The creation of Israel, a sovereign Jewish state, has been miraculous, despite its enemies and detractors, Israel is the only place on the planet that accepts Jewish immigrants. Its collective intellect has resulted in 14 Nobel prizes, more per capita than the US, Germany and France, and more than Spain, China and India. Israel is not perfect. Is any country perfect? Was the US perfect after its creation 275 years ago? Of course not. Israel is part of our shared epigenetic DNA. Jews in the Diaspora who are anti-Zionist or who do not support Israel need to take or retake World History and then explain in this forum why they despise themselves and their people.
The real world: Today, The Antisemites are marching in plain sight, and History is now repeating itself so obviously that only the obdurate can now deny this. Extremists, Nazis, Far Left Marxists, Islam and Islamism, the Fascists of the Far Right, are all on our television screens every night. A lot of this is State-organised at the level of Government and the Services too, here in Europe: All monitored and proven. The future is now upon us, exactly as we were told.
Why the State of Israel Is the Only Proven Guarantee of Jewish Survival
When engaging with either secular-leftist or religious anti-Zionist critiques of Israel, it is crucial to return to one foundational, unarguable historical fact:
Without Jewish sovereignty, Jews have always been vulnerable to persecution, expulsion, and annihilation.
This is not ideology—this is the documented pattern of nearly every century of Jewish existence in exile.
1. Two thousand years of powerlessness resulted in repeated catastrophe
From the Roman Exile to the late 19th century, Jewish communities - whether devoutly religious or fully integrated secular Europeans - shared one condition:
They were dependent on the goodwill of rulers who could turn against them instantly.
No level of assimilation, religious observance, economic contribution, or moral behavior ever prevented the cycle of:
* expulsions
* pogroms
* forced conversions
* mass slaughters
* legal degradation
* genocide
Spain, England, France, Russia, Poland, Arab lands, North Africa, Persia—the pattern is identical.
The Holocaust was merely the modern expression of a very old truth:
A people without sovereignty cannot secure its own safety.
2. Leftist anti-Zionists often argue that “universalism” or “solidarity” protects Jews.
History refutes this completely.
Jewish socialists in Eastern Europe were massacred alongside religious Jews.
*German Jews who fought for workers’ rights and led socialist movements were exterminated by the millions.
* No international organization, no socialist movement, no coalition of progressives stopped or slowed antisemitic violence.
Moral virtue did not protect Jews.
Allies did not protect Jews.
Only power protects Jews.
3. Religious anti-Zionists who claim exile is spiritually “safe” must confront halakhic and historical reality.
For 1,800 years, Jews prayed for God to “gather the exiles” because exile was a condition of suffering and insecurity.
The prophets themselves treat exile as a temporary curse—not a model for Jewish flourishing.
Moreover:
* Torah communities in Europe were obliterated.
* Centuries-old yeshivot in Arab lands were burned or expelled.
* Rav Hirsch’s Frankfurt, Rav Kook’s Lithuania, the great Sephardi communities—all were crushed when host nations turned hostile.
Reliance on foreign rulers has never been a halakhic safeguard.
The only moments of prolonged Jewish security in diaspora occurred under the military protection of the State of Israel (deterring attacks even far from its borders).
4. The modern Middle East proves the point dramatically.
In every Arab country, from 1948–1970, Jews were:
* stripped of citizenship
* imprisoned
* lynched
* deported
* their property confiscated
Nearly one million Jews from Arab and Muslim countries fled or were expelled.
If Israel had not existed, where would they have gone?
Israel did what no one else was willing to do: It rescued them.
5. The October 7, 2023 massacre confirms the continued necessity of sovereignty.
The world once again proved that:
* it will mourn Jewish death,
* it will condemn Jewish self-defense,
* and it will not physically protect Jewish communities, whether in Israel or abroad.
Antisemitism after October 7 skyrocketed globally—including in countries with no conflict, no occupation, no Israeli presence.
