#zionism is separate from Judaism

[dikleyt]

It seems trivially true that "Zionism is completely separate from Judaism" until you realize that for most people, "Zionism" is any Jewish attachment to Eretz Yisrael whatsoever.

Interestingly, this is the exact same line that many Zionist influencers have been pushing: Zionism is any Jewish attachment to Eretz Yisrael whatsoever. By claiming this, they can claim Zionism as an ancient, eternal part of Judaism, because Judaism as a religion has always revolved around Eretz Yisrael as the original home of the Jewish people, who were temporarily exiled by divine decree.

So there's a strange consensus between these two, but there's a bizarre contradiction in the first camp. If Zionism is any attachment to Eretz Yisrael whatsoever, it's trivially true that Zionism is part of Judaism. If it's a specific political movement that began in the 19th century, it becomes much harder to claim that the two are inextricable from each other.

I think a lot of anti-Zionists want to have it both ways. They want it not to be part of Judaism, and they want to define Zionism in such a way that any religious Jew would qualify, as well as most secular Jews beyond a small fringe.

[celestialfucker]

if you block aid trucks you deserve to be kicked to death in the streets. i hope those trucks run over every last zionist crush their fucking worthless skulls on the pavement

[serekiri]

oh my god i just reblogged an post from an isr*eli without thinking and it turns out that they are crying about their oppressors getting murdered because the palestinians that they oppressed are now are now fighting back. like OH MY GOD JUST KILL YOURSELF?????

[gothhabiba]

Hi, this is very ignorant. I'm trying to read as much as I can on Palestine and Zionism but there is one point I cannot find an answer for. Given that Zionism is not Judaism, given that at the beginning most Jewish people did not share this view and was actually supported by christians with antisemitic views, given that it was conceptualized as a colonial project that could only be actualized by ethnically cleanse Palestine, one thing I don't know how to disagree with Zionists is the idea that Jewish people do come from that land. Even if European jews are probably not genetically related to the Jewish people from there, I think Jewishness is something that can be constructed as related to that land. This of course does not mean that Palestinians are not natives too and they have every right to their land. However I don't really know how to answer when Jewish (Zionists) tell me that Jewish people fled that land during the diaspora. Other than "yeah but the people that stayed are native that underwent christianization before, arabization later, grew a sense of nationhood in the 19th century and are Palestinians now"

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what "indigeneity" is to believe that it means "whoever has the oldest claim to the land." Rather, to describe a people as "indigenous" is a reference to their current relationship to the government and to the land—namely that they have been or are being dispossessed from that land in favour of other private owners (settlers); they have a separate, inferior status to settlers according to the law, explicitly; they are shut out of institutions created by the settler state, explicitly; they are targeted implicitly by the laws of the settler state (e.g. Israeli prohibitions against harvesting wild thyme or using donkeys or horses for transportation); the settler state does not punish violence against them; &c. &c.

It is a settler-colonialist state that creates indigeneity; without one, it is perfectly possible for immigrants to move to and live in a new location without becoming settlers, with the superior cultural and legal status and suppression of a legally inferior population that that entails.

If all that were going on were some Jewish people feeling a personal or religious connexion to this land and wanting to move there, accepting the existing people and culture and living with them, not expelling and killing local populations and creating a settler-colonialist state that privileges them at the expense of extant populations, that would be a completely different situation. But any assertion of the land's fundamental Jewish-ness (really they mean white or European Jewishness—the Jewish Arabs who were already in Palestine never seem to figure in these arguments) is a canard that distracts from the fundamental issue, which is a people's right to resist dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

Decolonize Palestine lays out some of the ethnic and cultural history of the region, but follows it up with:

So, what does this all mean for Palestine? Absolutely nothing. Although the argument has many ahistorical assumptions and claims, it is not these which form its greatest weakness. The whole argument is a trap. The basic implication of this line of argumentation is as follows: If the Jewish people were in Palestine before the Arabs, then the land belongs to them. Therefore, the creation of Israel would be justified. From my experience, whenever this argument is used, the automatic response of Palestinians is to say that their ancestors were there first. These ancestors being the Canaanites. The idea that Palestinians are the descendants of only one particular group in a region with mass migrations and dozens of different empires and peoples is not only ahistorical, but this line of thought indirectly legitimizes the original argument they are fighting against. This is because it implies that the only reason Israel’s creation is unjustified is because their Palestinian ancestors were there first. It implies that the problem with the argument lies in the details, not that the argument as a whole is absolute nonsense and shouldn’t even be entertained. The ethnic cleansing, massacres and colonialism needed to establish Israel can never be justified, regardless of who was there first. It’s a moot point. Even if we follow the argument that Palestinians have only been there for 1300 years, does this suddenly legitimize the expulsion of hundreds of thousands? Of course not. There is no possible scenario where it is excusable to ethnically cleanse a people and colonize their lands. Human rights apply to people universally, regardless of whether they have lived in an area for a year or ten thousand years. If we reject the “we were there first” argument, and not treat it as a legitimizing factor for Israel’s creation, then we can focus on the real history, without any ideological agendas. We could trace how our pasts intersected throughout the centuries. After all, there is indeed Jewish history in Palestine. This history forms a part of the Palestinian past and heritage, just like every other group, kingdom or empire that settled there does. We must stop viewing Palestinian and Jewish histories as competing, mutually exclusive entities, because for most of history they have not been. These positions can be maintained while simultaneously rejecting Zionism and its colonialism. After all, this ideologically driven impulse to imagine our ancestors as some closed, well defined, unchanging homogenous group having exclusive ownership over lands corresponding to modern day borders has nothing to do with the actual history of the area, and everything to do with modern notions of ethnic nationalism and colonialism.

