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Diasporism: A Poor Man’s Judaism
Members of extreme anti-Zionist group “Jewish Voice for Peace.” Photo: NGO Monitor.
JNS.org – The clash between devotion to the Diaspora and the yearning for the Land of Israel is not a new phenomenon. In the period between the end of the 18th century to the beginning of World War II and the Holocaust, there were four classic categories of Jews (besides the outright assimilationists) seeking to reject the centrality of the historic Jewish homeland and all that that entailed in a practical and theoretical sense while justifying remaining in the lands of exile.
With the onset of the Enlightenment, the Haskalah, in the mid-to-late 18th century, a break with the Jew’s religious component led, perhaps unintentionally, to a preference for Diaspora community life even while the Land of Israel was treated with respect, if tinged with romanticism as in Avraham Mapu’s novels. It eventually led to a promotion of cultural assimilation.
With the rise of the Hibbat Tzion movement, coupled with the political activity of Theodor Herzl and the Zionist movement, came two Diaspora-centered reactions. One was that of the Marxist Bund, which adopted the concept of Doiykait (Hereness in Yiddish) laced with a strong anti-nationalist position. The second was the extreme ultra-Orthodox rejection of this new “false messianism” as voiced by the Teitlebaum dynasty, first of Sighet and later of Satmar, as well as the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Sholom Dovber Schneersohn (“the Rashab”). Rejecting Zionism, they held back their followers and those they influenced from leaving Europe before it was too late.
A third trend was pushed by Shimon Dubnow. Realizing, as a result of the Russian pogroms during the last quarter of the 19th century, that his dream of a universalist, scientifically detached reality was damned, he moved to adopt a truncated nationalist conception of Jewish identity based on community autonomy. As the YIVO Encyclopedia describes his thinking, Jewish social institutions would serve as substitutes for a state being quasi-political forms that were a manifestation of Judaism’s ability to transcend the usual physical requirements of nationhood. Dubnow’s life ended when he was shot in the Riga ghetto.
The fourth was that of the Reform Movement until 1937. Zion was erased from the prayer books. As Jonathan Sarna notes, Reform Rabbis protested efforts aimed at Jewish colonization of Palestine at the 1869 Philadelphia Conference of Reform Rabbis voting for a resolution that “the Messianic goal of Israel is not the restoration of the old Jewish state… but the union of all men as the children of God.” Later, hundreds of Reform Rabbis lobbied U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 to refrain from backing the League of Nations’ decision to reconstitute the historic Jewish national home in Palestine. It was only in 1937, when the Columbus Platform was adopted, that they recognized the “promise [of] … the rehabilitation of Palestine” and “the obligation of all Jewry to aid in its upbuilding as a Jewish homeland … a center of Jewish culture and spiritual life.”
All had felt that Zionism promoted a negative view of Jewish existence in the lands of the exile (or that there even was an exile) and the purpose for a Jewish existence and could not agree that the Diaspora was doomed to failure. The Holocaust provided its own horrific solution to their ideological fantasizing, although the Satanic portrayal of Zionism and Israel as formulated in the tome VaYoel Moshe continues.
And yet, Diasporism has begun again.
From IfNotNow, which is “commit[ed] to grappling together with apartheid, Zionism and the State of Israel,” to Jewish Voice for Peace to Na’amod, there is a significant groundswell among Jewish youth. A Diasporic revival was noted in 2018, and we are told it is being embraced. The new buzzword is “portable.” Pro-Diasporic views are the subject of a 2021 academic thesis. Daniel Boyarin has a No-State Solution, as does Peter Beinart who, as of 2020, no longer believes in a Jewish state.
Now, there is Shaul Magid’s new book with the accompanying New York Times effusive treatment, which asked: “Is Israel Part of What It Means to Be Jewish?” It points out that “some progressive Jews are … reimagining their faith as one that blesses their lives in America and elsewhere.”
Magid’s volume, to quote his publisher, now “challenges us to consider the price of diminishing or even erasing the exilic character of Jewish life.” The book, The Necessity of Exile, views exile “as a positive stance for constructive Jewish engagement with Israel/Palestine, antisemitism, diaspora and a broken world in need of repair.”
In a January podcast, Magid related to Zionism as “another alternative, which basically functioned under the assumption that emancipation wouldn’t work.” That is quite unfair and historically incorrect. Herzl’s Zionism initiative did react to the failure of the non-Jewish world to accept Jews but Jews—since the walk from Egypt through the desert on to the Babylon exile and to the continuum of immigration to Eretz-Yisrael after the Roman conquests—were always Zionists.
It was Leonard Cohen who, participating in a public panel held at the Jewish Public Library of Montreal in June 1964, spoke of Jews who “create this insane Talmud of identity that must end in psychiatry—or Zionism” (here at 10:56) and yet asserted that the Jewish people have a unique mission. Here we are, 60 years later, and we observe too many Jews requiring mind-healing treatment.
A Judaism bereft of the Land of Israel—of Jerusalem Rebuilt, of the Ingathering, of the commandments bound up with the soil and agriculture of the Land, and more—is one that is shallow, mechanical, if at all observed, and most importantly, negates the vaunted messaging of what they hail as the ethical and moral Judaism of the Prophets, whose writings are hardcore Zionist.
Pining for a return to Egypt, the Children of Israel pestered Moses and complained about the culinary dearth they were subject to in the desert. Where, they demanded, were the cucumbers and melons, the leeks, onions, garlic and the fish? A Midrashic commentary suggests that their taste buds found that the manna they picked in the field for their daily sustenance, while quite tasty, nevertheless lacked those very food flavors they were used to in Egypt. That they were slaves in Egypt seemed to elude their consciousness.
The contemporary Diaspora preference-seekers, making themselves slaves to a neo-Bundist progressive agenda, are not saving even themselves from the hate directed at Zionism and Israel. They feed that hate, providing the haters with a cover and, in the end, will suffer a fate that they are attempting to avoid. It will be a repeat for them of a paradigm from a certain Central European country.
To borrow a classic Jewish analogy, they are repeating the act of “loathing the land” (Numbers 14:31), of denigrating the Jewish people’s identity and essence.
The post Diasporism: A Poor Man’s Judaism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.