Anti-Zionism Is Not Antisemitism
By Allan C. Brownfeld April 27, 2024
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The
American Council for Judaism has, since 1942, advanced the philosophy
of Judaism as a religion of universal values, not a nationality, and has
maintained that Americans of Jewish faith are American by nationality ,
and Jews by religion, just as other Americans are Protestant, Catholic
or Muslim.
The Council
has challenged the Zionist philosophy which holds that Israel is the
“homeland” of all Jews and that Jews living outside of Israel are in
“exile. In doing so, the Council has contended that its philosophy
represents the thinking of the majority of Jewish Americans, a largely
silent——but, in recent days, increasingly vocal—-majority, which is not
represented by the organizations which presume to speak in their name.
Clearly, the homeland of American Jews is the United States.
In
1841, at the dedication of Temple Beth Elohim in Charleston, South
Carolina, Rabbi Gustav Poznanski declared: “This country is our
Palestine, this city our Jerusalem, this house of God our temple.”
In
recent years, there has been an effort to redefine antisemitism to
include not simply bigotry toward Jews and Judaism, but also criticism
of Israel and Zionism. In May 2022, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the
Anti-Defamation League, declared that “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”
He argued that groups calling for equal rights for Palestinians in
Israel are “extremists” and equated liberal critics of Israel with white
supremacists.
Even some
Israelis admit that the equating of anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel
with antisemitism is a tactic to silence criticism of Israel. Shulamit
Aloni, a former Minister of Education and winner of the Israel Prize,
describes how this works: “It’s a trick. We always use it. When from
Europe, somebody criticizes Israel, we bring up the Holocaust. When in
the United States, people are critical of Israel, then they are
antisemitic.”
To call opposition to Zionism the equivelant of antisemitism is to ignore the long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism.
Theodor
Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, did not believe in God or in
Judaism. The state he wanted to create would be based on the idea of
Jewish “national” or “ethnic” identity. In the 19th century, the
Zionist idea was rejected by most prominent Jewish voices. The chief
rabbi of Vienna, Mortiz Gudemann, denounced the mirage of Jewish
nationalism. “Belief in One God was the unifying factor for Jews,” he
declared, and Zionism was incompatible withJudaism’s teachings.
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 to a Messiah who would
miraculously restore Jews throughout the world to the historic land of
Israel and who would rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. 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. That revelation was progressive; new truth became
available to every generation. The underlying and unchangeable 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 punishment for their sins, but part of God’s plan
whereby they were to disseminate the universal message of ethical
monotheism.
In 1885,
Reform rabbis meeting in Pittsburgh adopted a platform rejecting
nationalism. They declared, “We consider ourselves no longer a nation
but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to
Palestine…nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish
state.”
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…as such it is a holy memory,
but it is not our hope of the future. America is our Zion.”
It
was not only Reform Jews who rejected 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 and or situated in a single
territory. Neither is Judaism a ‘nationality,’ in the sense of modern
nationalism, fit to be woven into the three-foldedness of ‘homeland,
army and heroic songs.’ No, Judaism is Torah, ethics and exaltation of
spirit. If Judaism is really 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.”
Those
who claim that opposition to Zionism is the equivelant of antisemitism
are either ignorant of Jewish history or are using such a false charge
to silence criticism of Israel which, sadly, has violated Jewish moral
and ethical standards in its treatment of Palestinians.
Many
Jewish voices warned against adopting a narrow nationalism in place of
Judaism’s universal moral and ethical values. One of the leading Jewish
theologians and philosophers of the 20th century, Rabbi Abraham Joshua
Heschel, who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. for civil
rights for all people, said, “Judaism is not a religion of space and
does not worship the soil. So, too, the State of Israel is not the
climax of Jewish history, But a test of the integrity of the Jewish
people and the competence of Israel.”
In
1938, alluding to Nazism, Albert Einstein warned an audience of Zionist
activists against the temptation to create a state imbued with “a
narrow nationalism within our own ranks against which we have already
had to fight strongly even without a Jewish state.”
Sadly,
Israel’s treatment of the indigenous population of Palestine has
violated Jewish moral and ethical values. Zionist terrorism was
widespread. On April 9, 1948, the Irgun and Lehi launched an attack on
the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. Situated in the hills on the
outskirts of Jerusalem, Deir Yassin was of no threat to Zionist forces.
Its residents were considered passive, and its leaders had agreed with
those of an adjacent Jewish neighborhood that each side would
prevent its own people from attacking the other. It was the Muslim
Sabbath when the attack took place. All the inhabitants of the village
were ordered out into a square, where they were lined up against the
wall and shot. More than a hundred civilians were killed. News of the
massacre spread rapidly and helped prompt a panic flight of more than
750,000 Palestinians from their homes. They were never permitted to
return. After this terror attack Menachem Begin, the Irgun leader and
later to become Israeli prime minister (referred to as a ‘Fascist’ and
‘racist’ by Albert Einstein and historian Hannah. Arendt), issued this
message to his troops: “”Accept my congratulations on this splendid act
of conquest…As in Deir Yassin , so everywhere, we will attack and smite
the enemy. God, God Thou hast chosen us for conquest.”