I would also be careful about mentioning a sense of "nationhood" or "national identity" in this context, as it could seem to imply that people need a "national" identity (a very specific and very new idea) in order not to deserve genocide. Actually the idea that Palestinians lacked a national identity (of the kind that developed in 19th-century Europe) is commonly used to justify Zionism. Again from Decolonize Palestine:

This slogan ["A land without a people for a people without a land"] persists to this day because it was never meant to be literal, but colonial and ideological. This phrase is yet another formulation of the concept of Terra Nullius meaning “nobody’s land”. In one form or the other, this concept played a significant role in legitimizing the erasure of the native population in virtually every settler colony, and laying down the ‘legal’ and ‘moral’ basis for seizing native land. According to this principle, any lands not managed in a ‘modern’ fashion were considered empty by the colonists, and therefore up for grabs. Essentially, yes there are people there but no people that mattered or were worth considering. There is no doubt that Zionism is a settler colonial movement intent on replacing the natives. As a matter of fact, this was a point of pride for the early Zionists, as they saw the inhabitants of the land as backwards and barbaric, and that a positive aspect of Zionism would be the establishment of a modern nation state there to act as a bulwark against these ‘regressive’ forces in the east [You can read more about this here]. A characteristic feature of early Zionist political discourse is pretending that Palestinians exist only as individuals or sometimes communities, but never as constituting a people or a nation. This was accompanied by the typical arrogance and condescension towards the natives seen in virtually every settler colonial movement. That the early settlers interacted with the natives while simultaneously claiming the land was empty was not seen as contradictory to them. According to these colonists, even if some scattered, disorganized people did exist, they were not worthy of the land they inhabited. They were unable to transform the land into a modern functioning nation state, extract resources efficiently and contribute to ‘civilization’ through the free market, unlike the settlers. Patrick Wolfe’s scholarship on Australia illustrates this dynamic and how it was exploited to establish the settler colony.

[centrally-unplanned]

This article about Hamas's strategic planning in the lead up to the October assault was at least a partial mind-changer for me. So far I had been viewing Hamas as executing a "bait" attack on Israel for international & domestic political reasons. Kill enough Israelis, and in particular take some hostages, to force Israel to invade Gaza; which you want because that will re-inflame radicalism, tank Israel's growing coziness with Arab states like the Gulf Monarchies, and keep the Palestine Question front-and-center on people's agendas.

What it was not about was achieving any sense of a military victory; Hamas did not think they would be able to defeat the IDF on the field, or even truly hold them back. They thought they would do better than they have in defending Gaza, to be honest, but the goal wasn't to "win" in that way or anything. The actions of Israel, in their inflamed bloodlust, would be the fulcrum of progress for Hamas. It was the most logical interpretation of their strategy, because tbh its working, Israel's strategy void has bungled this war at every level. Of course if it is "worth it" is a completely separate question - Hamas is playing a game from deep, deep in the red, if you aren't going to fold and pack it up from that position these are the hail mary plays you make.

This article, a long (and sometimes overly windy) interview with two career members of the Palestinian governing orgs (primarily Fatah), shines a very different light on that. They outline that over the past ~decade, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar coalesced power around his own faction of highly fundamentalist adherents that convinced itself that divine favor was shining on them and they would be able to actually defeat Israel in the field. The most compelling evidence for this is a conference they held planning the post-conquest occupation of Israel:

So detailed were the plans that participants in the conference began to draw up list of all the properties in Israel and appointed representatives to deal with the assets that would be seized by Hamas. "We have a registry of the numbers of Israeli apartments and institutions, educational institutions and schools, gas stations, power stations and sewage systems, and we have no choice but to get ready to manage them," Obeid told the conference.

They even called people up to ask if they would take the job of governor of this-of-that province! This was not a bored-Friday white paper by any means. They discussed defensive plans and counter-offensives like that was on the table. Sinwar outlined conquest as the goal.

