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Who Are the Anti-Zionist Jews?
Members of extreme anti-Zionist group “Jewish Voice for Peace.” Photo: NGO Monitor.
JNS.org – As a teacher of Zionism, one of the more frequent questions I receive is about anti-Zionist Jews.
Zionism is a modern movement built on age-old values that stand for the right of the Jewish people to determine their future in a state in the Jewish people’s historic homeland—the Land of Israel. Zionists maintain that the denial of these rights is antisemitic by nature because it advocates for discriminating against the Jewish people. But I am often asked: If there are anti-Zionist Jews, how can anti-Zionism be considered antisemitism?
The question isn’t without merit, but it assumes that Jews can’t express antisemitic viewpoints or be antisemitic in general. While antisemitic Jews are an odd phenomenon, there’s no reason they can’t exist. At the same time, there are Jews who agree with the values of Zionism but maintain that Zionism’s goal of establishing a Jewish state should not have been pursued at this time due to ancillary reasons having nothing to do with Zionist values.
Jewish opponents of Zionism have diverse views, but there are three main categories of anti-Zionist Jews: 1) Jews who promote a more assimilationist position and are concerned that Zionism can bring on charges of dual loyalty and increase antisemitism. 2) Jews who are fearful of fighting for Jewish rights. They prefer an existence that doesn’t advocate for change and are satisfied with a less-than-ideal reality rather than one that could better their standing in the world. 3) Torah-observant Jews who maintain that Zionism is inconsistent with Torah values either because of its secularism or its timing before a Messianic era.
In his book Arc of a Covenant, Walter Russell Mead wrote: “In 1919, 31 of the most influential Jews in America, led by the former ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, presented a petition to Woodrow Wilson as he left for the Paris Peace Conference requesting him to oppose the Balfour Declaration: ‘We do not wish to see Palestine, either now or at any time in the future, organized as a Jewish State.’”
These Jews preferred living in a non-Jewish state with Jews who aspired to be more like their non-Jewish neighbors than in their own independent nation.
Many of these Jews exist today, yet an interesting phenomenon has developed with this group. Those who call themselves Zionists but practice a life that is more like the non-Jews around them than the independent Jewish lives of those in Israel. Mead wrote: “Herzl expected an unfavorable response to his [Zionist] pamphlet, and the Jews of Vienna did not disappoint him. A few weeks after publication, Herzl noted in his diary that “The Jews of the upper-class, educated circles … are horrified by me.”
It was not just that the idea of a Jewish “return” to a homeland where no Jewish state had existed for almost 2,000 years struck most sensible Jews as a fantasy rather than as a serious political proposal; it was that most Western Jews had long ago renounced the idea that the Jews were a nation. They thought of Jews as a race of people sharing a common descent or as a religious community.
Every society and community includes individuals who prefer to be viewed with favor of those around them rather than fight for their own rights and independence. They either fear independence and change or are frightened to stand up for their own rights.
Early Zionists denigrated the Jews in their community who acted this way as “Galus Jews” or “Weak-kneed Jews.” The Zionist ethos holds that Jews should stand up for themselves and demand that the nations of the world grant the Jewish people the rights all nations enjoy. Zionist Jews wouldn’t stand for the anti-Zionist Jews who were afraid to stand up for themselves and demand what rightfully belonged to the Jewish people.
Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, a Rabbi who lived at the turn of the 20th century, once said: “The Zionists attract Jews to their movement by dressing it up as ‘the mitzvah of settling in Eretz Yisroel.” Rav Chaim likened Zionists to sane people who had drunk from a poisonous well that caused them to become insane and try to convince the sane people that they are, in fact, insane. His main objection to Zionism was its move away from complete devotion to the observance of Halachah. Other rabbis maintain that Jews are prohibited from governing the Land of Israel until the Messianic era.
Dr. Theodore Herzl and Rav Chaim Soloveitchik lived at the same time. They couldn’t have been more different. Yet both revolutionized the Jewish world. Dr. Herzl’s Zionism created the State of Israel and Rav Chaim created the Brisker Derech (methodology of analysis).
As a self-declared Brisker, I don’t feel comfortable critiquing Rav Chaim’s position and prefer Rabbi Aaron Zimmer’s explanation of Rav Chaim’s position on Zionism.
In psychology, learned helplessness is a state that occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They believe that they are unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try, even when opportunities for change are available. For over 2,000 years, the Jewish people had learned helplessness and assumed they couldn’t return to Israel without a Divine command leading to the Messianic era.
Dr. Herzl, a journalist and man of the world, witnessed the political reality around him changing. He understood that the global community’s focus on liberation and move away from colonialism set the ideal conditions for the Jewish people to return to their homeland and establish their own state.
Rav Chaim and many rabbis opposed to Zionism weren’t aware of global trends and couldn’t see that the time had come to return to the Land of Israel. They saw Zionism as a movement bent on veering Jews away from the Torah with false promises of a return to Zion.
Dr. Herzl was able to take advantage of global trends and actualize the 2,000-year-old dream of the Jewish people to return to the Land of Israel.
The existence of anti-Zionist Jews troubles the Zionist community for numerous reasons, but most of all because they provide support for the antisemites of the world who mask their Jew-hatred with the “legitimate” veneer of anti-Zionism.
Anti-Zionist Jews exist on the fringes of Judaism and aren’t representative of today’s mainstream Jewish community, which overwhelmingly identifies as Zionist and supports the State of Israel. They should be given as much credence as racist black people and self-hating Catholics.
Those who point to the anti-Zionist fringes of the Jewish community and play them off as mainstream to legitimize their hate reveal themselves as antisemites.
The post Who Are the Anti-Zionist Jews? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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