Zionism Is Not Judaism Quotes

There is no difference whatever between anti-Semitism and the denial of Israel's statehood. Classical anti-Semitism denies the equal right of Jews as citizens within society. Anti-Zionism denies the equal rights of the Jewish people its lawful sovereignty within the community of nations. The common principle in the two cases is discrimination." New York Times, 1975

Whole branches of Judaism may wither and fall, but the trunk remains,

The human condition takes on heightened intensity when God cares what you eat for lunch but will reward you for having a boiled egg.

It’s also worth pointing out that Israel is not solely comprised of Jewish people and is not the defining representation of the global Jewish community. There are many non-Jewish Israelis – about 25% of Israeli citizens are non-Jewish and mostly Muslim with some Christians – and of course there are many non-Israeli Jews, including American Jews for example. However, the above statistics are either underreported or lost in the paranoiac thinking so common to those who assess such disparate subjects as Jewish people, Zionism, Judaism, Israel and the Holocaust as if they are all one and the same and inextricably linked. The all-too-real problem of rising anti-Semitism around the world is unfortunately often a result of anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli beliefs. This phenomenon can usually be traced to the blurring of the lines or general confusion in gentiles and their apparent inability in the main to differentiate between the global Jewish community and the distinctly different and separate nation of Israel.

What did they care if the rabbis who found them with the books of haskala, of enlightenment, called them epicureans, atheists, breakers of the wall? These old epithets they began to take as names of honor. Out of their ranks came the minds and spirits that created modern Zionism. The fact that Zionism was cradled against the separatist learning of the old yeshivas colors the state of Israel to this hour.

Under Lenin’s one-party state rule, this took the form of the Yevsektsiya, the Jewish section of the Bolshevik Party, run by—who else?—Jews. It was a perfect solution. The state could ban Judaism and criminalize Zionism, and Lenin could point to the fact of the Jewish section to prove that the Communists were actually philo-Semitic. Jews could join—and persecute other Jews—to prove that they were committed members of the party.

Of course, the Shtrakenzer bride, though perfect, was not suitable; Mrs. Shpilman knew that. Long before the maid came to say that nobody could find Mendel, that he had disappeared sometime in the course of the night, Mrs. Shilman has known that no degree of accomplishment, beauty, or fire in a girl would ever suit her son. But there was always a shortfall, wasn’t there? Between the match that the Holy One, blessed be He, envisioned and the reality of the situation under the chuppah. Between commandment and observance, heaven and earth, husband and wife, Zion and Jew.

My identity as Jewish cannot be reduced to a religious affiliation. Professor Said quoted Gramsci, an author that I’m familiar with, that, and I quote, ‘to know thyself is to understand that we are a product of the historical process to date which has deposited an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory’. Let’s apply this pithy observation to Jewish identity. While it is tempting to equate Judaism with Jewishness, I submit to you that my identity as someone who is Jewish is far more complex than my religious affiliation. The collective inventory of the Jewish people rests on my shoulders. This inventory shapes and defines my understanding of what it means to be Jewish. The narrative of my people is a story of extraordinary achievement as well as unimaginable horror. For millennia, the Jewish people have left their fate in the hands of others. Our history is filled with extraordinary achievements as well as unimaginable violence. Our centuries-long Diaspora defined our existential identity in ways that cannot be reduced to simple labels. It was the portability of our religion that bound us together as a people, but it was our struggle to fit in; to be accepted that identified us as unique. Despite the fact that we excelled academically, professionally, industrially, we were never looked upon as anything other than Jewish. Professor Said in his book, Orientalism, examined how Europe looked upon the Orient as a dehumanized sea of amorphous otherness. If we accept this point of view, then my question is: How do you explain Western attitudes towards the Jews? We have always been a convenient object of hatred and violent retribution whenever it became convenient. If Europe reduced the Orient to an essentialist other, to borrow Professor Said’s eloquent language, then how do we explain the dehumanizing treatment of Jews who lived in the heart of Europe? We did not live in a distant, exotic land where the West had discursive power over us. We thought of ourselves as assimilated. We studied Western philosophy, literature, music, and internalized the same culture as our dominant Christian brethren. Despite our contribution to every conceivable field of human endeavor, we were never fully accepted as equals. On the contrary, we were always the first to be blamed for the ills of Western Europe. Two hundred thousand Jews were forcibly removed from Spain in 1492 and thousands more were forcibly converted to Christianity in Portugal four years later. By the time we get to the Holocaust, our worst fears were realized. Jewish history and consciousness will be dominated by the traumatic memories of this unspeakable event. No people in history have undergone an experience of such violence and depth. Israel’s obsession with physical security; the sharp Jewish reaction to movements of discrimination and prejudice; an intoxicated awareness of life, not as something to be taken for granted but as a treasure to be fostered and nourished with eager vitality, a residual distrust of what lies beyond the Jewish wall, a mystical belief in the undying forces of Jewish history, which ensure survival when all appears lost; all these, together with the intimacy of more personal pains and agonies, are the legacy which the Holocaust transmits to the generation of Jews who have grown up under its shadow. -Fictional debate between Edward Said and Abba Eban.