If we accept this premise, it naturally lends itself to the question "okay how did they get the rest of Hamas to go along with this?" Because Hamas is not all These Kinds of People, its a governing state that does politics on the international stage after all. One of the reasons I leaned towards my interpretation was that, for the past ~decade, Hamas has actually been doing a glam-up rebranding of the org to make it more moderate & respectable in international eyes. The 2017 Charter Revision is the biggest example, which included say disavowing the idea that this was a religious war (distinguishing between zionism & judaism), and loosely admitting to the idea that they could recognize Israel as a country if terms were met. Actions like these show actors who are pretty level-headed. Were they inauthentic? Did they change their mind?

Maybe a bit, but its more than they aren't the same people. Right alongside the build-up to the October attack was a purging & sidelining of whole swaths of Hamas leadership. Many were not even informed of the attack - though they knew something was coming. Apparently it leaked on October 2nd, and a bunch of leaders just immediately fled the Strip for safety. This one is the most amusing:

Haniyeh's eldest son took a similar course of action. Around midday on October 2, Abed Haniyeh chaired a meeting of the Palestinian sports committee, which is headed by the minister of sports, Jibril Rajoub. Suddenly he received a phone call, left the room for a few minutes and then returned, pale and confused. He immediately informed the committee – whose members were in a Zoom conference with counterparts in the West Bank – that he had to leave for the Rafah crossing straightaway, as he had just learned that his wife had to undergo fertility treatment in the United Arab Emirates. (He was lying.) He granted full power of attorney to his deputy and left the Gaza Strip hurriedly.

That is one way to duck out of a pointless meeting, take notes people!

So instead of my hail mary politics play, what you have is a story of an institutional coup by a radical faction - which for extremist resistance groups is an ever-present threat. None of this means the "bait" strategy part is wrong of course, that was definitely still the point - but this argument here claims that goal of the bait was to bring the IDF into Gaza where it could be defeated in the field with their extensive fortifications, and then presumably inspire others like Hezbollah to jump on the moment of weakness and besiege Israel proper.

So....is this true? There are two gigantic caveats on this article: the first is that the people being interviewed do not primarily work for Hamas - they are members of Fatah, the leading faction of the PLO. They hate Hamas, they are not Hamas leaders themselves, they have every incentive to paint Hamas as irredeemable. You really can't take this story simply at their word. But they aren't outsiders - they hate Hamas but they work with them constantly, that is how it works, people rotate around in the Palestine orgs. They have met personally and worked with dozens of Hamas leaders; one of them was even called to be offered one of those post-war occupation governorships! (He said no lol) So its a big red flag but not a damning one. And things like the fleeing leaders, the conference on the occupation, those all 100% happened. They released press on it, they weren't hiding it.

The second caveat is that its just really not uncommon for large organizations, particularly extremist ones, to engage in mainly performative actions at scale. The South Korean government still maintains a department that plans for the administration of North Korea for example! Not totally useless ofc, but it writes exactly the reports you think it does that get put in a bin and never touched. Sometimes its appeasing internal factions, sometimes its PR, sometimes its just institutional inertia. Its absolutely believable that Hamas would make a big plan for how they would conquer Israel because otherwise...what do you tell the commanders, exactly? Why are they fighting again? A significant percentage of the lower-level fighters need that belief, so you give it to them. While certainly there is a fundamentalist faction in Hamas, are they ones winning? Or are they just another faction being played against?

I don't see enough evidence to say, but there is enough to make me pause. I'm not sold on it in the end, that is my final conclusion. I think more brains than Sinwar were involved in this and they had more realistic aspirations. And yet the level of commitment and disorganization does suggest that at least some of what was pushing events forward was a group immune to doubts being at the wheel. Certainly interested in researching more.

[luthienne]

i have been trying to provide historical context for the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of palestinians, but i want to make it clear that i do not and will never tolerate antisemitism, just as i do not and will never tolerate islamophobia.

it is never acceptable to conflate zionism with judaism, nor the state of israel and its oppressive policies with its people or with jewish religious or ethnic identity. anyone of any religion or ethnicity can embrace zionism because zionism is a political ideology. there are, and have been from its conception, many christian zionists. just as there are, and have been from its conception, many jewish anti-zionists. the zionist movement as it came into being in the late 1800s is deeply rooted in western and european imperialism. 

of course palestinians and israelis both have the human right to live in peace and safety, and that is why i call for an end to this occupation and for the liberation of palestinians. palestinians must be given the right of return to their homes, they must be allowed to have access to their own lands and resources, to not be harassed violently, fatally, and daily by the israeli occupying forces and settlers in their homes and during commutes and at checkpoints. palestinians must be given equal rights and the right to return, and to live in safety.

indiscriminately surveilling, detaining, torturing, abusing, killing, bombing palestinians will never provide "security" to the state of israel. enforcing a brutal and endless apartheid regime will never provide security. erecting barriers that cruelly separate palestinians from their families will never provide security. no amount of oppression will provide security because that's not how it works. oppression creates resistance. violent oppression creates violent resistance. only liberation and equality can begin to provide safety and the opportunity to move forward. free palestine.

