scarcely known an Israel without Netanyahu, which is to say an Israel whose aggressive settlement policy that has made a two-state solution increasingly unattainable, and an Israel that fails to treat Palestinians with fairness and dignity….Perhaps the bond of young American Jews with Israel, already frayed, has irretrievably severed with Oct. 7 and what many view as an Israeli response that has killed too many innocent civilians.”

Another Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank (Nov. 1, 2023) used the headline, “What a lonely time to be a Jew in America.” He wrote: “I’m as horrified as everyone else by the killing of so many innocent civilians in Israel’s air strikes in Gaza…the vast majority of American Jews have no use for the corrupt Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his regime—-or its racism, authoritarian power grabs and settlement and reckless settlement policy designed to undermine a two-state solution…Five years ago, I argued that if Israelis planned to follow Netanyahu to ‘an ultranationalist apartheid state, American Jews have a duty to tell Israelis that support cannot be sustained here nor should it be.’ ‘People are filled with anguish,’ my rabbi Danny Zemel said. ‘It’s become very, very lonely to be a progressive, Enlightenment-believing Jew.’”

Political and Economic Marshall Plan

Once Hamas is defeated, writes Milbank, “…there must be a political and economic Marshall Plan for the Palestinian people that will build an independent Palestinian state…It’s well past time for the long-suffering Palestinians to have their own state.”

Rabbinical student Josie Felt told the Israeli magazine 972 (Nov. 3, 2023) that, “Over the past 3 1/2 weeks, a record number of U.S. Jews have taken action to protest the ongoing Israeli military assault on Gaza. Thousands of Jews are publicly rejecting the premise that Jewish safety comes at the expense of Palestinian liberation. We are taking to the streets to show our elected officials that we will not be silent while they exploit our grief to provide unsanctioned military support for the genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Palestinians are asking, ‘Are you with us?’ American Jews are showing we are. As a rabbinical student, I am taking action alongside thousands to challenge the idea that Jewish safety must come at the expense of Palestinians.”

Rabbi Bernard Steinberg, who served as executive director of the Harvard Hillel Foundation from 1993-2010, wrote an article for the Harvard Crimson (Dec. 29,2023) with the headline, "For the safety of Jews and Palestinians, stop weaponizing antisemitism.” He writes, “As an elder leader, with the benefit of hindsight, I feel compelled to speak to what I see as a disturbing trend gripping our campus and many others: the cynical weaponization of antisemitism by powerful forces who seek to intimidate and ultimately silence legitimate criticism of Israel and American policy on Israel.”

Jewish Students Urged To Be “Boldly Critical” of Israel

Steinberg states that, “I am particularly alarmed by today’s McCarthyist tactic of manufacturing a scare which, in effect, turns the very real issue of Jewish safety into a pawn in a cynical political game to cover for Israel’s unpopular policies with regard to Palestinians.” He urges Jewish students to be, “…boldly critical of Israel—-not despite being Jewish, but because you are. There is no tradition more central to Judaism than prophetic truth-telling, no Jewish imperative more urgent than bravely criticizing corrupt leadership, starting with our own…It is not antisemitism to demand justice for all Palestinians living in their ancestral lands…. If Israel’s case is just, let it speak eloquently in its own defense. It is very telling that some of Israel’s own supporters instead go to extraordinary lengths …to silence the other side. Smearing one’s opponents is rarely a tactic employed by those confident that justice is on their side…If Israel’s case requires branding its critics antisemites, it is already conceding defeat”.

Even respected theologians who were once Zionists, have abandoned that position. Professor Daniel Boyarin, who taught Talmud to generations of students at the University of California at Berkeley, has written a book setting forth his views, “The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto” (Yale University Press). He says that, “I was a Zionist in my youth. In those years I thought of myself as a left-wing Zionist. I was active in Habonim (a socialist Zionist youth movement). I think I ultimately caught the leftism and socialism more than the Zionism. And when it became clear to me that I had to make a choice, I finally realized I had to let the Zionism go. That choice came when Yitzhak Rabin stated that the Israeli Army should break the arms and legs of Palestinian kids who threw stones at soldiers.”

