LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The real definition of Zionism

Posted

To the editor:

(re: “ADL: Antisemitism reaches an overall high,” Feb. 2)

Last week’s front-page story reported succinctly on the troubling state of Jew-hatred in America, and on efforts by U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, the Anti-Defamation League, and others to stem the rising tide.

Unfortunately, the story included a grossly inaccurate definition of a Zionist as “a person who is loyal to the actions of the Israel government.”

Let’s correct that error. A Zionist supports the existence of the Jewish state of Israel, which is eternal. A Zionist is not wedded to any government, all governments being temporal and relatively short-lived.

Here’s the ADL’s definition: Zionism is the movement for the self-determination and statehood of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.

My own go-to definition of Zionism is “the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.”

However a Zionist is defined, the term cannot predict whether or not someone supports “the actions of the Israel government.”

Zionists have always had passionate disagreements with the governments of Israel — and in pre-state Israel, disagreements by Zionists with Jewish leaders were sometimes deadly. This is true now, with a new right-wing government in power in Jerusalem, and has been throughout the state’s 75 years, with governments both left and right.

While “capital-Z” Zionism is a political movement about 120 years old, Jewish love of Zion — Zion being the land of Israel centered in Jerusalem — has been a continuous Jewish imperative for 2,000 years.

Two millennia of exile, Crusades, pogroms, dhimmi (second class status in Muslim countries) and ultimately the Holocaust failed to extinguish the yearning of Jews to return home. Now that we’ve come home, we’re there to stay, regardless of whatever government is temporarily in charge.

Ed Weintrob

 

The author — who lives in Riverdale — is the editor and publisher of The Jewish Star, a sister publication to The Riverdale Press

Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star, Zionism, ADL, Anti-Defamation League, Israel

Comments