[socialistexan]

It is so so so so so so obvious that some of y'all's "anti-zionism" is antisemetism, pure and simple, especially when y'all will gladly, EAGERLY, accept white supremacist conspiracy theories and straight up blood libel.

Like some of y'all were absolutely secretly chomping at the bit to be antisemetic, or had not unlearned the antisemetism your ancestors passed on to you (the constant suspicion I feel from so many goyiche white people is absolutely mind boggling), that you saw a way to both be on the forefront of a progressive cause where you either 1) don't have to think critically or 2) can be seen as progressive while also being antisemitic.

It's absolutely invalid to equate anti-zionism with antisemetism. That's obvious. Anyone that does that, I'd argue, is an antisemite themselves or has an agenda that requires hijacking Jewish suffering.

But, it's like, I've been an anti-zionist for well over a decade and a half at this point. There are relatives who I do not talk to any more because I had blow ups - full screaming matches that lasted hours - with them about Palestine back in 2010, I'm not new to this. I didn't jump on this bandwagon because it was the new progressive cause to jump on. Growing up Jewish, I was forced to have an opinion on this from a young fucking age. I've taken college classes, learned from older anti-zionist Jews, did so much independent studying on this.

And I've been accutely aware of the tropes and antisemitism that was around the periphery of anti-zionism, but it wasn't the core.

But now that a lot of people who are new to this are suddenly coming in to the movement and are either unaware or unwilling to learn how spot antisemetism while at the same time a bunch of antisemitic grifters and white supremacists have keyed in to the fact that there's now a bunch of (justifiably) angry people who haven't been properly educated on these subjects and can be easily misdirected from anti-zionism to old school judenhasen, y'know?

A version of the alt-right pipeline for progressives.

I'm just saying, please be more critical of these things. Don't spread misinformation and conspiracy theories. Don't prop up grifters and bad actors. Educate yourself. Separate Judaism from Zionism, they are not synonyms. Be against the illegitimate state of Israel and their occupation and ethnic cleansing, but also be critical about who and what is being said and how. Zionists will nitpick every little thing you say for the one thing they can delegitimize you on.

All you're doing is hurting the cause you're trying to support, and one that I've spent years of my life working for.

[mylight-png]

Y'know what?

Antizionist Jews shouldn't celebrate Hanukkah.

Not because Jewish tradition is only exclusive to some Jews. Judaism is for Jews.

But because if they are antizionist but celebrate Hanukkah, they are consciously choosing to ignore all the meaning behind the holiday.

I do not use "should" as a rule I believe should be implemented. Rather, I use "should" as a way to indicate a more proper personal choice for those in question.

If you choose to ignore why you celebrate something, what's the point of celebrating at all? What are you even celebrating if you choose ignorance?

Hanukkah is inseparable from Zionism, and to try and separate the two is to make a mere shallow imitation of our tradition.

[etz-ashashiyot]

Okay let's put this stupid semantics argument to bed right now:

Judaism is not Zionism, obviously, because Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people and Zionism is an amalgamation of political beliefs supporting the idea of Jewish self-determination in eretz Yisrael. They are two different things. Obviously.

However, you cannot separate Zionism from Jewish identity and Judaism, because Zionism is fundamentally a political ideology created by Jews, for Jews, and about Jews.

You also can't separate Jewish identity and Judaism from Zionism, because while the notion of statehood is contemporary, the longing to return to eretz Yisrael and end the Jewish people's exile has been a foundational part of rabbinic Judaism since 70 CE.

Bottom line: they are two distinct concepts that overlap substantially and you cannot talk about them as if Zionism is totally foreign and unrelated to Judaism or vice versa in good faith, but neither can you 100% conflate them.

This is like when pregnancy discrimination was allowed on the grounds that not every single woman is pregnant or will become pregnant (and also we know that not everyone who becomes pregnant is a woman) and therefore it's somehow not sex discrimination and you don't have to factor in misogyny and sexism into the conversation.

You can't talk about Zionism without talking about Jews, Judaism, and antisemitism, but also, if you bring up Israel/Palestine every time a Jew is publicly Jewish, guess what that makes you? (Hint: It's antisemitic.)

[1americanconservative]

Hundreds of Jewish students at

@Columbia just published one of the most incredible student letters I have ever read. It's not only magnificently written, but it also clearly articulates their experiences on campus for the past six months. Their letter tells the story of what's it like being a Jewish student right now better than any professor like myself could ever do. Please take 4-5 minutes to read their letter. Give Jewish students a voice.

In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University

To the Columbia Community:

Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name. Some are well-meaning alumni or non-affiliates who show up to wave the Israeli flag outside Columbia’s gates. Some are politicians looking to use our experiences to foment America’s culture war. Most notably, some are our Jewish peers who tokenize themselves by claiming to represent “real Jewish values,” and attempt to delegitimize our lived experiences of antisemitism. We are here, writing to you as Jewish students at Columbia University, who are connected to our community and deeply engaged with our culture and history. We would like to speak in our name.

