To the Editor,
Jerusalem Report.
In his article “Reclaiming Zionism” (Jerusalem Report, August 21, 2023), Robert Horenstein joins many, such as the Anti-Defamation League, in arguing that opposition to Zionism is antisemitism.
This ignores the long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism. For Reform Jews, the idea of Zionism contradicted almost completely their belief in a universal, prophetic Judaism. The first Reform prayerbook eliminated references to Jews being in exile and in a Messiah who would miraculously restore Jews throughout the world to the historic land of Israel. The prayerbook eliminated all prayers for a return to Zion. The distinguished rabbi Abraham Geiger argued that Judaism developed through an evolutionary process that had begun with God’s revelation to the Hebrew prophets. The essence of Judaism was ethical monotheism. The Jewish people were a religious community destined to carry on the mission to “serve as a light to the nations,” to bear witness to God and His moral law. The dispersion of the Jews was not a punishment for their sins, but part of God’s plan whereby they were to disseminate the universal message of ethical monotheism.
In 1897, the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution disapproving of any attempt to establish a Jewish state. The resolution declared, “Zion was a precious possession of the past…but it is not our hope of the future. America is our Zion.”
Orthodox Jews expressed similar views about Zionism. In 1929, Orthodox Rabbi Aaron Samuel Tamarat wrote that the very notion of a sovereign Jewish state as a spiritual center was a “contradiction to Judaism’s ultimate purpose.” He noted that, “Judaism at root is not some religious concentration which may be localized or situated in a single territory. Neither is Judaism a ‘nationality,’ in the sense of modern nationalism, fit to be woven into the three-folded nests of ‘homeland, army and heroic songs.’ No, Judaism is Torah, ethics, and exaltation of spirit. If Judaism is truly Torah, then it cannot be reduced to the confines of any particular territory. For as Scripture said of Torah, ‘Its measure is greater than the earth.’”
To equate opposition to Zionism with antsemitism is, it seems, simply an effort to silence any criticism of Israel. It completely ignores the long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism which now seems increasingly prophetic.
Sincerely,
Allan C. Brownfeld,
Editor of ISSUES, the quarterly journal of
the American Council for Judaism