Uncategorized
Why do so many Jews support Israel — but reject ‘Zionism’?
A new Jewish Federations of North America survey contained a shocking and confusing statistic: While just one-third of American Jews call themselves Zionists, almost 90% say they believe in Israel’s right to exist as a democratic Jewish state.
How could that be?
That finding has been widely read as evidence of a generational collapse in Jewish attachment to Israel. It is nothing of the sort. What it reveals instead is the collapse of confidence in a specific political ideal that, to many, no longer means what it once did.
For much of the 20th century, the term “Zionism” referred to a fairly straightforward and surprisingly normal proposition: that Jews constituted a people, not merely a religion, and therefore had a plausible claim to national self-determination.
The arguments around Zionism were not uniquely Jewish. They echoed similar ideas advanced about Poles, Greeks and Czechs. If Romania could be a Romanian country, the thinking went, Israel could be a Jewish one. Whether Israel should exist was not a particularly hard question. Where its borders should lie, how minorities within those borers should be treated, and how Palestinians displaced by war and state-building should be compensated were.
Even the word itself began modestly. It is widely believed to have been coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum, a Jewish intellectual and activist, to give a name to an emerging political current associated with the Hovevei Zion movement: Jews who believed emancipation would be achieved through collective action.
The idea of a return to Zion was ancient, embedded in Jewish liturgy and longing. The term “Zionism,” by contrast, was new, and political.
That practical spirit carried into the work of Theodor Herzl, who used the term sparingly and without reverence. In his vision, Zionism was not an identity to be worn or a moral credential to be displayed. It was a solution to a political problem: the chronic vulnerability of a stateless people.
“I consider the Jewish question neither a social nor a religious one, even though it sometimes takes these and other forms. It is a national question,“ he wrote in Der Judenstaat, his foundational text. “We are a people — one people.” Herzl laid out certain principles for answering that national question: international legitimacy mattered, minority rights within a future Jewish state were essential, and sovereignty imposed obligations rather than erased them. Zionism, he believed, could coexist with liberal norms and civic equality.
Today, that framework has eroded.
The moral mire of occupation
The occupation of the West Bank beginning after the 1967 Six-Day War fundamentally altered the moral landscape in which Zionism is understood.
Settler violence, seemingly permanent military rule over another people without the rights of citizens, a system of legal inequality and terrible violence resulted. What was once a movement for national self-determination increasingly came, in the public eye, to signify territorial entitlement and moral indifference.
For many Jews, especially younger ones, the word “Zionism” began to feel less like a description of a political belief like any other than a demand for complicity in a reality they never chose.
The rise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accelerated this corrosion. Because of his omnipresence in Israeli politics for the last three decades, it is his face many think of now when the term comes up. Over time, the idea of Zionism became rhetorically fused with Netanyahu’s political survival strategy, and, with it, with contempt for liberal institutions, and a narrowing of Jewish identity into a blunt instrument of power.
In the past, one could be a Zionist and still oppose specific Israeli governments, criticize military actions, or argue for far-reaching compromises with the Palestinians. Zionism was not an oath of loyalty to power; it was a framework for arguing about how Jewish sovereignty should be exercised and constrained.
In an era defined by occupation and Netanyahu’s political scheming, the term “Zionism” became welded to a politician known for corruption, cynicism, and conflict. So for liberals — which most American Jews are — it became radioactive.
From specific ideal to vague slur
Then came the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
The scale of Israeli suffering on that day might have created sympathy for Israel — but the disastrous war in Gaza that followed put an end to any such compassion. Israeli security officials do not dispute the estimate that the war killed 70,000 people in Gaza, of which half or more are likely to have been civilians. The images coming out of the strip for more than two years showed scenes of utter devastation.
Layered onto this awful reality was an online ecosystem that rewards distortion. In activist spaces and on social media, the word “Zionist” became a slur, deployed with deliberate vagueness. It could mean “supporter of occupation,” “apologist for civilian deaths,” or simply “Jew with opinions about Israel.”
Bots and bad-faith actors amplified the worst definitions and drowned out the rest. In that climate, identifying as a Zionist began to feel like inviting a moral indictment.
The result is an increasingly familiar absurdity. I find myself appearing on leftist podcasts, listening to earnest but ill-informed commentators say they “suspect” I might be a Zionist, as though they were uncovering a hidden vice.
The irony is that I am a complete and total Zionist — under the original definition. Does it still apply?
I believe Jews are a people; that they have a right to a state; and that Israel’s legitimacy does not depend on being liked; only on existing within moral and legal constraints.
What I do not accept is the mutated version of Zionism that equates Jewish self-determination with permanent and non-democratic domination over another people.
Why does this definitional change matter?
When Jews stop identifying as Zionists, they abandon the clear, shared language that explains why Israel exists at all. That vacuum can be quickly filled with definitions supplied by Israel’s most illiberal defenders and most hostile critics. Without “Zionism” as an acceptable term, it becomes easier to portray Israel as illegitimate by definition. And it becomes easier for people who hate Jews to pretend that they hate “Zionists” instead.