But he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves. He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever. He chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance. With upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand.

There was a certain irony in Brandeis’s interest in Jews and Zionism. He was not at all religious. In fact, he was puzzled by people who relied on God and religious institutions. So he did not join the Zionist Movement to push Judaism.

Possibly the deepest and widest split, however, was between Zionists in Europe and Palestine, on the one hand, and American Zionists, on the other. American Jews—even those positively inclined toward Zionism—were living in a setting radically different from that in Europe and could not embrace the statehood-centric version of European Zionism. Even the First Zionist Congress foreshadowed how difficult it was going to be to get American Jews on board; despite the fact that there were some 937,000 Jews in America, of the approximately 200 delegates to the Congress, only four came from the United States.* American Judaism was becoming anti-Zionist even before there was Zionism. In 1885, American Reform rabbis adopted what is now known as the Pittsburgh Platform, the movement’s statement of core beliefs and commitments. In it, these rabbis declared, in part, that the Jews were no longer a people but now constituted a religion. “We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel’s great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men,” they said as they jettisoned Judaism’s long-standing particularism and embraced the universalism then much in vogue in philosophic and cultural circles. “We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community,” they said, and since Jews were no longer a national community, they expected “neither a return to Palestine,* nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.

Hannah Arendt, drawing on an intuition of Max Weber and Bernard Lazare, tackled the ‘ambiguous semantics’ of Jewish political history head-on in order to forge a new concept: pariah Judaism. Invisibility, exclusion from the public space and ‘worldlessness’ were for her its key features, despite the cultural richness it had demonstrated.25 She set out on this basis to decipher totalitarianism by analysing its emergence as the product of the crisis of the system of nation-states. In a certain sense, Jewish modernity coincided with the trajectory of pariah Judaism. The obsession of Zionism, the child of nineteenth-century nationalisms, was to put an end to this ‘ambiguous semantics’, so that Jews would accede to a ‘normal’ existence: nation, state, sovereignty.

This is but an attempt to locate evil outside the boundaries of “Israeliness.” In my opinion Yigal Amir [Rabin’s assassin] is one hundred percent “Israeli.” In it one must search for the problem not in his Judaism. His Israeliness discloses the ugly face of Israeliness. Moreover, this nationalistic-religious Messianic is an Israeli product par excellence, which indeed has roots in certain aspects of Jewish history prior to the establishment of Israel, but has mainly grown out of Israeliness and its values. The Israeliness is Messianism, and it emphasizes admiration of power.

The Zionism of its founders sought to emancipate Jews in the context of a modern nation-state. Like any nationalism, its ideology drew on an ancestral mythology but was projected towards the future: the Jewish nation had a long history, but once it gave itself a state existence, it would fit into modernity. The upheavals of the twentieth century enabled it to carry out its project but, by a kind of historical irony, Israel put an end to Jewish modernity. Diaspora Judaism had been the critical conscience of the Western world; Israel survives as one of its mechanisms of domination.

