[[link removed]]

AMERICAN JEWS HAVE LONG QUESTIONED ZIONISM  
[[link removed]]


 

Marty Blatt and Marjorie Feld
September 23, 2024
Common Dreams
[[link removed]]

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

_ In the name of Jewish and global sustainability and safety,
American Jews must end their long standing, unquestioned allegiance to
Zionism and Israel. _

,

 

As historians and as anti-Zionist Jews active in our communities, we
know that unqualified support for Israel
[[link removed]] has been widespread among
American Jews, built on the idea that only Israel could prevent
another Holocaust and keep Jews safe. But crucially, there has never
been a complete pro-Zionist “consensus.”

What we understand is that there has always been a small, vocal,
articulate American Jewish minority—many with direct ties to the
devastation of the Holocaust—who fundamentally questioned the role
of Zionism and Israel in American Jewish life and asserted that
Zionism and democratic ideals are incompatible. Our own lives and
research agendas illuminate that for over a century, since the
beginning of the modern Zionist movement with Theodor Herzl in 1897,
some American Jews have drawn attention to the brutality and racism
inherent in the modern Zionist project.

Marty’s mother Molly and her mother Clara fled the Nazis from
Heidelberg, Germany, in 1938 and 1940, respectively. The Nazis
murdered many in their family. In 1934, the Blue Card was established
in Germany to assist Jews fleeing the growing persecution and
subsequently re-established in 1939 in the United States to provide
direct financial assistance to needy Holocaust survivors. Over a span
of nine decades, Marty’s grandmother and mother and Marty, three
generations, made a donation every single year to the charitable
organization. And now Marty has concluded, painfully, that he can no
longer contribute. The Blue Card Passover appeal highlighted the need
to “combat the rising tide of antisemitism.” In an August 9 email,
the organization noted that many Holocaust survivors are
“…triggered by anti-Israel street protests that remind them of
Nazi rallies…” The Blue Card has not uttered a single word of
condemnation against the Israeli genocide in Gaza
[[link removed]] and the West Bank. There are
several Holocaust survivors who have forcefully condemned the Israeli
onslaught. In a message to the Blue Card executive director Masha
Pearl, which she has not responded to, Marty wrote: “With my family
background, I am appalled by what Israel is doing to the
Palestinians….As an American Jew, I condemn the brutal violence of
Israel and say – Not in my name.”

As analyzed in Marjorie’s book, _Threshold of Dissent
[[link removed]], _American
Jewish critics of Zionism have long observed that Israel does not
ensure Jewish safety. Yiddish and English-language journalist William
Zukerman, based in New York City, wrote in his _Jewish
Newsletter _in the 1950s that Israel and Zionism contributed to
hostility toward Jews around the world. Together with Israeli
diplomats, Jewish leaders forced him out of journalist jobs and
removed his communal funding. He incurred the wrath of many American
Jews for pointing out their hypocrisy, for example, in this comment in
1959: “How can the American Jewish Congress and other outspoken
Zionist organizations honestly fight segregation in the South if
opposition to integration of Jews with non-Jews is the basic principle
of Zionism?”

Also, Marjorie relates in her book that in 1973, Marty taught a course
in Tufts University’s Experimental College titled “Zionism
Reconsidered,” which cast a critical eye on Israel’s history,
teaching students about the Nakba (the forced dispossession of 750,000
Palestinians at Israel’s founding) and about U.S. support for
Israel’s brutalities. The Jewish Defense League (JDL) and the
mainstream Jewish community each attacked him and the course. The JDL
called the course “an anti-Jewish outrage” and distributed a flyer
that declared: “Not since Germany in the days of Hitler has any
university dared to offer a course presenting a one-sided view of any
national movement.” Not to be outdone, Boston’s Jewish Community
Relations Council labeled Blatt’s course “an insult to the Jewish
community” that was part of an “anti-Israel propaganda effort.”

Since the early 20th century, and especially since the strong Cold War
alliance between Israel and the U.S. dating back to the 1960s, in the
name of Jewish safety, American Jewish communal leaders have
marginalized American Jewish critics of Israel. These leaders
categorize them as “self-hating Jews” or antisemites. Though their
lives were profoundly upended by the virulent communal response, many,
including Zukerman and Marty, remained steadfast in their commitment
to providing more and diverse American Jewish opinions about Israel
and Zionism.

The horrific brutality of the present Israeli genocidal onslaught is
instead rooted in the Zionist project itself which focuses on
dispossession and hence is characterized by oppression of the
indigenous non-Jews, i.e., the Palestinians. Uncovering the history of
dissenting American Jews may help a community that has terribly lost
its way. American Jews need to open up to honest conversations about
Israel’s brutal past _and_ American Jewish communal complicity in
that past.

Many of the thousands of student protesters in the encampments were
Jewish, acting as part of this long tradition of dissent. Drawing from
an old playbook, communal leaders charged them with antisemitism and
self-hatred. However, this remains a big lie used to attack and defame
and smear. These student activists reject, as we do, the false
equation of antisemitism with anti-Zionism.

How can we move forward out of the current nightmare? We call upon
every American Jew to reject the genocidal policies of Israel. We
stand with Jewish organizations including If Not Now and Jewish Voice
for Peace who declare: “NOT IN OUR NAME.” We call for an immediate
cease fire; exchange of all hostages, including Palestinian prisoners;
cessation of arms supplies by the U.S. to Israel; substantial
negotiations for a lasting peace with justice for Israelis and
Palestinians. Some sort of confederal state will be required as Israel
has effectively crushed the possibility of a two-state solution.

In the name of Jewish and global sustainability and safety, American
Jews must end their long standing, unquestioned allegiance to Zionism
and Israel. By embracing an understanding of the voices of American
Jewish dissent, past and present, perhaps American Jews can play a
constructive role moving forward to end the genocide carried out today
in our names in Gaza and the West Bank.

_Marty Blatt, emeritus professor of public history at Northeastern
University, has recently published Violence and Public Memory
[[link removed]] (Routledge,
2023).  He was the recipient of the Robert Kelley Memorial Award
from the National Council on Public History for outstanding
achievement in public history._

_Marjorie N. Feld is professor of history at Babson College in
Massachusetts, where she teaches social history courses on gender,
labor, and food justice and sustainability.  The Threshold of
Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Israel
[[link removed]] is
her third book._

* Anti-Zionism
[[link removed]]
* American Jews
[[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]