Many of us sit next to you in class. We are your lab partners, your study buddies, your peers, and your friends. We partake in the same student government, clubs, Greek life, volunteer organizations, and sports teams as you.

Most of us did not choose to be political activists. We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you. Those who demonize us under the cloak of anti-Zionism forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities.

We proudly believe in the Jewish People’s right to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental tenet of our Jewish identity. Contrary to what many have tried to sell you – no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.

Our religious texts are replete with references to Israel, Zion, and Jerusalem. The land of Israel is filled with archaeological remnants of a Jewish presence spanning centuries. Yet, despite generations of living in exile and diaspora across the globe, the Jewish People never ceased dreaming of returning to our homeland — Judea, the very place from which we derive our name, “Jews.” Indeed just a couple of days ago, we all closed our Passover seders with the proclamation, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”

Many of us are not religiously observant, yet Zionism remains a pillar of our Jewish identities. We have been kicked out of Russia, Libya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Poland, Egypt, Algeria, Germany, Iran, and the list goes on. We connect to Israel not only as our ancestral homeland but as the only place in the modern world where Jews can safely take ownership of their own destiny. Our experiences at Columbia in the last six months are a poignant reminder of just that.

We were raised on stories from our grandparents of concentration camps, gas chambers, and ethnic cleansing. The essence of Hitler’s antisemitism was the very fact that we were “not European” enough, that as Jews we were threats to the “superior” Aryan race. This ideology ultimately left six million of our own in ashes.

The evil irony of today’s antisemitism is a twisted reversal of our Holocaust legacy; protestors on campus have dehumanized us, imposing upon us the characterization of the “white colonizer.” We have been told that we are “the oppressors of all brown people” and that “the Holocaust wasn’t special.” Students at Columbia have chanted “we don’t want no Zionists here,” alongside “death to the Zionist State” and to “go back to Poland,” where our relatives lie in mass graves.

This sick distortion illuminates the nature of antisemitism: In every generation, the Jewish People are blamed and scapegoated as responsible for the societal evil of the time. In Iran and in the Arab world, we were ethnically cleansed for our presumed ties to the “Zionist entity.” In Russia, we endured state-sponsored violence and were ultimately massacred for being capitalists. In Europe, we were the victims of genocide because we were communists and not European enough. And today, we face the accusation of being too European, painted as society’s worst evils – colonizers and oppressors. We are targeted for our belief that Israel, our ancestral and religious homeland, has a right to exist. We are targeted by those who misuse the word Zionist as a sanitized slur for Jew, synonymous with racist, oppressive, or genocidal. We know all too well that antisemitism is shapeshifting.

We are proud of Israel. The only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is home to millions of Mizrachi Jews (Jews of Middle Eastern descent), Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Central and Eastern European descent), and Ethiopian Jews, as well as millions of Arab Israelis, over one million Muslims, and hundreds of thousands of Christians and Druze. Israel is nothing short of a miracle for the Jewish People and for the Middle East more broadly.

Our love for Israel does not necessitate blind political conformity. It’s quite the opposite. For many of us, it is our deep love for and commitment to Israel that pushes us to object when its government acts in ways we find problematic. Israeli political disagreement is an inherently Zionist activity; look no further than the protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms – from New York to Tel Aviv – to understand what it means to fight for the Israel we imagine. All it takes are a couple of coffee chats with us to realize that our visions for Israel differ dramatically from one another. Yet we all come from a place of love and an aspiration for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

If the last six months on campus have taught us anything, it is that a large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and consequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People. Yet despite the fact that we have been calling out the antisemitism we’ve been experiencing for months, our concerns have been brushed off and invalidated. So here we are to remind you:

We sounded the alarm on October 12 when many protested against Israel while our friends’ and families’ dead bodies were still warm.

We recoiled when people screamed “resist by any means necessary,” telling us we are “all inbred” and that we “have no culture.”

We shuddered when an “activist” held up a sign telling Jewish students they were Hamas’s next targets, and we shook our heads in disbelief when Sidechat users told us we were lying.

We ultimately were not surprised when a leader of the CUAD encampment said publicly and proudly that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that we’re lucky they are “not just going out and murdering Zionists.”

We felt helpless when we watched students and faculty physically block Jewish students from entering parts of the campus we share, or even when they turned their faces away in silence. This silence is familiar. We will never forget.

One thing is for sure. We will not stop standing up for ourselves. We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists.  

We came to Columbia because we wanted to expand our minds and engage in complex conversations. While campus may be riddled with hateful rhetoric and simplistic binaries now, it is never too late to start repairing the fractures and begin developing meaningful relationships across political and religious divides. Our tradition tells us, “Love peace and pursue peace.” We hope you will join us in earnestly pursuing peace, truth, and empathy. Together we can repair our campus.

[sophie-frm-mars]

Hi Sophie! In light of the genocide in Palestine and the conspiracies around it, do you have any thoughts on how to avoid conspiracy thought?

