Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
As the word "Zionism" has grown more controversial, used by critics of Israel to represent everything they believe is wrong about the Jewish state, some Jewish leaders are asking whether the term should be abandoned.
"The word Zionism is dead," reads the cover of the spring issue of the [secular, leftist] Jewish magazine Moment. Jonah Platt, host of one of the biggest Jewish podcasts, last month said the term should be "put out to pasture." Around the same time, a consultant to a major Jewish umbrella group lost his job after he urged young Jewish leaders to avoid "Zionism" and instead use words that have an agreed-upon meaning.
Debates about Zionism and its definition have gone on since the late 1800s, which was the start of the political and nationalistic movement aimed at creating a Jewish homeland.
Theodor Herzl, considered the founder of modern Zionism, argued that antisemitism made it impossible for Jews to assimilate in Europe and that they needed their own state in their biblical homeland. But violence and [alleged] mass displacement of [Arabs] when Israel was created became central to how Israel's critics define the term.
The dichotomy is being discussed in sermons at some synagogues during the Jewish high holidays - Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, was last weekend, and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, starts Sunday night.
Amy Schwartzman, spiritual leader of Rodef Shalom, Virginia's largest Jewish congregation, said she will include Zionism in her talk on Yom Kippur about the global Jewish future.
The current discussion "reminds me of the word ‘patriotism,'" she said. "How hard it is to connect with this word while we're trying to love our country and criticize it at the same time."
Rodef Shalom recently held a mediated community dialogue about Zionism to help people from different perspectives hear one another. People identified as Zionist, as well as anti-Zionist, non-Zionist, post-Zionist, progressive Zionist and troubled Zionist.
Congregants with the strongest views - from all sides - didn't come, Schwartzman said, which she saw as a discouraging sign that some Jews can't "hold space long enough to engage in dialogue" on what has become a deeply painful topic.
Some of Israel's strongest critics see the term Zionism, and the Jewish state itself, as inherently oppressive and undemocratic. For them, the debate over whether the Jewish community should use the term Zionism is more of a public relations issue.
"It's not substantive, it's very cosmetic. It's not about rethinking: Can an ethno-state be democratic?'" said Alissa Wise, a longtime activist for Palestinian rights and founding director of Rabbis for Ceasefire, which began after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023 and the subsequent Israeli response. "In this moment, Zionism means one thing and it means the policy of Jewish supremacy in Israel."
But for other Jewish leaders, the word and the movement remain a core part of what it means to be Jewish.
Loren Sykes, leader of Mercaz, the Zionist part of Conservative Judaism, said the word means simply "the right of self-determination of the Jewish people in our ancient homeland."
"We refuse to concede the term to those on the extremes who seek to define it in terms of Jewish supremacy," he said in a statement. Zionism "does not mean supporting a particular government, party, or policy; rather, it requires only supporting the existence of Israel."
Zionism has always had many definitions and aims. Some religious Zionists saw it as the Jewish yearning in the Bible for Jerusalem. Secular Zionists defined it as Jewish self-determination, freedom and the desire to be masters of their own destiny. The right-wing movement in control of Israel today sees the expansion of Jewish control into the West Bank as a demonstration of Zionism.
Before the 1940s, Zionism was not a majority movement among Jews, said Derek J. Penslar, director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University and author of multiple books on Zionism.
Some Orthodox Jews felt it was G od's role to establish Israel when a messiah comes and that the political state was blasphemous. Socialist Jews thought Zionism was a distraction from the goal of overthrowing capitalism. There were assimilationist Jews who didn't want to identify as members of a Jewish nation.
After the Holocaust and the founding of Israel, Penslar said, most Jews thought of Zionism "with pride and connection. ... The word Zionism did not carry any automatic stand regarding the Palestinians. It could accommodate anything."
To many critics of Israel, however, the term Zionism increasingly represented oppression of the "Palestinian people". In 1975, the United Nations passed a Soviet- and Arab League-backed resolution equating Zionism with racism, over the objections of Israel, the United States and some other countries.
The resolution was revoked in 1991, but Israel's critics continued to denounce Zionism. Their characterization gained momentum after Israel's invasion of Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
Today, a small group of Americans - Jewish and otherwise - call themselves "anti-Zionist," even though surveys show that most U.S. adults don't know what the term means. Researchers say that self-identified anti-Zionists include people who oppose the existence of the state of Israel as well as people critical of the Israeli government and military.
Jewish leaders who are questioning the word Zionism offer various reasons. Some feel it is moot, because Israel is already well-established. Some note the lack of consensus on the word's meaning. Others say the word has been co-opted by Israel's enemies.
In her Moment essay, CEO and editor in chief Nadine Epstein argued that the word should have gone away after 1948. She said in an interview that today, if people say "Zionism," they should define it. "If you must use it, because you hate it or love it, you need to think before it comes out of your mouth: ‘What am I trying to say? How is the person I'm speaking to perceiving this?'"
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, leader of the Union for Reform Judaism, said: "What's clear is that the term has been demonized and drained of what it once meant."
He still describes himself as a Zionist, which he defines as meaning, "I support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish, democratic, pluralistic society, and also that one day, please G od soon, a peaceful resolution for Israeli and Palestinian dignity."
Matt Berger, a communications consultant, lost his job with the Jewish Federations of North America (an umbrella organization of dozens of regional Jewish community groups) after he told a JFNA conference to avoid using the word Zionism, according to the Jerusalem News Syndicate.
Berger and JFNA declined to comment on the incident. But Berger said in an interview that Jews "have to recognize that the term is misunderstood and right now too often is being used as a negative synonym for Jews."
He said Jewish people are increasingly speaking of Israel's "right to exist" rather than "Zionism." Similarly, the language around fighting "antisemitism" is also changing, with people instead stressing the need to "stop Jewish hate."
Seth Pinsky, CEO of the 92nd Street Y, a New York cultural landmark with Jewish roots, said the word Zionism has become taboo in part because "there is an active movement seeking to discredit Zionism."
Questions about whether a democratic state can have a Jewish character, Pinsky said, "are the same questions we're asking about what it means to be an American. France is asking what it means to be French. Germany is asking what it means to be German."
In a June AP-NORC poll, 73 percent of U.S. Jews said they "support Israel as a Jewish state," compared with 37 percent of U.S. adults overall. A Washington Post survey last year found 76 percent of U.S. Jews said Israel is "vital to the long term future of the Jewish people," even as significant numbers were critical of Israel's government and its actions against Palestinians.
At the same time, an organization called the Jewish Diaspora Movement, founded in 2024 to create Jewish life that does not center allegiance to Israel, now has dozens of chapters scattered around the U.S.
Penslar said he thinks the word Zionism still has a role to play in talking about the Jewish people and Jewish ethnic identity, even if it may become "less prominent" in communal discourse.
"It's Zion, a biblical word, for an aspiration," he said. "There's a reason why the word keeps getting used."
(COMMENT, BELOW)