“Everybody’s Talking About Anti-Zionism,” Reports Jta

A report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA, Feb.27, 2024) has the headline, “Everybody’s Talking About Anti-Zionism.” It cites the increasing number of Jewish critics of Zionism now speaking out.

Noah Feldman, the Harvard professor and First Amendment scholar, and author of the book “To Be A Jew Today,” declares: “Today, many progressive American Jews find it difficult to see Israel as a genuine liberal democracy, mostly because some 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli authority with no realistic prospect of liberal rights.”

Oren Kroc-Zeldin, whose grandfather Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin headed Los Angeles’ Stephen M. Wise Temple and whose mother Rabbi Leah Kroll was one of the first women rabbis ordained by the Reform movement, is director of the program of Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. He went to Jewish Day School and on Birthright trips to Israel. Now, he says that “Jewish liberation in Israel was predicated on the oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” He said he rejects “a monolithic pro-Israel identity.”

Shaul Magid, a professor of modern Jewish Studies at Dartmouth says, “In my view, the Zionist narrative, even in its more liberal forms, cultivates an exclusivity and proprietary ethos that too easily slides into ethnonational chauvinism.”

The JTA of Feb. 27, 2024 reported about an Israeli journalist, receiving an award at the Berlinale International Film Festival for his documentary about Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians from their West Bank villages. Yuval Abraham was part of the team behind “No Other Land” about Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages whose land Israel has sought to use as a military zone.

The documentary focused on the Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who together with Abraham, has documented Israel’s demolition of houses in his region. “No Other Land” won the Berlinale’s Best Documentary award. In his acceptance speech, Abraham declared, “We are standing in front of you now. Me and Basel are the same age. I am Israeli. Basel is Palestinian. And in two days we’ll go back to a land where we are not equal. I am living under civilian law and Basel is under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights. Basel is not having voting rights. I’m free to move where I want in this land. Basel is, like millions of Palestinians, locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality has to end.” *