“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”
Who said this? Not Herzl, not Ben Gurion, not Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis.
It was Martin Luther King Jr in 1968.
And that criticism takes the form of statements such as:
“Zionism is only a modern-day political movement.”
“Zionism is different to Judaism.”
“Israel is a settler-colonial state,”
and of course, “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.”
We hear these arguments all the time from those who seek to delegitimise the State of Israel and in many cases seek its destruction – and no doubt we will continue to hear them.
Jerusalem
Yes, the founding of the State of Israel was the result of Zionism as a modern-day political movement but those who seek to characterise Zionism as only political and differentiate it from Judaism and Jews are at best woefully uneducated or at worst dangerously disingenuous.
Let me quote Alice Marcu – whose family survived the Holocaust and Communist Romania.
“Judaism is a native identity. Jews are a people and a religion. Like many other indigenous identities, it predates the modern separation of religion, culture, mythology, morals, nation and land. These elements have all been tied together for Jews over the course of millennia. Much like other native identities, Judaism sanctifies (which means the religious element) the bond between the people (the nation) and the place where their ancestors had lived (the land) and had formed their native heritage (their culture, mythology, morals, language and so on).
“In other words, much like many people can accept Native American tribes seeing their ancestral land as sacred, a belief that isn’t nullified even when they have been displaced from it, that’s how these same people should understand the unbreakable, holy, indigenous connection in Jewish identity between the People of Israel and Eretz Yisrael – the land of Israel”. She finishes by saying “It might be that only in modern times we came to refer to this bond as Zionism, when it took on the form of a political movement, but it has always been there, a constant Jewish longing, an intrinsic part of our faith, history and legacy.”
Raphi Bloom
And I know – as do most Jews whether they are religious or not – that this yearning for a return to self-determination in our ancestral homeland is brought to the fore time and time again. Anyone who has been in synagogue at the end of Yom Kippur will know that Jews joyfully declare, “Next year in Jerusalem.” It is a powerful, emotional and heartfelt cry made before G-d on the holiest day of the Jewish year. Similarly, everyone participating in the Passover seder makes the same declaration.
Judaism is unique in its attachment to Jerusalem. The Tanach – the complete Old Testament – mentions Jerusalem MORE than 650 times. The Koran does not mention it once. Psalm 137:5 declares, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its skill.” There is no comparable expression in non-Jewish scripture. That declaration is made at the end of every Jewish wedding ceremony to express our grieving for the destruction of the Temple and remember Jerusalem, even at moments of extreme joy like a wedding. The three major Jewish festivals of Succot, Passover and Shavuot are each called in Hebrew a “Chag” – a pilgrimage that Jews made to the Jewish temple IN Jerusalem.
In Judaism, Jerusalem is a living focus of prayer. When praying, one is required to orient our heart and face towards Jerusalem, no matter where we are in the world. References to Zion, the Land of Israel and Jerusalem are deeply embedded in ancient Jewish texts, including the Bible, the Prophetic Books, the Talmud, and the Siddur – the Jewish prayer book. Archaeological evidence further substantiates the longstanding Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.
A close examination of Jewish liturgy reveals a profound connection between the Jewish people and their ancestral land. Jews are traditionally called to formal worship three times a day. These prayers are compiled in the Siddur and many of them reference Zion and are expressly devoted to the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Additional blessings are recited before and after meals, as well as on special occasions, on holidays and whilst mourning. Through the study of these prayers, whether in the home or synagogue, one can discern both the physical and spiritual significance of Zion.
The Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays are based on the agricultural year as experienced specifically in the Land of Israel and among the 613 Jewish mitzvot, biblical decrees that Jews are required to observe, there are 26 decrees that can only be observed while living in the Land of Israel. There are also 4 fast days in Judaism devoted to remembering Jerusalem.
Jerusalem Day Flag March (picture X)
Many Jewish festivals explicitly celebrate Zionist ideas, meaning they uphold the importance of the bond between the Jews and the Land of Israel. For example, Chanukah is a celebration of the native Jews – the Maccabees – fighting off the forces of the Greek occupiers, and re-establishing Jewish sovereignty in Israel.
And to bring this full circle to modern day Zionism at the end of 19th century, when the secular Theodor Herzl wrote The Jewish State, he forged an alliance with religious Jews worldwide who had longed for Zion much longer than he had. For them, it was not political, it was sacred. The poster designed for the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel in 1901 had written across the bottom the prayer “May our eyes see thy return to Zion in mercy.”
Tenth-century Portuguese did not pray to return to Brazil, nor did our own British countrymen yearn for Australia. There were colonial powers in Israel, that is without doubt: Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, Islamic Ottoman Turks, Jordan and of course Britain. But the Jews were not among them. Jews absolutely cannot be a settler-colonial power in the land where they arose.
And for all the violence Israel has been forced to endure in defending itself since 1948, its national anthem is not about rockets and bombs, like America’s or taking up arms and soaking the soil with blood, like France’s. It’s about hope, the hope of two thousand years, to be once again a free people in our land, the Land of Zion, Jerusalem – לִהְיוֹת עַם חָפְשִׁי בְּאַרְצֵנוּ, אֶרֶץ צִיּוֹן וִירוּשָׁלַיִם. The modern-day State of Israel, founded by modern day Zionists, is simply the rightful fulfilment of this.
Judaism includes Zionism, which is derived from the Hebrew word “Tzion”. To deny the intimate link between Judaism, Jerusalem and the land of Israel that has existed for millennia – and has been proven in black and white here – is to deny one of the most fundamental tenets of Judaism.
This is thousands of years of the Jewish religion, meeting the modern, to re-establish a Jewish state in our ancestral home. We are a people AND a religion. Hate and disagree with things that the Israeli government does, BUT if you call for the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel with your anti Zionism then you hate Judaism and Jews and THAT is what makes anti Zionism antisemitism.
