[[link removed]]

WHY THEY HATE US: ANTI-ZIONISM IN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY  
[[link removed]]


 

Alan Wagman
April 18, 2024
CounterPunch
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ We must demonstrate that one can leave Zionism and still be part of
a Jewish community that lives its traditions, its values, and – if
so inclined – its spiritual life with vitality and integrity. _

, Image by Joshua Frank.

 

As a longtime anti-Zionist and member of Jewish Voice for Peace, it
has been a fact of my life that the organized Jewish community has
considered me a pariah. When I was president of my Jewish
congregation, the executive director of the local Jewish Federation
refused to speak with me; when communication was required, he always
found a workaround. Even so, he never insulted me, never directly
expressed anger, never used profanity. A few years ago, members of the
local Federation board politely told me I was an antisemite. But, I
emphasize, they were polite.

Things have changed. The organized Jewish community has weaponized
conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism; colleges and
universities are banning
[[link removed]] chapters
of Students for Justice in Palestine from campuses. Congressional
demagogues are forcing
[[link removed]] university
presidents to resign. State and local governments
[[link removed]], foreign
governments
[[link removed]], U.S.
cabinet departments
[[link removed]],
and even Congress
[[link removed]] are
adopting a definition of antisemitism
[[link removed]] that
includes anti-Zionism. We are encountering rabbis who accost us and
accuse us of creating division in their congregations. Other rabbis
spare us the words and literally flip us off. (Yes. That happened.)

One longtime progressive Jewish activist who until recently had worked
primarily on issues other than Israel/Palestine encountered this
intensified hostility from segments of the Jewish community. The
activist wondered if this were happening because we are threatening
some Jews’ foundational beliefs about Israel.

However, these foundational beliefs are not being threatened by us –
the beliefs are being threatened by Israel having stripped itself of
the liberal veneer with which it has covered its true nature, forcing
those who hold those beliefs dear to face reality for the first time.

There is a name for the situation in which one finds one’s internal
beliefs clashing with the reality one sees – cognitive dissonance
[[link removed]]. The
more desperately one clings to one’s beliefs in the face of a
contrary reality, the more fearful and angry one becomes.

This is made even more intense by the fact that the image of a
liberal, moral Israel has not been an individual cognition but a
communal cognition. Even more powerfully, it has been a group
cognition that has played a huge role in holding the community
together. Therefore, undermining the cognition not only threatens how
individuals perceive themselves, it threatens the cohesiveness of the
community and individuals’ communal identification.

When a member of a Jewish community group begins to question the core
belief in Israel’s goodness, it raises two issues: “If this is
what Israel is, who am I?” and “If I accept the reality before me,
what happens to my place in the group?” (The “group” can be the
Jewish world as a whole, the congregation to which one belongs,
one’s family, one’s friends, etc.)

To understand how psychically, emotionally, and even viscerally
disruptive it can be for many Jewish community members to face the
truth about Israel, one may look to Upton Sinclair’s insight
[[link removed]],
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his
salary depends upon his not understanding it.” In this instance, it
is difficult to get a person to understand something when that
person’s self-identity, familial and friendship relationships, group
membership, social structure, and support net all depend upon the
person’s not understanding it. With so much at stake, people cling
to their false and no longer serviceable beliefs.

It is not out of the question that when most or even every member of a
group is questioning a false belief at the group’s core that every
individual will be too afraid to admit their own questioning to the
others. So the group circles the wagons against the outside, not
consciously realizing that there is no longer an inside or perhaps
fearfully suspecting that there is no longer an inside. This creates
fear and stress, which then come out as anger at the tellers of
unwelcome truth.

In the face of this dynamic, I believe Jewish Voice for Peace and
other anti-Zionist Jews have two sets of roles, one outside the Jewish
community and one inside the Jewish community. Outside, our primary
roles have been to work toward a day when all who live between the
River and the Sea enjoy freedom, equality, and dignity and to show the
world that Jews are not monolithic.

Inside, we have crossed a line, where our primary role within the
Jewish community is no longer to be carriers and chroniclers of that
hidden and unwelcome truth. That truth may still be unwelcome, but it
is no longer under wraps. One need only look at the coverage in
mainstream media that would have been unthinkable as recently as
October 6 of last year. The truth is out.

Our primary role now is to demonstrate that there are Jewish values
and traditions that go back thousands of years and do not depend upon
a Euro-centric political ideology born less than 150 years ago. In
other words, we must demonstrate that one can leave Zionism and still
be part of a Jewish community that lives its traditions, its values,
and – if so inclined – its spiritual life with vitality and
integrity.

In the meantime, we must be aware of the pain that all this is causing
our fellow Jews who have not yet found their way out of the web of
false beliefs. As James Baldwin said
[[link removed]], “I
imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly
is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal
with pain.” That pain comes out as hatred towards us, accusations
of splitting congregations, giving us the finger, calling us
antisemites, passing laws against us.

As we go forward, it is worthwhile to recall a truism about
struggle often attributed
[[link removed]] to
Mahatma Gandhi: First they ignore you; then they laugh at you; then
they fight you; then you win. We have reached Stage 3. They are
fighting us. As unpleasant as it is, remember this: The vehemence of
the vituperation aimed at us is directly related to how close we are
to winning.

_Alan Wagman is a retired public defender and long-time advocate for
human rights, social and economic justice, and peace. He is a member
of Jewish Voice for Peace, a former treasurer of one New Mexico
synagogue, former president of another, and a former board member of a
national Jewish spiritual organization.  _

_CounterPunch is reader supported! Please help keep us alive
[[link removed]].  The CounterPunch website
is offered at no charge to the general public over the world wide web.
New articles, from an independent left-leaning perspective, are posted
every weekday. A batch of several articles, including the Poet’s
Basement, and Roaming Charges by Jeffrey St. Clair, are posted in the
Weekend Edition. After the initial posting, these articles are
available in the archives which can be searched by using any of the
search boxes on the website.  _

* Anti-Zionism
[[link removed]]
* Jewish community
[[link removed]]
* Jewish Voices for Peace
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]