Can the term be reclaimed? That would require an Israel that behaves better. Even then, undoing the damage will be an uphill battle. And of course, many of Zionism’s critics will never be pacified. The strange durability of the phenomenon known as antisemitism makes that crystal clear.
The post Why do so many Jews support Israel — but reject ‘Zionism’? appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Remembering Abe Foxman, the longtime ADL leader known as the ‘Jewish pope,’ who always answered my calls
Friday before sundown, I realized that Abe Foxman had not sent me his weekly “Shabbat Shalom” message. For the past seven years, since we began texting regularly about Jewish and political issues, the message would arrive each Friday like clockwork — often accompanied by screenshots of Shabbat memes. My response never changed: “Good Shabbos, tzaddik,” using the Hebrew word for a righteous person that Foxman himself often used.
A few minutes after sundown, I texted him anyway: “Good Shabbos, tzaddik.” Then I turned off my phone. The message showed as “read” Saturday night. But there was no response.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one waiting for Foxman’s Shabbat greetings. The silence said everything. On Sunday, the Anti-Defamation League announced that its former longtime chief had died at age 86.
I first started texting with Foxman after he stepped down in 2015 as national director of the ADL, concluding a remarkable 50-year run with the organization, including nearly three decades at its helm. By then, he had become one of the most recognizable Jewish communal leaders in America. He was nicknamed the “Jewish Pope.” Former President Barack Obama, a frequent target of Foxman’s criticism over Israel policy, said upon Foxman’s retirement: “Abe is irreplaceable.”
For me, a rookie journalist covering national politics through a Jewish lens, Foxman became an invaluable source. He was in the room with presidents, prime ministers and world leaders during some of the Jewish community’s most consequential moments. Yet he was always available. He answered calls quickly. He texted back. He spoke candidly. He could be sharp, direct and deeply critical when he thought leaders were making mistakes. But he was also compassionate, warm and surprisingly personal.
Every conversation began the same way: asking about me. My kids. How I was holding up. Only then would we get to politics. The conversation would often veer from Yiddish to English and back again.
Our last conversation was on April 15, after a record 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers to Israel and 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. “A broch,” Foxman replied, using the Yiddish word for disaster. “A sad time for American politics.”
That worldview shaped much of his public commentary in recent years. In interviews with the Forward and other publications, Foxman weighed in on rising antisemitism, campus protests, Democratic divisions over Israel, President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and the Biden-Netanyahu relationship.
Foxman could be combative and unapologetic. Critics on the left viewed him as too hawkish on Israel, while critics on the right sometimes accused him of being too willing to criticize the Israeli government or American conservatives. But nobody doubted his commitment to the Jewish people and to Israel.
Foxman’s own life story
Born in Baranavichy in 1940, in what is now Belarus, Foxman survived the Holocaust as an infant after being hidden by his Polish Catholic nanny, who baptized him to hide his Jewish identity, while his parents were confined to a ghetto. After the war, he was reunited with his parents, first living in a displaced persons camp in Austria before immigrating to the United States.
Those early experiences shaped the course of his career and ultimately made him one of the most influential Jewish communal leaders of the modern era.
In 1965, after getting degrees from City College of New York and New York University School of Law, Foxman joined the Anti-Defamation League as a legal assistant. Over the next five decades, Foxman rose through the ranks of the organization before being named its national director in 1987, a position he held until 2015.
Under his leadership, the ADL became one of the world’s most prominent voices combating antisemitism and hate.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed Foxman to serve on the council of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was reappointed by Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. He was also vice chairman of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
Foxman was often willing to challenge leaders he believed were wrong on Israel, including Democratic presidents he otherwise respected. He was sharply critical of Obama’s approach toward Israel early in his presidency and became one of the leading Jewish voices opposing the administration’s 2009 demand for a freeze on Israeli settlements.
In remarks at Foxman’s farewell dinner in 2015, Susan Rice, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and national security advisor under Obama, told the audience: “The thing I most value about Abe is his candor and integrity. He holds everyone to the same high standards, and I can always count on him to tell it to me straight, even when he knows I won’t necessarily like what he has to say.” In 2020, Foxman publicly advocated for Biden to choose Rice as his vice-presidential running mate.
“America and the Jewish people have lost a moral voice, a passionate advocate for the Jewish people and the state of Israel, and a remarkable leader,” Foxman’s successor, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement announcing Foxman’s death.
Foxman’s political commentary
Even after retiring from the ADL, Foxman remained a leading voice in Jewish public life, especially after the election of Trump in 2016.
Foxman told me in an interview at the time that the Jewish community should engage with Trump and hold him accountable when needed. He advised Trump to be cautious about making good on his promise to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He became more critical of Trump after the president said that there were “very fine people on both sides” in response to a 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In 2020, Foxman broke his tradition of not endorsing political candidates to back Biden. He argued that Trump was a “demagogue” whose reelection would be a “body blow for our country and our community.”
Once Biden took office, Foxman started to express doubts about the president’s handling of the U.S. relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said it “sends the wrong message to our friends and enemies” that Israel is being held to a higher standard than other countries in the region. Foxman was also a harsh critic of the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul, warning that the right-wing cabinet ministers could hamper support for Israel among American Jews.
