Anti-Zionism: Encyclopedia II - Anti-Zionism - Jewish anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism - Jewish anti-Zionism

Before the 1930s the majority of the world's Jews who were in a position to express an opinion could loosely be considered anti-Zionist, in the sense that they did not actively support the Zionist project for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine or elsewhere. Nevertheless, the use of the expression "anti-Zionism" to describe their attitudes needs to be heavily qualified.

In the 19th and early 20th century, for example, Reform Jews of Germany used the word "Zionism" to refer to a political and social movement which encouraged them to emigrate to Palestine. Those Jews who did not want to emigrate were sometimes described as anti-Zionists. Reform Jews did not reject the right of Jews to move to Palestine and reconstitute a Jewish nation within its borders. Rather, many of them rejected the view that they themselves had an obligation to do so.

Before the 1930s, the majority of Western European and American Jews, whether religious or secular, took the view that since Jews could live in conditions of safety and freedom in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, there was no need for a Jewish state, and that for Jews to campaign for one would be harmful because it would create the impression that Jews were not loyal to the countries in which they lived. Many Jews also felt that the Jewish "mission" had evolved to become universalistic and identified themselves as citizens of their country who happened to practice the Jewish faith.

Many 19th century and early 20th century Orthodox Jews objected to Zionism because they rejected secular and atheist attempts to build a secular and socialist Jewish state in Palestine. Orthodox Jews in this group did not reject the right of Jews to move to Palestine and reconstitute a Jewish nation within its borders, but instead hoped that if any such state were to be created, it would follow to some extent Jewish law and tradition, and that its leaders would be religious Jews. Other Orthodox Jews of that time objected to any creation of a Jewish state in Palestine before the arrival of the Jewish messiah, though they accepted the right of individual Jews to move to Palestine.

The many Jews, mainly in Europe, who supported socialist or communist political ideas, took the view that the defeat of anti-Semitism and the winning of civic equality for Jews required participation in the common struggle against capitalism and oppressive regimes, and that for Zionists to advocate emigration to Palestine was a means of perpetuating the segregation of the "ghetto" that they were fighting to overcome. Some Jewish socialists rejected this view and became Socialist Zionists. The largest Jewish socialist organisation in Europe, the General Jewish Labor Union, also known as the Bund, opposed Zionism right up until the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

In the face of these varying forms of opposition, Zionism remained a minority view among Jewish diaspora until the 1930s. The rise to power of Adolf Hitler, and the systematic murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust, persuaded the majority of the world's surviving Jews that a Jewish state was an urgent necessity. Ever since, the great majority of Jews, religious and secular, have supported the state of Israel.

A minority of Jews, however, continue to oppose Zionism on either political or religious grounds. The most radical and vocal of these is the small Neturei Karta group, which not only opposes Zionism, but also opposes the existence of the State of Israel. Among more mainstream Orthodox groups the most significant anti-Zionist group would be the Satmar Hasidism, possibly the largest Hasidic group in the world, with over 100,000 followers, along with other Hasidic groups which are influenced by Satmar and revere the group's late leader, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, as an authority figure. Teitelbaum's book, VaYoel Moshe, is an exposition of one Orthodox position on Zionism, based on a literal form of midrash (biblical interpretation).

According to Teitelbaum, God and the Jewish people exchanged three oaths at the time of the Jews' exile from ancient Israel:

• That the Jewish people would not rebel against the non-Jews that ruled over them;
• That the Jewish people would not return to Israel (although individual Jews could do so);
• That God would not allow the non-Jewish world to persecute the Jews excessively.

This was the position of most of the Orthodox world until the Holocaust. Even today, many Orthodox Jews, including the Agudat Israel party, which has participated in most of Israel's coalition governments, accept the validity of these oaths. They argue either that the Holocaust represented "excessive persecution," and therefore the Jews are released from the second oath, or, more commonly, that although they are opposed to Zionism, Israel exists as a state, and it would be better to cooperate with it than to actively oppose it. Regardless of their position, almost none of these groups opposes the idea of Jews as individuals emigrating to Israel, but rather oppose the notion of Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel, either in its current form, or sometimes in any form at all.

Opposition to the existence of Israel among secular Jews is confined to a minority of socialist or other radical Jews in western countries, including some in Israel. Most of these do not argue that the Jewish settlement of Palestine should be reversed or that Israel should be destroyed by force. Rather they argue that Israel as a specifically Jewish state should be replaced by a secular state in which Jews and Arabs live together.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Jewish anti-Zionism", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki