I suppose the reason for my original question is that I detect a touch of hysteria in calling people “Theobald-Jews”. Is it not possible to be an anti-Zionist Jew without being insulted by pro-Zionist Jews?

Is it possible to BE an anti-Zionist Jew? Of course. Is it possible to be a reasonable, rational one? Maybe we should look at that a bit more carefully.

The problem here is that Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people. Zionists are those committed to keeping the State of Israel alive and well, who want to see it constantly improving. Anti-Zionists, as near as I can tell, are almost universally those people who think Israel has no business existing in the first place. (Some of them speak calmly; others froth at the mouth on a regular basis.)

Perhaps there should be another term, for people who are indifferent to Zionism — people who don’t particularly care if Israel prospers or withers, one way or the other. But they’re not the people I’m talking about.

Anti-Zionism, as I’ve defined it, therefore means that you’re unwilling to give Jews the right to their own state, a right just about every other major religion on Earth has. (Anti-Zionists hardly ever complain about the others, although some claim that they have nothing against Israel, they just hate the idea of a country with a state religion of any sort. But they reserve their venom for Israel, and leave e.g. Saudi Arabia alone.) And denying Jews the rights you acknowledge others can have — well, that’s not anti-Israel; that’s antisemitic, pure and simple. And if it’s a Jew espousing antisemitism, then we have something special here, don’t we?

Let me add: if you want to protest the policies of the Israeli government, be my guest. (Just about every Israeli does that, sooner or later, most emphatically including members of parliament.) But there’s a big difference between saying that Israel did something wrong and must fix it (as her loyal critics often say), vs. saying that Israel should not exist at all (as Hamas, Fatah, Hezballah, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, and many others frequently say).

Let me also add: if you are a frequent critic of Israeli policies, and your reason for this is that you want Israel to correct her mistakes and not make them again, that’s not anti-Zionist. That’s Zionist.

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

“Nothing at all, George. Jews are marrying out in droves and soon, the grandchildren won’t know where they came from.”

People are becoming more interested in their roots – witness the proliferation of TV programmes and of genealogy research sites on the net. The more diverse your ancestors, the more interesting it is!

“People like me whose parents lived through WW2 have good reasons not to give Hitler a posthumous victory ( by us not having Jewish grandchildren ).”

I understand your point about posthumous victory, although I doubt he would have seen it that way – rather the reverse, since you would twice as many half-Jewish grandchildren.

I suppose the reason for my original question is that I detect a touch of hysteria in calling people “Theobald-Jews”. Is it not possible to be an anti-Zionist Jew without being insulted by pro-Zionist Jews?

A very well-written and thought-provoking article indeed. Many thanks for writing it.

I think you may draw an incorrect connection when you describe anti-Zionist Jews as participating in their own doom and “willing their own eclipse”. I have known a good many Jews who did not draw the connection between Zionism and themselves. They honestly believed that, were the State of Israel to disappear tomorrow, they would not be affected in the least.

(They are also the sort of people, in America at any rate, to think that the American military is unnecessary; were it to disappear, their lives would continue unchanged.)

Israel represents a great many things to many, many people. Israel is a state founded in agriculture that has made the change, successfully, to high technology. Israel is a country that made the transition from almost-socialism to vibrant capitalism, and is a success story for such transitions. Israel is an environmental miracle, which drained swamps, made deserts bloom, and is just about the only country that had more trees at the end of the 20th century than at the beginning. Israel is a country that revived its own ancient language, and gave an ancient people new life on the modern stage. Israel is a living example of what the Jews can make of themselves, with a space to call their own.

But Israel is also an insurance policy. For Jews who feel the cold breath of antisemitism down their necks, Israel is the place guaranteed to let them in. And many people don’t value insurance policies until the day when they desperately need them.

Many Jews don’t see this; many Jews don’t want to see this. Perhaps they simply don’t want to believe that such a national insurance policy is necessary, or could ever apply to them. Or perhaps they are seduced by the lies of the evil Israel stands accused of — always dwarfed by the evils Israel’s enemies are known to perpetrate — and blinded to the tremendous good that Israel does in the world.

Emil Fackenheim once wrote something on this subject which haunts me:

“For Christians, the first priority may be theological self-understanding. For Jews it is, and after Auschwitz must be, simple safety for their children. In pursuit of this goal, Jews seek — are morally required to seek — independence of other people’s charity. They therefore seek safety — are morally required to seek it — through the existence of a Jewish state. Except among the theologically or humanly perverse, Zionism — the commitment to the safety and genuine sovereignty of the State of Israel — is not negotiable.”
–Emil Fackenheim, “To Mend The World”

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

Can Catholics claim to not look catholic? Tell me how a relgion can affect somebodys looks?

George,
One does not have to be religious to ascribe to one’s roots and culture.
Funny how some people in their angst to not associate with the religious aspect part with their traditional culinary delights, for example.
Many of those assimilating throw out that with which they were brought into this world.

People like me whose parents lived through WW2 have good reasons not to give Hitler a posthumous victory ( by us not having Jewish grandchildren ).

“Seiny [...] assumes that Jewish culture is square and assimilation is cool.”

What is wrong with assimilation if you aren’t religious (or even if you are)?

Conversely, I’ve met a few that weren’t ashamed to say they didn’t look ‘Jewish’. Of course there is ‘looking Jewish’, and then there is looking ‘like eine ganze kehille…’

Antisemitism has become so internalized that Jewish self-pride daren’t express itself too openly, or else it corrodes itself through overcompensation.

“Why are many of us so cold and uncharitable towards our fellow Jews?”

You could be correct. Perhaps, it’s a sub-concious form of self-loathing. How many Jews have you ever met (if any) that are mortified at the thought of “looking Jewish”?

In my humble experience, it’s quite easy to love Israel – the country, or Am Yisrael – the people, in theory – but much harder in practice. Why are many of us so cold and uncharitable towards our fellow Jews?

Could it be just another manifestation of Jewish self-hate?

One of whom, of course, is the execrable Seth Freedman who was so quick to jump on board the Afton Bladet blood libel against the IDF.

Now we see that the author of the original article has denied that he wrote that the IDF had killed Palestinians to get their organs, but I doubt that we will hear anything about that from Freedman.