You pointed out in Conspiracy on the Left that conspiracists will often switch from using language that recognizes incentives and structures, to language that indicates direct malice and intent. I've seen this in real time with Zionism where people will stop using it as a term to describe the ideology and actions of Israel and America (economic and military interests, the historical inertia of the british empire, the interest of capital and western nations using Israel as a base in the Middle East), to using it as a placeholder for jews (people accusing individual people (usually american) of attempting to silence voices with media platforms)

I was gonna say I find this one really straightforward, but at the same time I myself have actually rushed into condemnations of Israel that gave too much leniency to antisemitic ideas, so there probably is a bit more to it. I'll get to it

Firstly, the straightforward part of it is that there are jews all around the world who absolutely fucking despise israel and its genocidal project, so even saying "Israel doesn't represent jews" is too mild. Israel actively denies citizenship to ethiopian jews for instance. I think the main thing is to recognise it for what it is - an outpost of imperialist white supremacy in the Middle East - and to recognise Zionism as a primarily American and imperial core phenomenon rather than a jewish one.

Once you have those ideas down it's pretty easy to separate it out because assuming that any jewish person or org supports Israel just because they're jewish is clearly antisemitic. But here's the rub, Israel uses jewish identity as a shield to justify its actions. At the same time that there are illegal settlers literally giving interviews saying "I describe myself as a fascist" the Israeli state claims that Hamas reads Mein Kampf and that Palestinians are literal Nazis. Not only that but Israeli statesmen use references to things like Amalek to signal their genocidal intentions, basically using the cultural references of Judaism to simultaneously hide behind and also attack.

Where I fell into something antisemitic was when I found out about the IDF cumjacker squad, the guys who go out to get the semen of Israel's fallen dead. the Jizzrael Defence Force if you will. Someone who was talking about it said that the justification had some kind of origin in the hebrew bible and I parroted this without thinking until a jewish friend pulled me up on it. There was no source and there was frankly no reason to repeat it even if it had been true, right? but I got carried away. The reality is that the cumjacker battalion exists for the same reason as sterilisation & organ harvesting programs, because Israel is a Starship-Troopers-Ass fascist nightmare state that sees the bodies of the pure and good as essential to the domination of the future and the bodies of the impure and wrong as wretched at worse and resources at best.

How I think we can avoid the trap of sharing these rhetorical points is by remembering what Israel's relationship to judaism is, which is primarily as a shield. "Shoot and Cry" is the phrase to remember. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said "We can forgive them for killing our children but we can never forgive them for making us kill theirs". This bogus remorse over their genocide of palestinians (because they understand genocide because of the holocaust, see?) and constant preemptive counterattack (Amalek attacked Israel first, see) is the place where Israel touches base with jewish identity, but if you can't see any benefit to Israel's strategy in association with jewish identity, it's likely someone is just trying to say The Jews instead of Israel or repeating the talking point of someone who is.

[sweaters-and-vertigo]

correct me if i’m wrong but doesn’t israel pervert and hide behind the jewish faith in order to commit atrocities?

i’m not a religious person so i can’t be sure but it’s just a feeling i get. again, correct me if i’m wrong.

when my mom found out that i support palestine, she said “well my jewish friend is scared” and i got very confused. what does the genocide of the palestinians have to do with all jewish people? i understand that antisemitism is a problem but it feels separate from this genocide. antisemitism and islamophobia are both equally dangerous. anyway, not all jews are israeli. a great number of jews actually condemn what israel is doing.

it seems unlikely to me that hating and killing palestinians is a pillar of the jewish faith. but correct me if i’m wrong.

EDIT: including these articles before any zionists attack me again. maybe i’m not the best judge of whether or not israel is abusing the jewish faith but i do know they’re committing genocide. and i know that genocide is bad. that’s enough for me.

[justgotabolished]

It is important to separate Zionism from Judaism.

Jewish people are on Palestine's side. ❤️🇵🇸✡️

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

I wanna talk more about zionism here again because it still is one of my interests (particularly practical zionism in the late 19th-early 20th century) its just so annoying to have to clarify 1000 things and potentially get attacked bc I wanted to talk about jewish history. I absolutely love questions it fills me with joy any time someone cares enough abt my silly words to ask questions. I do not like insults, threats, and backhanded statements, and when I post about zionism separated from my own personal beliefs that happens.

no matter how carefully I word things there's gonna be someone whose upset simply because I wanted to talk about a very real part of jewish history. simply because they view zionism and any discussions of it as morally bad. which is obviously not my problem but it does affect me. it takes a lot of research to make sure I'm sharing good information and I wont skimp out on it, so it definitely hurts a lot more to be harassed for posts like that than lower effort posts. it feels like its an insult to jews in general, our history, and also my judaism and my work.

I will probably post about my research of zionism again someday! I have no idea when I just feel like I would. if I could do it more I would however my mental and especially physical health cannot handle the stress that comes with that.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Thank you for your many insightful posts on the current conflict going on. The one giving a detailed breakdown on the "who was there first?" argument was particularly helpful given that, as someone very familiar with the "Land Back" movement in America, I struggled from trying to approach the Palestine issue from that same perspective.

I did have something else I've been struggling with that maybe you can help me out on, though: I've seen "Zionist"/"Zionism" used a lot to help separate those who endorse the concept of a modern state of Israel from Judaism as a whole, since a very large portion of the Jewish community doesn't support what Israel is doing. For me personally, however, I've frequently seen that word used as a dog-whistle for antisemitism in general (most infamously in relation to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion), so I've been kind of wary about using Zion/Zionist in regular discussion. Did I just have a misinformed first impression towards using that term, or is it indeed something we still have to be careful about using even in regards to current events?

Hello! I hope you don't mind me publishing my response, in case anyone has further information to share on the topic of zionism. I am by no means an expert on this — I'm kind of synthesizing various posts & articles I've read over the years to write my answer, and I may be missing some important elements. I welcome correction or added info from anyone with more knowledge than I.

I'm with you in feeling there's a need for care when encountering talk of "zionists," because this term is indeed bandied about inappropriately. Just here on tumblr, I've seen various Jewish folks speak out about how freely people label any Jew with an opinion they don't like a "zionist" in order to dismiss any concerns that Jewish person tries to raise.

So when "zionist" is used to mean "any Jew I disagree with," or "all Jews," or anything not specifically related to "movement in favor of a sovereign Jewish state (e.g. modern Israel)," it's being used incorrectly and harmfully.

...And ugh, it's bad enough when randos on tumblr are doing it; it's been disturbing to see political leaders and activists and the like doing it on a wider scale these past few months.

We all need to be able to talk about the very real issue of zionism without contributing to antisemitism. How do we do that? Here are some rules of thumb I follow (and again, I welcome more if anyone has other tips):

I educate myself on what Zionism actually is. This article on the Jewish Voice for Peace site is super helpful as a starting point. It discusses where this ideology originated, how zionism takes various forms, and how Zionism is harmful for Jews (for instance, it's harmful because it rejects the diaspora as "inherently toxic and unhealthy for Jews," which means rejecting elements of Jewish culture that have arisen from diaspora).

I resist wondering if a Jewish person is zionist / pro-Israel without any reason to think they might be. (I've seen a couple posts from Jewish people now saying that gentiles do this to them. It's super inappropriate and antisemitic to do this — after all, we don't demand that of every non-Jewish person, so we shouldn't be demanding it of every Jewish person.)

If I see a claim that X person is a zionist, I don't just take that claim at face value; I investigate. See if that person has self-identified as a zionist anywhere, etc. If I can find no evidence, I don't spread that claim around; and I might reach out to whomever posted it to ask what gives.

I focus my time, energy, and concern on zionists / people who are pro-Israel in my own communities — rather than running around declaiming every Jewish zionist I can. As a Christian, I focus on trying to cultivate conversations with fellow Christians whom I know hold zionist or philosemitic views; those are the people I'm more likely to be able to change, after all. For any other Christians interested in what Christian zionism tends to look like and how to combat it, I highly recommend this post.

(Another helpful post tangentially related to this topic is this one about "the three Israels")

[bringmemyrocks]

Can you say more about the Conversion Industrial Complex? Is that referring to the method of study in which student go through the process, or is it more the really new-age non-halachic stuff like the "sound bath" or w/e?

First, it's mostly my own term. Google won't get you much. “Conversion Industrial Complex” refers to the centralized bureaucratic process that converts to Judaism have to endure in order to become Jewish. This is not an exhaustive response, nor is it a “how to” guide. I approach this issue from a practical standpoint as much as a halachic one. I used accessible language and summarized wherever possible because the more people (Jewish or gentile) who understand this, the better. Questions are always welcome. Frame of reference is anti-zionist. 

Halacha (Jewish law) requires the following for conversions. Very few Jewish communities do not require the first two. 

Beit din (religious court) of 3 adult Jews

NB: does not have to be composed of rabbis, although this is more and more common as conversion becomes managed more bureaucratically/centrally

Immersion in a mikvah (ritual bath--can be indoors, or many natural bodies of water work) 

Circumcision for males (not always required for Reform)

Trans-related rules differ and are beyond the scope/point of this post. 

Here are the general means of getting a “recognized” conversion through different movements. (Again, not exhaustive, differs community to community, focusing on the USA.) 

Class cohort model: Few months of class with other students, accompanied by holiday observance for a year-ish. Students don’t automatically convert at the end and still have to finalize things separately (so it’s not like RCIA/bar mitzvah class/Alpha Course). 

Individual model: You study 1:1, requiring more self-study and self-advocacy, but still go via a larger denominational body or still-bureaucratic offshoot. This option tends to take longer, although if you have a lot of money it can go very quickly. 

