Keen observers long notedThe Anti-Defamation League is essentially an xenophobic Israel-advocacy group masquerading as a Jewish civil right organization. If there was ever any doubt, this became abundantly clear at the ADL’s National Leadership SummitOn May 1, CEO Jonathan Greenblatt delivered a speech. prerecorded speech, ostensibly to discuss its mission in light the newly released 2021 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. Greenblatt spent his time denouncing anti Zionism (i.e., legitimate resistance to an ideology that promotes a Jewish state in historic Palestine) instead. In his speech, he specifically vilified three Palestine solidarity groups — Students for Justice in Palestine, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Jewish Voice for Peace — terming them “hateful” and “extremist.”
Greenblatt’s doubling down was particularly notable because his message represented a change from the ADL’s official statement that “anti-Zionism isn’t always antisemitic.” Indeed, it was difficult to not be struck by the sheer amount of time he spent on the subject — and the vehemence with which he pressed his talking points:
To those who still cling to the idea that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism — let me clarify this for you as clearly as I can — anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
Anti-Zionism is an ideology that is rooted in rage. It is based on one concept: the negation or exclusion of another people. This concept is as foreign to modern discourses as white supremacy. It requires a willful denial even of a superficial history about Judaism or the vast history of the Jewish people. When such intolerance is present, an idea can lead to shocking acts.
Greenblatt’s claims were particularly cynical because they actually flew directly in the face of the ADL’s own 2021 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, which found that of the 2,717 incidents it recorded last year, 345 (just over 12 percent) involved “references to Israel or Zionism” (and of these, “68 took the form of propaganda efforts by white supremacist groups.”) Though he actually opened his speech by invoking his report, Greenblatt actively misrepresented its findings, choosing instead to vilify three organizations that actively protest against Israel’s human rights abuse of Palestinians. Most outrageously, he actually equated anti-Zionists with “white supremacists and alt-right ilk who murder Jews,” as if the rhetoric of Palestine solidarity activists could in any way be comparable to the mass murderPittsburgh synagogue.
Greenblatt was clearly using a familiar strategy used by the Israeli government to target these Palestine solidarity organizations. He blamed the current rise of antisemitism upon Muslims, Palestinians and all those who stand in solidarity with them. The “anti-Zionism is antisemitism trope” has also been the favored political tactic of liberalAnd conservativePoliticians and others. It is often used to attack those who support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. Pro-Palestinian activists are well aware that raising the specter antisemitism is a better way to silence or vilify their activism.
Peter Beinart is a journalist put it, “It is a bewildering and alarming time to be a Jew, both because antisemitism is rising and because so many politicians are responding to itNot by protecting Jews but by victimizing Palestinians.” Of course, the rise in antisemitism is alarming, but as ever, the greatest threat to Jews comes from far-right nationalists and white supremacists — not Palestinians and those who stand by them. It is especially sobering to consider that this definition essentially definesAll If they oppose Zionism, Palestinians are considered antisemitic. What can Palestinians do other than resist Zionism?
The increasing crackdown on anti Zionism can also be seen as a conscious effort by the government to curb it. growing number of Jews in the U.S. — particularly young Jews — who do not identify with the state of Israel and openly identify as anti-Zionist. The backlash against this phenomenon has been fierce — at times perversely so. A widely discussed 2021 essay, Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy lamented the growth of anti-Zionist Jews, by labeling them as “un-Jews.” Last May, immediately following Israel’s military onslaught on Gaza, a Chicago-area Reform rabbi gave a sermon in which she called anti-Zionist Jews “Jews in name only” who must be “kept out of the Jewish tent.”
These extreme protestations aside, it is important to note that there has been Always principled Jewish opposition to Zionism. Although there are anti-Zionists that are anti-Semites in some cases, it is not a good idea to claim that Zionism opposition is fundamentally antisemitic. Judaism is a centuries-old religious peoplehood that is not synonymous to Zionism (a modern nationalist ideology). not exclusively Jewish).
My congregation, Tzedek Chicago, recently amended our core values statement to say that we are “anti-Zionist, openly acknowledging that the creation of an ethnic Jewish nation state in historic Palestine resulted in an injustice against the Palestinian people — an injustice that continues to this day.” Our decision to articulate anti-Zionism as a value came after months of congregational deliberation, followed by a membership vote. As the Tzedek Chicago board explained our decision:
Zionism, the movement to create a sovereign Jewish nation-state in historic Palestine is dependent on the preservation of a Jewish majority. Israel has attempted to preserve this majority since its inception by systematically dispossessing Palestinians of their homes using a variety if methods, including military expulsion, home demolition, land expropriationAnd revocation of residency rightsAmong other things.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to deny the fundamental injustice of Zionism. In a 2021 report, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem concluded that Israel is an “apartheid state,” describing it as “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea.” In the same year, Human Rights Watch released a similar report, stating Israel’s “deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
Given the reality of this historic and ongoing injustice, we have concluded that it is not enough to describe ourselves as “non-Zionist.” We believe this neutral term fails to honor the central anti-racist premise that structures of oppression cannot be simply ignored — on the contrary, They must be changed. As political activist Angela Davis has famously written, “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”
We are not the only progressive synagogue to openly support anti-Zionism. But there are many reasons to believe we won’t. We hope that at the very least our decision will expand the boundaries of acceptable discourse about the subject in the Jewish Community. As Shaul Magid recently — and astutely — wrote:
[Israel is]A country that holds on to an ideology that hinders equality, justice and fairness is a country stuck with it. Maybe the best thing to do is to let Zionism go. If we are willing to listen, maybe the anti-Zionists have something to say.
The response of the liberal and centrist Jewish communities will determine whether or not organizations like the ADL succeed in conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Indeed, Greenblatt’s doubling down on anti-Zionism may well reflect a political strategy seeking to drive a wedge in the Jewish community between liberal Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews. Jewish establishment organizations like the ADL and American Jewish CommitteeThis moment is an opportunity for them to increase their political influence with the support of right-wing DemocratsAnd Christian Zionists. The end game of this growing political coalition: an impenetrable firewall of unceasing political/financial/diplomatic support for Israel in Washington, D.C.
In the end, of course, the success or failure of this destructive tactic will ultimately depend on the readiness of Jews and non-Jews alike to publicly stand down Israeli apartheid and ethnonationalism — and to advocate a vision of justice forAll People who live between the sea and the river.