Dr. Boyarin recalls that, “I asked at the time, what is this cruel idea of breaking the arms and legs of little boys? And somebody explained to me that this was necessary in order to maintain the state. And I said if that’s necessary to maintain the state, then the state is clearly a wrong thing…I had been moving gradually into a more critical position vis-a-vis the behavior of Israel, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I remember the first time I wanted to say I was an anti-Zionist. I couldn’t even pronounce it…That’s how hard it was for me…For me, the dilemma is how to maintain a truly vital, authentic…Jewish cultural life without falling into the kinds of nationalism and ethnocentrism that we find all over the world today.”

“Counter-Zionism”

Shaul Magid, Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, has written a book, “The Necessity of Exile: Essays From A Distance” (Ayin Press), which he calls “counter-Zionism.” He notes that, “If liberal Zionists are now forced to support an illiberal state, why not construct a new way to affirm Jewish self-determination, a path for supporting liberalism rather than being forced to support an ideology that runs counter to our basic values.” He declares, “I offer counter-Zionism as a way to think otherwise about the complex web of Jewish history, identity and politics…. Israel without Zionism may have the chance of truly becoming a just and equitable polity of all its citizens. The Jewish diaspora may flourish without Israel as its necessary center.” Writing in The Forward (Dec. 26, 2023), Emily Tankin provides this assessment: “I thought he was asking American Jewish readers to do something hard: to imagine who we are, as Jews, outside Zionism, or Israel. What makes us Jewish?”

In the wake of developments in Gaza, Peter Beinart, a professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York and an editor of Jewish Currents, wrote an article in the New York Times (Oct.15, 2023), “The Moral Rebuilding Must Begin Now.”

He writes: “Hamas …has committed an unspeakable horror that may damage the Palestinian cause for decades to come. Yet when Palestinians resist their oppression in ethical ways—-by calling for boycotts, sanctions, and the application of international law—-the U.S. and its allies work to ensure that those efforts fail, which convinces many Palestinians that ethical resistance doesn’t work, which empowers Hamas.”

Ending Palestinian Oppression

In Beinart’s view, “The savagery Hamas committed…has made reversing this monstrous cycle much harder…It will require a shared commitment to ending Palestinian oppression in ways that respect the infinite value of every human life…It will require a shared commitment to ending Palestinian oppression in ways that respect the infinite value of every human life…It will require new forms of political community…built around a democratic vision powerful enough to transcend tribal divides…the effort may fail. It has failed before. The alternative is to descend, flags waving, into hell.”

Over the years, notes Beinart, “Israel, with America’s help…has repeatedly undermined Palestinians who sought to end Israel’s occupation through negotiations or nonviolent pressure…As part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PLO renounced violence and began working with Israel…because they thought it would deliver them a state…The 1996 election of Mr. Netanyahu and the failure of Israel and its American patron to stop settlement growth, however, curdled Palestinian sentiment…Like many others who care about the lives of Palestinians and Jews, I have felt in recent days the greatest despair I have ever known…A Palestinian friend sent me a note of consolation. She ended it with the words ‘only together.’ Maybe that can be our motto.”

Two far-right members of Israel’s cabinet, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich called to depopulate Gaza. They called for most Gazan civilians to be resettled in other countries. The war, said Ben Gvir, presents “an opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza, facilitating Israeli settlement in the region.”

Facing Up To Israeli Extremism

In a column, “America Must Face Up To Israel’s Extremism,” New York Times (Jan. 5, 2024), Michelle Goldberg writes: “The Biden administration has joined countries all over the world in condemning this naked endorsement of ethnic cleansing. But in doing so, it acted as if Ben Gvir and Smotrich’s provocations are fundamentally at odds with the worldview of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to whom America continues to give unconditional backing…Rep. James McGovern, a Democrat, has called for a cease-fire and said, ‘It must be clear that America will not write a blank check for mass displacement.”

