Anti-Zionist Jews do not represent the vast majority of the American Jewish community
- Eight out of 10 American Jews say caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them.
- More than 80% of American Jews support Israel’s military operation to recover Israeli hostages and remove Hamas from power.
Only engaging with anti-Zionist Jewish voices is a form of tokenization and is antisemitic.
- Tokenizing occurs when a small number of unrepresentative Jewish voices are portrayed as speaking for the entire Jewish community.
- In many progressive spaces, the only Jews allowed to participate are anti-Zionists, the small fraction of Jews who actively oppose the continued existence and safety of Israel.
- Anti-Zionist Jews are often used as cover by extremist groups to “kosher” their antisemitic messaging.
The presence of anti-Zionist Jews in rallies and protests does not provide permission for using antisemitic rhetoric or threats against ‘Zionists’
- It is antisemitic and never acceptable to say that “all Zionists should die” or should “return to Poland,” where 3 million Jews, 90% of Polish Jewry, were murdered in the Holocaust.
- The term ‘Zionists’ is often used pejoratively as a way to attack Jews and further antisemitic rhetoric.
- Asking Jews to renounce Zionism or their connection to Israel is antisemitic because it creates a litmus test and requires Jews to renounce a core part of their Jewish identity.
Jewish Voice for Peace is an anti-Israel and anti-Zionist organization that does not represent the vast majority of American Jews
- JVP has been closely linked to Students for Justice in Palestine and other organizations that support the boycott, divestment and sanctioning (BDS) of Israel
- Even progressive Jews who are highly critical of Israel often find JVP to be objectionable
Anti-Zionism is often antisemitic because it targets the world’s only Jewish state and ignores Jews’ historical connection to the land of Israel.
- Anti-Zionism is opposition to Jews having a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland, and denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.
- The belief that the Jews, alone among the people of the world, do not have a right to self-determination — or that the Jewish people’s religious and historical connection to Israel is invalid — is inherently bigoted.
Zionism is an essential part of Jewish identity
- Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination and a Jewish state in its ancestral home.
- Jews’ connection to the land of Israel is steeped in the Torah.
- In the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God promises the land of Israel to Abraham, the first Jew, and then reaffirms the promise to Abraham’s son Isaac and grandson Jacob. In fact, the name Israel is another name for Jacob.
- In the Book of Exodus, Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery and oppression in Egypt with a promise to take them back to the land of Israel, the land of their forefathers. The books of Judges and Kings relate the stories of Jewish rulers over the land of Israel, and many accounts in these books have been proven historically accurate by archaeological finds and Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian sources.
- Jews have had a continuous presence in the land of Israel and Israel has been under Jewish leadership for hundreds of years in antiquity.
- Jerusalem is the holiest site in the Jewish faith.
- While in exile, Jews never stopped yearning to return to Israel.
Support for a Jewish state and connection to Israel does not necessarily mean support for the policies of any Israeli government, just as support for or connection to the United States does not mean endorsement of all its policies or actions.