In 2024, he warned that Biden’s increasingly harsh rhetoric over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza would repel Jewish voters. “I believe that this administration, because of its political season, is taking American Jews for granted or has written us off,” said Foxman. ”If they’re worried that the Arabs in Michigan will vote with their feet, they need to worry that Jews can also vote with their feet.”
Most recently, Foxman was critical of national Democrats opposing the military operations against the Iranian regime in March for a lack of congressional authority. “Sadly, it is purely political games,” Foxman told me, noting that previous Democratic administrations conducted military operations without explicit congressional authorization. “Ninety-nine percent of Democrats are on record saying Iran is a terrorist state and cannot have nuclear weapons. So why this game?” he asked.
Now, as Jews mark Jewish American Heritage Month, that voice is silent. But for me, and for the many people still waiting for one more “Shabbat Shalom” message from Foxman, he will not soon be forgotten.
Foxman is survived by his wife Golda, his daughters Michelle and Ariel and four grandchildren.
JTA contributed to this article.
The post Remembering Abe Foxman, the longtime ADL leader known as the ‘Jewish pope,’ who always answered my calls appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Jailed Iranian Peace Laureate Mohammadi Moved to Hospital in Tehran
A picture of Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on the wall of the Grand Hotel in central Oslo before the Nobel banquet, in connection with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize 2023, in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2023. Photo: NTB/Javad Parsa via REUTERS
Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been moved to a hospital in the capital, Tehran, and has been granted a suspension of her sentence on heavy bail, a foundation run by her family said on Sunday.
Mohammadi, 54, won the prize in 2023 while in prison for a campaign to advance women’s rights and abolish the death penalty. She suffered a heart attack two weeks ago.
Her family had called for her to be transferred from Zanjan, northwest of Tehran, where she was serving her sentence and where she had been initially taken to a hospital, so that she could receive better medical care.
She is now at Tehran Pars Hospital for treatment by her own medical team after being transferred by ambulance, the Narges Mohammadi Foundation said in a statement.
Mohammadi was sentenced to a new prison term of 7-1/2 years, the foundation said in February, weeks before the US and Israel launched their war against Iran. The Nobel committee at the time called on Tehran to free her immediately.
She had been arrested in December after denouncing the death of a lawyer, Khosrow Alikordi. A prosecutor told reporters that she had made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony.
The foundation gave no details of the bail arrangements or suspension of her sentence.
“However, a suspension is not enough,” it said. “Narges Mohammadi requires permanent, specialized care. We must ensure she never returns to prison.”
Iran shut down most of the internet in the country in January as authorities suppressed mass protests triggered by economic unease. Rights groups have reported ongoing executions of people involved in the unrest.
Uncategorized
Israel’s Attorney General Calls to Cancel Netanyahu’s Mossad Chief Appointment
Israeli Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara. Photo: Twitter
i24 News – Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told the High Court of Justice on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman as the next Mossad chief must be canceled.
Baharav-Miara filed her position ahead of a Tuesday hearing on petitions challenging the appointment, telling the court that “substantial flaws” had been found both in the process conducted by the advisory committee and in the conclusions it drew. She said Netanyahu’s decision suffered from “extreme and blatant unreasonableness” and could not stand legally.
At the center of the dispute is the case of Ori Elmakayes, who was a 17-year-old minor when he was activated in 2022 by Division 210, without going through authorized intelligence channels. At the time, the division was commanded by Gofman. Elmakayes was arrested in May 2022 under espionage charges after two officers sent him classified information and told him to post it online as part of an “influence campaign,” despite not being authorized to do so. Gofman initiated this operation. Elmakayes was then held in full detention until July, spending an extended period under electronic monitoring and house arrest before the indictment against him was canceled in late 2023.
Baharav-Miara says Gofman’s involvement in leaking the classified information to the minor, “casts a heavy shadow on Gofman’s integrity and thus on his appointment to head the Mossad.” The attorney general also identified serious procedural failings in the advisory committee’s work. She notes that the majority members signed their opinion before committee chairman and former Supreme Court president Asher Grunis had written his dissent and before two members had reviewed several classified documents significant to the full picture. Grunis concluded that integrity flaws had been found and that it was not appropriate to appoint Gofman as Mossad chief.
The attorney general also says the committee failed to hear directly from Elmakayes or from a relevant senior military intelligence officer, instead relying in part on media interviews.
Netanyahu, who appointed Gofman to head the Mossad starting in early June, for a five-year term, submitted his own response to the court on this past Friday, arguing that the decision fell within his executive authority. The Prime Minister also said that his assessment of the matter was “dozens of times superior” to that of the court, adding that Gofman’s integrity was “found pure,” and describing him as the most qualified candidate.
Other coalition figures responded to the attorney general with sharp criticism, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir accused Baharav-Miara of fighting the state, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said her position was “one step too far” and vowed to advance legislation splitting the attorney general’s role in the Knesset’s summer session.