David
Shipler, the New York Times correspondent from 1979 to 1984, reports
that, “The Jewish fighters who planned the attack on Deir Yassin also
had a larger purpose apparently. A Jerusalem woman and her son who gave
some of the men coffee in the pre-dawn hours before their mission,
recall the guerrillas’ talking excitedly of the prospect of terrifying
Arabs far beyond the village of Deir Yassin so that they would run
away. Perhaps this explains why the Jewish guerrillas did not bury the
Arabs they had killed, but left their bodies to be seen, and why they
paraded surviving prisoners, blindfolded and with hands bound, in the
backs of trucks through the streets of Jerusalem, a scene still
remembered with a shudder by Jews who saw it.”
Many
Israelis, concerned about their country’s treatment of Palestinians ,
lament its departure from Jewish values. Professor David Shulman of the
Hebrew University notes that, “No matter how we look at it, unless our
minds have been poisoned by the ideologies of the religious right, the
occupation is a crime. It is first of all based on the permanent
disenfranchisement of a huge population…In the end, it is the ongoing
moral failure of the country as a whole that is most consequential, most
dangerous, most unacceptable. This failure weighs heavily on our
humanity. We are, so we claim, the children of the prophets. Once,
they say, we were slaves in Egypt. We know all that can be known about
slavery, suffering, prejudice, ghettos, hate, expulsion, exile. I find
it astonishing that we, of all people, have reinvented apartheid in the
West Bank.”
Israel has
occupied the West Bank in violation of international law for more than
50 years. Its indigenous Palestinian residents live under what Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights
organization, call “apartheid.” In violation of international law,
Jewish settlements are being built across the West Bank. Jewish
residents can vote in Israeli elections and have full legal rights,
Palestinians have no such rights.
I
know a bit about apartheid. During the years when apartheid was in
force in South Africa, my column from Washington appeared in the
Afrikaans-language newspapers Beeld in Johannesburg and Die Burger in
Cape Town. I had the opportunity in those years to spend some time in
South Africa. My Afrikaner friends used to tell me, “We know apartheid
is wrong. Unless we abandon it, our children will leave. They will go
to America, Canada, Australia. We are Western Christian people who
believe in freedom. We must abandon this system of apartheid.” And
that’s what white South Africans did. President F.W. De Klerk made
South Africa into a Western-style democracy—-and received the Nobel
Peace Prize for doing so. Many people forget that during the years of
apartheid Israel was a close friend of South Africa. In fact, it was
South Africa which provided Israel with uranium for its nuclear weapons
program. The first foreign leader to visit Israel was a pro-apartheid
South African Prime Minister.
It
has always been my hope that a leader like President De Klerk would
emerge in Israel and abandon its own undemocratic system. Instead,
Israel now has a far-right government which speaks of annexing the West
Bank and expelling its Palestinian residents. None of this would be
possible without the massive aid received from the U.S. and the
political support which accompanies it.
The
Oct. 7 terrorist attack upon Israel by Hamas was a terrible event.
Israel had every legitimate right to respond. Unfortunately, its
response has been excessive ——-destroying Gaza’s hospitals, churches,
mosques and living quarters. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been
killed so far and 77,000 wounded. More than 70 per cent are women and
children. Famine is about to engulf the area.
Without
U.S. aid, Israel could not conduct itself in this way. As a result, we
are now witnessing demonstrations throughout the U.S. calling for a
cease fire and an end to aid to the Netanyahu government. For his part,
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu described student protestors as
“antisemitic mobs” and likened the demonstrations to “what happened in
German universities in the 1930s.” In response, Sen. Bernie Sanders
(Ind.-VT), who is Jewish and lost family members in the Holocaust,
addressed this message to Netanyahu: “It’s not antisemitic to hold you
accountable for your actions. No, Mr. Netanyahu, it is not antisemitic
or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your
extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians…70% of whom are
women and
children.
It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely
destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one
million people homeless, almost half the population.”
What
the future holds is, of course, impossible to say. President Biden
speaks of a two-state solution, but the current Israeli government
speaks of annexing the West Bank and removing its Palestinian
population. Others speak of a “one-state solution,” in which all of
Palestine would be united and there would be equal rights for all,
Jews, Christians and Muslims.
At
the present time Israel is a theocracy. It is strange that American
Jewish organizations advocate complete separation of church and state in
the U.S.but embrace theocracy in Israel. Non-Orthodox Jews have fewer
rights in Israel than anyplace in the Western world. Reform,
Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis cannot perform weddings or
conduct funerals in Israel Their conversions to Judaism are not
recognized.
