When they ask about… Zionism

Like any ism worthy of its suffix - such as feminism, socialism, liberalism or capitalism - Zionism is a broad term encompassing varied, evolving and even contradictory understandings. In recent years and greatly heightened in the last nine months, it has become something of a flash term with people, often hurriedly, taking sides as they vociferously affirm or denounce the ideology and those who uphold it (the ists). Amid this, many are caught in the middle, confused about why it is suddenly so contentious and how to identify themselves in relation to this movement.

At its most basic, Zionism refers to the modern movement for self-determination of the Jewish people in its ancestral homeland, the land of Israel, also known as Zion.

The centrality of the land of Israel, of Jerusalem and Zion to Judaism as a religion and to Jews as a nation is absolute. It is the biblical land of promise, it was here that the tribes became a nation and a kingdom, the two temples were erected in Jerusalem, the language of Hebrew, our lashon hakadosh (holy tongue), emerged from here. After the first exile to Babylon in 586 BCE, many (not all) of the Jews returned to the land in a movement known as Shivat Zion, a precursor to the modern movement. Jews pray facing Jerusalem three times daily, are buried facing Jerusalem, enunciate the hope ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ at the Pesach seder, it is the focal point of our redemptive vision. These and many more examples constitute the historic, cultural, spiritual and tangible links between people, land and faith.

When modern Zionism first emerged in the late 19th century, its leading proponents had varied aspirations for the movement. For Ahad Ha'am, it would lead to a spiritual and cultural renaissance, centred in the land of Israel. For Herzl and others, the goal was political, exemplified in the title he gave his seminal work ‘Der Judenstaat’ (‘The Jewish State’) 1896, although the Jewish nature of this state was vague.

In its early days and in response to the urgency of antisemitism generally and the Kishinev pogrom of 1903 specifically, there was a moment when the nascent movement considered the possibility of accepting another territory, in this case Uganda, as a temporary shelter for a desperate people. This debate came close to splitting the representative body and its resolution affirmed the unequivocal connection between Zionism and the land of Zion. (Meanwhile, the Jewish territorial movements continued to explore other locations for some time, including Australia’s Kimberley region

 Certainly, the movement at the time was not accepted by all Jews and it split families and communities. For example, Sir Isaac Isaacs, Australia’s first native-born governor general, one-time chief justice of the High Court and prominent member of the Jewish community, spoke out against it.

To debate and critique theoretical Zionism and the prospect of a Jewish state in the 1920s and 1930s is of a fundamental different character than to do so today, when the state of Israel has been functioning for over seven decades and is home to over nine million people.

Contemporary misuse

Zionism, the movement and the word, began to be associated with controversy when the UN infamously passed the resolution equating it with racism in 1975, a move led by Arab countries which oppose the right of Jews to a homeland in the Middle East. The resolution was later repealed but the association of the term with negative connotations stuck, particularly on the political far left.

In current debates, the term Zionism is often used as a shorthand for Israel’s government or military decisions. Those who oppose Israeli policies declare themselves “anti-Zionists”.

There is a laziness and intellectual sloppiness in equating one thing with another. To say Zionism is racism or colonialism or genocidal is as deductive and fallacious as equating feminism with sexism or capitalism with evil.

Israel is a complex society, it has many problems and is far from perfect (show me a society that is). This is compatible with Zionism. The government of Israel may make poor decisions and taint the reputation of the Jewish state. This is compatible with Zionism. The Palestinians have the right to a state and Israel has the right to exist safely alongside it, as envisaged by the international community in the Partition Plan of 1947. This is compatible with Zionism.

To misappropriate the term Zionism as a means of attacking Israel is to create a wedge on which only one side can be positioned as morally good.

To undermine the rights of the Jewish people to self-determination but not other nations, to delegitimise and threaten to wind back an internationally-recognised state but not others, to demonise actions of Israel that would be accepted were they being done by another sovereign state are all manifestations of the newest iteration of antisemitism.

When others have sought to define what it means to be a Jew, we have always insisted upon defining ourselves, adopting our ‘stiff-necked’ stance within an ongoing conversation with surrounding society. The same is true now of the zed-word.

So, when they ask you about Zionism, tell them it’s rooted in our oldest story of promise, pilgrimage, exile and return, while simultaneously an ever-evolving expression of peoplehood. With its broad scope, we may have different understandings of its loftiest aims and grittiest concretisations, but we can and must refuse to be boxed in, labeled and shamed by antisemites sporting new garb and jargon.

What’s in a name?

Some may ask why the Jewish state was not given the name Zion. Interestingly it was only in the days leading up to the declaration of independence in May 1948 that the name of the Jewish state was determined. By all accounts, it was rather a rushed process, decided on by a small committee led by David Ben Gurion.

 Many assumed the state would be called Judea, after the original Davidic kingdom and the name later used by the Hasmoneans. This name would also reinforce the inexorable links between Jews, Judaism and Judea. 

Another possible contender was, of course, Zion (Tzion). In addition to being a hill in Jerusalem, it also refers to the land as a whole, as in ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept, as we remembered Zion’ (Psalm 137). The earliest modern movement of return was called Chovovei Tzion (Lovers of Zion). For various reasons, this name too was rejected, including that it would create confusion between citizens of the actual state and Zionists living around the Jewish world.

 When Ben Gurion suggested Israel (a shortening of the biblical term eretz Israel, the land of Israel) there was initially a lukewarm response but it was soon accepted by a majority of the committee and made official a few days later.