Via the army: Israel will convert you to Judaism via the IOF, learning about Judaism-as-Zionism as part of the process. In case it’s not obvious, this is religious zionism and should not be supported. I won’t be going into this too much, but others are welcome to add. 

I am assuming that option 3 is bad on its face and will spend the rest of this post explaining the issues with the first two options. TL;DR Institutions that make it easy to exploit vulnerable people need to be changed. Conversions are meant to never be questioned, but in practice that happens a lot these days. Top-down control was never required for conversion and only leads to exploitation. 

Political influence: Conversions today are done or overseen by large Jewish denominations. There is no halachic basis for this; it is merely a consolidation of power. Even if your congregation is independent, your conversion will likely be done through a denomination. And every denomination has zionism as a core tenet, whether just politically (Reform) or also religiously (Conservative and Orthodox), or unspoken by heavily emphasized (Reconstructionist/most non-denom). 

How is this possible? Both conversions and ordinations require a rabbi, and for decades almost every rabbinical school (including every non-orthodox one in the USA) has required students to not be anti-zionist and to spend a year in occupied Jerusalem. This is why there are so few anti-zionist rabbis in comparison to the huge numbers of anti-zionist Jews. And this makes it very hard to convert as an anti-zionist. 

Note that Judaism being this centralized, with heads of denominations and countries having chief rabbis is a very new phenomenon. 

Minus political influence, there would still be racist elements because institutional Judaism in the west is extremely white. For clarity I will use examples, see below: 

Ethiopian Jews/Beta Israel: In addition to the racial violence/sterilization faced in Israel, Ethiopian Jews were forced to undergo orthodox conversion upon moving to Israel despite being one of the oldest Jewish communities in existence. In 2017, ultra-orthodox hechsher Badatz removed its certification from the Barkan winery because Ethiopian Jews worked there. 

Ongoing treatment of US-based Black Jewish groups, such as Beth Shalom B’Nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation led by Black Rabbi Capers Funnye. (Read this article) This congregation is halachically Jewish, even according to orthodoxy, but they are still regularly called not Jewish because they are a majority Black congregation and use the term “Israelite.” (That term has been used by Black Jews for over a century, much longer than the Christian anti-Jewish groups that use it. There are also plenty of shady white Christian groups that use the term “Israelite” without the US Jewish community batting an eye.) 

Lemba tribe in Zimbabwe: Much of this tribe has been Jewish for centuries and can trace their Judaism back many generations, at least as far as many Ashkenazi Jews of European descent. But they can’t trace their Judaism back to Europe or the SWANA region, so most Jewish institutions don’t recognize them. 

Minus politics or racism, there would still be a hugely damaging power dynamic between converts and the huge institutions that control conversions. When conversion is so heavily institutionalized, even in a totally non-racist society, there would still be inexcusable power dynamics. Example below:  

Barry Freundel, former head of the RCA (Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America) in charge of a huge number of conversions in the DC area, and had huge amounts of authority over all US orthodox converts because he was head of the RCA. In 2014 he was exposed for sexually exploiting dozens of female converts (NB: most converts, especially those to orthodoxy, are female). 

I know several converts who faced abuse from their sponsoring rabbis, including those who converted through liberal movements, but Barry Freundel is the only example that has received publicity. 

All of these oppressive systems continue to this day. There are hundreds of Barry Freundels out there. A top-down system with no systems of accountability will mimic the power dynamics around it: racism, Jewish supremacy, and interpersonal violence of all kinds. 

This is why I call it “the conversion industrial complex.” And this is why I side-eye anyone who insists that someone who has been living a Jewish life for a long time but struggles to get their final paperwork signed (whether due to racism, zionism, or some combination of the two) is not Jewish in any way. This gatekeeping does not keep Jews (or “Jewish identity”) safe; it protects institutions that have no halachic or human right to exert this level of power in the first place. Again, I think it’s worth specifying that these are online interactions between strangers where someone’s halachic status genuinely does not matter. 

I know that de-centralizing this system would not get rid of issues overnight. Power dynamics and exploitation can exist between rabbis and conversion students, but huge orgs like the RCA, CRC, USCJ, etc. compound the issue. 

Either way, pikuach nefesh (Hebrew for preserving life--in this case, not subjecting people to racism and abuse) is more important than comfort with “doing things the way we’re used to,” aka “making converts grovel/perform Jewishness more than we ever do/do literally anything a rabbi tells them to.” Conversions were not always done this way. We can take away these power structures, and people’s conversions would be just as halachically sound without any of the trauma (which many converts I know refer to as “obligatory.”) 

I could go on for thousands more words, but I kept it relatively short so it was digestible. 

(This is not about any particular Tumblr fight. This is not about whatever petty drama you think it is--this is based on people’s painful, real lived experiences and it is a privilege that I’m sharing it with you at all. Please remember this before commenting. Anyone who adds Zionism to this post will be blocked.)