Goldberg, who points out that she grew up in a “liberal Zionist home,” points out that, “…we’re writing a blank check to a government whose leader is only a bit more coy than Ben Gvir and Smotrich about his intentions for Gaza…The Times of Israel says, ‘The ‘voluntary’ resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza is slowly becoming a key official policy of the government, with a senior official saying that Israel has held talks with several countries for their potential absorption.’…Israel is making most of Gaza uninhabitable…Disease is rampant… hunger almost universal…After Hamas’ sadistic attack…Israel was justified in retaliating…But there is a difference between the war Israel’s liberal supporters want to pretend the country is fighting in Gaza and the war Israel is actually waging.”

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, condemned calls for the emigration of Palestinians from Gaza. He noted that his movement’s opposition to Smotrich and Ben Gvir predates the war. He declared, “We condemn Israeli ministers’ call for ethnic cleansing. Along with most major American Jewish leaders, we have refused to meet with them to sanction their political beliefs.”

“Grossly Disproportionate” Response

In early January, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT) called on Congress to block additional funding to Israel: “While we recognize that Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack began this war, we must also recognize that Israel’s military response has been grossly disproportionate, immoral and in violation of international law. Enough is enough. Congress must reject that funding. The taxpayers of the United States must no longer be complicit in destroying the lives of innocent men, women and children in Gaza. Israel has the absolute right to defend itself… They do not have the legal or moral right to kill thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women and children.”

The idea that anti-Zionism equals antisemitism has been promoted by the Israeli government and by American Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League. The U.S. House of Representatives resolved in December that, “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” This notion has been widely refuted. Writing in the Washington Post (Jan. 7, 2024), Pulitzer Prize winning author Benjamin Moser headlined his article, “Anti-Zionism is not the same as antisemitism. Here’s the history.”

Mr. Moser writes that, “When learning of this (Congressional) vote, many people familiar with Jewish history might have suppressed a sardonic laugh. Anti- Zionism, after al l, was a creation of Jews, not their enemies. Before World War 11, Zionism was the most divisive and heatedly debated issue in the Jewish world. Anti-Zionism had left-wing variants and right-wing variants—-religious variants and secular variants—-as well as variants in every country where Jews resided. For anyone who knows this history, it is astonishing that, as the resolution would have it, opposition to Zionism has been equated to opposition to Judaism—- and not only to Judaism, but to hatred of Jews themselves. But this conflation has nothing to do with history. Instead, it is political, and its purpose has been to discredit Israel’s opponents as Racists.”

Jews Have Been “At Home” In America From The Beginning

Zionism claims that Israel is the “homeland” of all Jews and that those living elsewhere are in “exile.” Mr. Moser declares that Jews have been “at home in America from the beginning, thanks.” In 1841, he points out, in the dedication of the nation’s first Reform synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina, Rabbi Gustavus Poznanski declared, “This country is our Palestine, this city our Jerusalem, this house of God our temple.” A century later, Rabbi Samuel Schulman of Temple Emanu-El in New York stated that “the essence of Reform Judaism for me is the rejection of Jewish nationalism.” Moser notes that, “Many Jews believed that talk of a ‘diaspora,’ even a ‘Jewish people,’ resembled the calumnies of antisemites…They noticed that many antisemites were fervently pro-Zionist: the better to get rid of the Jews.” Never has the debate about Zionism within the Jewish community “been louder than it is now,” in Moser’s view.

The American Jewish community, with a number of notable exceptions, once seemed united in its support for Israel and its embrace of Zionism. That is no longer the case. While establishment Jewish organizations may persist in their embrace of whatever policies the Israeli government pursues, these groups appear increasingly unrepresentative of the larger Jewish community. Before Israel’s creation, Zionism was a minority view among Jewish Americans. It appears now to be in the process of becoming a minority view once again. *