Diaspora Jews today are assaulted, threatened, and forced to hide symbols of identity—again proving that:
There is no safe exile.
6. Israel is not a philosophical idea - it is the insurance policy for Jewish existence.
Even Jews who disagree with Israeli policies benefit from:
* Israel’s military deterrence
* Israel’s intelligence services that prevent global terrorist attacks
* Israel’s ability to absorb Jews fleeing danger (Iran, Ukraine, France, Ethiopia, Yemen, and more)
* Israel’s existence as the one country whose national mission includes protecting Jews
For both secular and religious anti-Zionists, the question is not political but existential:
If not the State of Israel, who protects Jews?
Who rescues us when nations turn against us?
Who guarantees Jewish survival?
No movement, ideology, or theology has ever succeeded in protecting Jews consistently.
Only Jewish sovereignty has.
Conclusion: Anti-Zionist ideologies - leftist or religious - ignore the single most important truth of Jewish history.
A people without a state is a people without security.
A people without security is a people whose future is uncertain.
The State of Israel is not one option among many - it is the only proven safeguard against annihilation.
In answer to the question in the article's title, " our", " we"," us" don't apply to these nominal Jews. The bond of peoplehood, common history and uniqueness as a group, a miraculous bond that speaks volumes about human survival .They are narcissists for whom only them, the individual, counts, their historical memory or interest is nonexistent, and blending in or following as a herd is a preferred social mode.
Samuel, you absolutely killed it in this article! Religious anti-Zionism I can understand to a certain extent though I disagree with it. Secular and sometimes universalist anti-Zionism whether based on antisemitism, misinformation or delusion is an incoherent and ridiculous ideology not based on reality. First off, Israel must exist and does and is the safest place on Earth for Jews. They have a government to represent them, one of the best militaries in the world to defend them, a booming economy, a world leader in several fields, and the only liberal democracy in all the Middle East where Jewish religion, culture, art, music, and food thrive and the Hebrew and Yiddish languages flourish. There are countless Muslim and Christian states in the world but only one Jewish one. Furthermore, Israel is NOT a religious or ethno-state. Nor does special treatment for Jews equal discrimination. Treating two peoples differently doesn't necessarily equal bigotry or inequality. Israeli Arabs have full equal rights and equal opportunities. The Druze, Circassians, Bedoiuns, African American Christians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Ukrainian refugees, and African asylum seekers all live together in relative harmony and are treated just the same as anyone else.
We've already seen from history that just as Theodor Herzl predicted, western and liberal values were sadly not enough to protect the Jewish people from physical annihilation or antisemitic bigotry in general. He was sadly proven right by the Holocaust. This still remains true to this day as antisemitism has spiked to 1930s levels. The creation of the state of Israel is a modern-day miracle. The Jewish people returning to their ancient homeland, defeating the British Empire and the Arabs and restoring Jewish sovereignty there. Anti-Zionists must grapple with the reality that Israel now exists not go back and relitigate whether it should or not or whether the founding of Israel was immoral or not (it wasn't by the way). They'd like to Jews could live in peace in the diaspora, but they can't nor could the Jewish people sit around and wait for God to just randomly tell them when to return to Israel they didn't have time, they need to secure the physical safety and future of their people now. It's not like Europe was a hospitable place for Jews after World War II was over. America, Britian and France shut out as many Jewish refugees as they could. Eastern Europe was awash in antisemitic violence. In Germany, many people resented the presence of Jewish DPs as an unwanted reminder of a time in their history they wished to forget. They pragmatically coexisted together but their relationship was tense and complicated. Arab countries certainly didn't want Jews living in their midst as evidenced by the Jewish Nakba of the 40s, 50s and 60s.
Thanks, again. Well articulated about the history of refusing to support the sovereign country, Israel (aka antizionism.)
"once the state became reality, to persist in that refusal is to suggest that the 20th century has taught nothing . . ." Yes. I am not inclined to bring up the murder of Jews as a religion and religious fervor (Nazis) but rather stick with your distinction between academics (most rabbinic opposition) and reality.
We see that Rav Avraham Yitzchok Kook in the early 20th century supported the energy of Jews who came to the Land to bring back its glory and to return home in spite of their distance from formal Torah training. We see the Lubavitcher Rebbe brought up opposing a sovereign Jew country prior to its formation and then supporting it with all his heart, soul, and resources while not compromising Torah. There are others of scholarship and leadership, as well.
Our leaders need to not only be well versed in academics but also comprehend the physical world and all its creatures, including the complex behavior of all human beings, like Rav Kook and the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We need leaders with strength, courage, who can marry academics with implementation. Our Talmudic sages had that capability. Their leadership permeated the physical world.. תורה לא בשמים היא.
Wonderful/honest essay!!!!!!....Thank you so much !!!!!!! I do remember as a child during WW2, when we didn't have yet, our beloved/blessed State of.Israel .....and learning the tragic fate of the Jews in Europe!!!!!! Our own family (my mother's in Poland, my father 's in Ukraine) only one survived, after the war moved to Australia.......People forgot that ??????? Am Israel Chai!!!!!!!
"The universalist . . . believes and perhaps even sees [Jewishness] provokes resentment, and he concludes that Jews must earn tolerance through disappearance rather than presence."
This gullible Jew declares, "Love me, the Jew, when I make myself the not-Jew." Thus they make themselves the very exemplar of cognitive dissonance.
There is a more sinister form of Jewish anti-Zionism today. It dresses itself up as social justice but actually it is Critical Race Theory bound up with neo-Marxism and Wahabi-Salafist-Muslim Brotherhood religious supremacism. These JINOs are what Stalin and company aptly labelled "useful idiots." So convinced of their righteousness, they will probably go to the showers thinking they are right and their mortal danger caused by Jewish Jews.
No age escapes absurdity because it merely morphs to adapt to the times.
Thank you so much. Brilliantly argued essay. The anti-Zionists Jews are indeed a tragedy, my heart weeps and leaps simultaneously for the predicament of these people, hoping that one day they see the blight of their ways and return to the fold before it is too late for them. Israel will continue to thrive with or without them. Am Israel Chai.
Indeed! A poignant and realistic account of the anti-Zionists. I would simply qualify all of them as stupid and insane; two traits that cannot be cured or even managed. I consider them as murderous as Hamas. Hidden history is filled with it.
Your list of rejectionists is mostly correct, You could add the Satmar view to completeness. But it is *tragedy* when someone is given not by fate but by their desire to please oppressors? I think the term pathetic is more appropriate than tragic.
The creation of Israel, a sovereign Jewish state, has been miraculous, despite its enemies and detractors, Israel is the only place on the planet that accepts Jewish immigrants. Its collective intellect has resulted in 14 Nobel prizes, more per capita than the US, Germany and France, and more than Spain, China and India. Israel is not perfect. Is any country perfect? Was the US perfect after its creation 275 years ago? Of course not. Israel is part of our shared epigenetic DNA. Jews in the Diaspora who are anti-Zionist or who do not support Israel need to take or retake World History and then explain in this forum why they despise themselves and their people.
So quietly accurate
The real world: Today, The Antisemites are marching in plain sight, and History is now repeating itself so obviously that only the obdurate can now deny this. Extremists, Nazis, Far Left Marxists, Islam and Islamism, the Fascists of the Far Right, are all on our television screens every night. A lot of this is State-organised at the level of Government and the Services too, here in Europe: All monitored and proven. The future is now upon us, exactly as we were told.
Why the State of Israel Is the Only Proven Guarantee of Jewish Survival
When engaging with either secular-leftist or religious anti-Zionist critiques of Israel, it is crucial to return to one foundational, unarguable historical fact:
Without Jewish sovereignty, Jews have always been vulnerable to persecution, expulsion, and annihilation.
This is not ideology—this is the documented pattern of nearly every century of Jewish existence in exile.
1. Two thousand years of powerlessness resulted in repeated catastrophe
From the Roman Exile to the late 19th century, Jewish communities - whether devoutly religious or fully integrated secular Europeans - shared one condition:
They were dependent on the goodwill of rulers who could turn against them instantly.
No level of assimilation, religious observance, economic contribution, or moral behavior ever prevented the cycle of:
* expulsions
* pogroms
* forced conversions
* mass slaughters
* legal degradation
* genocide
Spain, England, France, Russia, Poland, Arab lands, North Africa, Persia—the pattern is identical.
The Holocaust was merely the modern expression of a very old truth:
A people without sovereignty cannot secure its own safety.
2. Leftist anti-Zionists often argue that “universalism” or “solidarity” protects Jews.
History refutes this completely.
Jewish socialists in Eastern Europe were massacred alongside religious Jews.
*German Jews who fought for workers’ rights and led socialist movements were exterminated by the millions.
* No international organization, no socialist movement, no coalition of progressives stopped or slowed antisemitic violence.
Moral virtue did not protect Jews.
Allies did not protect Jews.
Only power protects Jews.
3. Religious anti-Zionists who claim exile is spiritually “safe” must confront halakhic and historical reality.
For 1,800 years, Jews prayed for God to “gather the exiles” because exile was a condition of suffering and insecurity.
The prophets themselves treat exile as a temporary curse—not a model for Jewish flourishing.
Moreover:
* Torah communities in Europe were obliterated.
* Centuries-old yeshivot in Arab lands were burned or expelled.
* Rav Hirsch’s Frankfurt, Rav Kook’s Lithuania, the great Sephardi communities—all were crushed when host nations turned hostile.
Reliance on foreign rulers has never been a halakhic safeguard.
The only moments of prolonged Jewish security in diaspora occurred under the military protection of the State of Israel (deterring attacks even far from its borders).
4. The modern Middle East proves the point dramatically.
In every Arab country, from 1948–1970, Jews were:
* stripped of citizenship
* imprisoned
* lynched
* deported
* their property confiscated
Nearly one million Jews from Arab and Muslim countries fled or were expelled.
If Israel had not existed, where would they have gone?
Israel did what no one else was willing to do: It rescued them.
5. The October 7, 2023 massacre confirms the continued necessity of sovereignty.
The world once again proved that:
* it will mourn Jewish death,
* it will condemn Jewish self-defense,
* and it will not physically protect Jewish communities, whether in Israel or abroad.
Antisemitism after October 7 skyrocketed globally—including in countries with no conflict, no occupation, no Israeli presence.
Diaspora Jews today are assaulted, threatened, and forced to hide symbols of identity—again proving that:
There is no safe exile.
6. Israel is not a philosophical idea - it is the insurance policy for Jewish existence.
Even Jews who disagree with Israeli policies benefit from:
* Israel’s military deterrence
* Israel’s intelligence services that prevent global terrorist attacks
* Israel’s ability to absorb Jews fleeing danger (Iran, Ukraine, France, Ethiopia, Yemen, and more)
* Israel’s existence as the one country whose national mission includes protecting Jews
For both secular and religious anti-Zionists, the question is not political but existential:
If not the State of Israel, who protects Jews?
Who rescues us when nations turn against us?
Who guarantees Jewish survival?
No movement, ideology, or theology has ever succeeded in protecting Jews consistently.
Only Jewish sovereignty has.
Conclusion: Anti-Zionist ideologies - leftist or religious - ignore the single most important truth of Jewish history.
A people without a state is a people without security.
A people without security is a people whose future is uncertain.
The State of Israel is not one option among many - it is the only proven safeguard against annihilation.
excellent, The Holy Land. What you just wrote here should have its own column and highlight.
Very well said. Thank you!