On Hijacking of Judaism: My sad story of shock and awe, Began three thousands years ago, When calf worship was high and low, As Ben Nebat, the King of Israel, Took off hijacking Judaism, Which is still hijacked by Zionism, But who in his right mind: Could have ever been imagined? That Ben Nebat's dreadful mission, Was the beginning of a long tradition, Of brutal hijackers with ambition, One hijacker following another; Kingdoms competing with each other, Till they left the promised land, To a never-never land, Where Exodus is open-ended, And the true Torah is suspended, As the Sinai Ark of the Covenant, Has for long been apprehended, And the only true word of God, With no clue, or alibi. Is nowhere to be found; Like a pie in the sky

I’m a firm believer that the international community must boycott Israel and pursue it for war crimes in the international courts. I also believe that the only possible and acceptable resolution at this point is a one-state solution. My vision is for us to live in a single democratic state where everyone is equal, Muslim, Christian, and Jew. Judaism is a religion, just like Islam. It is a different way of worshipping the same God we call Allah, and we respect that. But Zionism is a political ideology that says Judaism is not only a religion, but primarily a nationality—and that it needs a country. Not just any country, but our country, and that it needs this country to be for Jews alone. Zionism has taken our country, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims have lived for centuries, and made it a country that is ruled by and for Jews alone.

There is no Catholicism or C of E, there is only "Love Thy Neighbor" - there is no Hinduism, there is only Oneness or Advaita - there is no Judaism, there is only Ahava. When you lose touch with "love thy neighbor", you end up with christian nationalism - when you lose touch with advaita or nonduality, you end up with hindutva - when you lose touch with ahava, you end up with zionism.

Exile is what marked Israel as special, elect, subject to the rules of the covenant and its stipulations.

But if by “Zionism” one means the Jewish attachment to the land of Israel and the dream of renewing Jewish sovereignty in our place of origin, then there is no Judaism with Zionism.

Both the pentateuchal system of Judaism and modern and contemporary Zionism in all forms and all definitions concur that the right place for Israel, the Jewish people, is the land of Israel.

Although many members of the Orthodox Jewish community opposed Zionism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was not because Orthodox leaders were averse to the idea of a return to a Jewish national home centred on Zion. Instead, the disagreement arose from the Orthodox belief that the return to Zion should come "at the end of days," when the Messiah would lead the Jews from the "four corners of the earth" back to their home. In this early period, Zionism was seen to be anticipating the end of days and usurping the role of the Messiah.

Zionism was not the same as the classic colonialist enterprises of European states in Africa and Asia. There are many differences—mainly that Zionism really is the story of a people returning to their historic land. Those who call Zionism Western colonialization refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Zionism and reject the notion that Jews are a people, asserting that Judaism is solely a status of religion. Ironically, while they demand the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people, they reject the idea that Jews too have that very same right—to determine their identity and to fulfill a territorial expression of their identity in their ancient homeland.

But if by “Zionism” one means the Jewish attachment to the land of Israel and the dream of renewing Jewish sovereignty in our place of origin, then there is no Judaism without Zionism.

Zionists maintain that Zionism is the same as Judaism or is part of Judaism. What they mean is that the conception that the Jews form a people, one people, and that they have the right and duty to build a Jewish state in a particular place, which they call "the land of Israel" (a.k.a. "Palestine"), is intrinsic to the religion, Judaism. And, as a matter of fact, Zionists are right.

But if by “Zionism” one means the Jewish attachment to the land of Israel and the dream of renewing Jewish sovereignty in our place of origin, then there is no Judaism with Zionism.

When you lose touch with "love thy neighbor", you end up with christian nationalism - when you lose touch with advaita or nonduality, you end up with hindutva - when you lose touch with ahava, you end up with zionism. There is no Catholicism or C of E, there is only "Love Thy Neighbor" - there is no Hinduism, there is only Oneness or Advaita - there is no Judaism, there is only Ahava.

Zionism is the nationalist ideology of the Jewish people, which constructs Judaism as not only a religion but a nationality. Zionism advances the idea that Jews of all sorts—irrespective of race, ethnicity, cultural identity, or geographic location; regardless of whether they are secular, religious, or atheist—constitute a singular modern nation.

…the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all of them, have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.…the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all of them, have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.