Historically,
there is no reason why Jews and Muslims cannot live in peace. Jews in
Muslim countries never faced the discrimination inflicted upon them in
much of Christian Europe. When Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 by
its Christian rulers, they were welcomed into the Muslim Ottoman Empire
and other Muslim countries. Jews lived in peace in Muslim countries
for hundreds of years. Ironically, the Palestinians, who had nothing to
do with the Holocaust, have had to pay a high price for the sins of
others.
Until the advent
of Nazism, Zionism was a small minority movement in most Jewish
communities. Then, looking for a way to properly handle and rehabilitate
the large number of displaced Jewish victims, many Jews began to view
the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine as a positive
possibility—-even though the Palestinians had nothing whatever to do
with the tragedy that had befallen the Jews of Europe.
Historian
Deena Dallasheh points out that, “The Holocaust was a horrible massacre
committed by Europeans. But I don’t think the Palestinians figure that
they will have to pay for it. Yet the world sees this as an acceptable
equation. Orientalist and colonial ideology were very much at the
heart of thinking, that while we Europeans and the U.S. were part of
this massive human tragedy, we are going to fix it at the expense of
someone else. And the someone else is not important because they are
Arabs. they’re Palestinians and thus constructed as not important.”
Salim
Tamari, a sociologist at Birzeit University in the West Bank, notes
that, “Sending the Jewish refugees to Palestine was a byproduct of
European guilt, but a hypocritical kind of guilt because they did not
want to bear the social and economic cost of absorbing the refugees
themselves. The vast majority of Jewish refugees who came were not
Zionists. They did not have a choice about where to go.”
In
the view of Abigail Jacobson, a historian at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, “It’s often argued against the Palestinians , how come you
didn’t accept partition? But it’s important not to read history
retrospectively. When you look at the demographic realities of 1947 and
the division of the land, it was 55% for the Jews and 45% for the
Palestinian state, even though there were double the number of
Palestinians as Jews at that point. If you were a Palestinian in 1947,
would you accept that offer? One needs to remember that the Palestinian
national movement was ready to accept the Jews as a minority in an Arab
state.”
On Dec. 4, 1945,
President Harry S. Truman received Lessing J. Rosenwald, the first
president of the American Council for Judaism in the Oval Office. H
Rosenwald called for the admission of both Jewish and non-Jewish
displaced persons to Palestine and urged that, “Palestine shall not be a
Muslim, Christian or Jewish state but a country in which people of all
faiths can play their full and equal part,” and that the U.S. take the
lead in coordinating with the U.N. “a cooperative policy of many nations
in absorbing Jewish refugees.”
Rosenwald,
the former chairman of Sears Roebuck, and the son of philanthropist
Julius Rosenwald, who worked with Booker T. Washington after the Civil
War to build schools for black children in the South,testified before
the Anglo-American committee of Inquiry on Jan.10, 1946 and urged that
large numbers of Jews be admitted into Palestine on the condition that
“the claim that Jews possess unlimited national rights to the land and
that the country shall take the form of a racial or theocratic state,
were denounced once and for all.”
The
American Council for Judaism’s warnings about Zionism have been
prophetic.Jonathan Saran, a Brandeis University historian and author of
the book “American Judaism,”. Says that, “Everything they (the American
Council for Judaism) prophesied—-dual loyalty, nationalism being
evil—-has come to pass.” He states that, “It’s certainly the case that
if the Holocaust underscored the problems of Jewish life in the
Diaspora, recent years have highlighted that Zionism is no panacea.”
Samuel
Friedman devoted his June 26, 2010 “On Religion” column in The New York
Times to the American Council for Judaism. He pointed out that, “…the
intense criticism of Israel now growing among a number of American Jews
has made the group look significant, even prophetic…The rejection of
Zionism …goes back to the Torah itself. Until Theodor Herzl created the
modern Zionist movement…the biblical injunction to return to Israel was
widely understood as a theological construct rather than a pragmatic
instruction…The Reform movement maintained that Judaism is a religion,
not a nationality.”
Since
that was written, it has become increasingly clear that Israel has
turned its back on traditional Jewish moral and ethical values. It has
denied equal rights to Palestinians who are citizens of Israel and has
provided no rights to Palestinians in the illegally occupied
territories. Now, in Gaza, Israel has engaged in what more and more of
the world considers Genocide. Noah Feldman, professor at the Harvard
Law School 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.”
The
ahistoric declaration that “antiZionism is antisemitism” has no basis
in fact or history. In fact, the opposite is increasingly seen to be
true. Zionism and the state it has created represents the antithesis of
genuine Judaism, something which more and more Americans of all
religious backgrounds, including Jews, are coming to understand.
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Allan
C. Brownfeld is a nationally syndicated columnist and is editor of
ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. The
author of five books, he has served on the staff of the U.S. Senate,
House of Representatives, and the Office of the Vice President.