In answer to the question in the article's title, " our", " we"," us" don't apply to these nominal Jews. The bond of peoplehood, common history and uniqueness as a group, a miraculous bond that speaks volumes about human survival .They are narcissists for whom only them, the individual, counts, their historical memory or interest is nonexistent, and blending in or following as a herd is a preferred social mode.
This is so sad and I find it so hard to understand, the Jewish people together are a huge force. Gods wishes are often not crystal clear!
Samuel, you absolutely killed it in this article! Religious anti-Zionism I can understand to a certain extent though I disagree with it. Secular and sometimes universalist anti-Zionism whether based on antisemitism, misinformation or delusion is an incoherent and ridiculous ideology not based on reality. First off, Israel must exist and does and is the safest place on Earth for Jews. They have a government to represent them, one of the best militaries in the world to defend them, a booming economy, a world leader in several fields, and the only liberal democracy in all the Middle East where Jewish religion, culture, art, music, and food thrive and the Hebrew and Yiddish languages flourish. There are countless Muslim and Christian states in the world but only one Jewish one. Furthermore, Israel is NOT a religious or ethno-state. Nor does special treatment for Jews equal discrimination. Treating two peoples differently doesn't necessarily equal bigotry or inequality. Israeli Arabs have full equal rights and equal opportunities. The Druze, Circassians, Bedoiuns, African American Christians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Ukrainian refugees, and African asylum seekers all live together in relative harmony and are treated just the same as anyone else.
We've already seen from history that just as Theodor Herzl predicted, western and liberal values were sadly not enough to protect the Jewish people from physical annihilation or antisemitic bigotry in general. He was sadly proven right by the Holocaust. This still remains true to this day as antisemitism has spiked to 1930s levels. The creation of the state of Israel is a modern-day miracle. The Jewish people returning to their ancient homeland, defeating the British Empire and the Arabs and restoring Jewish sovereignty there. Anti-Zionists must grapple with the reality that Israel now exists not go back and relitigate whether it should or not or whether the founding of Israel was immoral or not (it wasn't by the way). They'd like to Jews could live in peace in the diaspora, but they can't nor could the Jewish people sit around and wait for God to just randomly tell them when to return to Israel they didn't have time, they need to secure the physical safety and future of their people now. It's not like Europe was a hospitable place for Jews after World War II was over. America, Britian and France shut out as many Jewish refugees as they could. Eastern Europe was awash in antisemitic violence. In Germany, many people resented the presence of Jewish DPs as an unwanted reminder of a time in their history they wished to forget. They pragmatically coexisted together but their relationship was tense and complicated. Arab countries certainly didn't want Jews living in their midst as evidenced by the Jewish Nakba of the 40s, 50s and 60s.
Thanks, again. Well articulated about the history of refusing to support the sovereign country, Israel (aka antizionism.)
"once the state became reality, to persist in that refusal is to suggest that the 20th century has taught nothing . . ." Yes. I am not inclined to bring up the murder of Jews as a religion and religious fervor (Nazis) but rather stick with your distinction between academics (most rabbinic opposition) and reality.
We see that Rav Avraham Yitzchok Kook in the early 20th century supported the energy of Jews who came to the Land to bring back its glory and to return home in spite of their distance from formal Torah training. We see the Lubavitcher Rebbe brought up opposing a sovereign Jew country prior to its formation and then supporting it with all his heart, soul, and resources while not compromising Torah. There are others of scholarship and leadership, as well.
Our leaders need to not only be well versed in academics but also comprehend the physical world and all its creatures, including the complex behavior of all human beings, like Rav Kook and the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We need leaders with strength, courage, who can marry academics with implementation. Our Talmudic sages had that capability. Their leadership permeated the physical world.. תורה לא בשמים היא.
Wonderful/honest essay!!!!!!....Thank you so much !!!!!!! I do remember as a child during WW2, when we didn't have yet, our beloved/blessed State of.Israel .....and learning the tragic fate of the Jews in Europe!!!!!! Our own family (my mother's in Poland, my father 's in Ukraine) only one survived, after the war moved to Australia.......People forgot that ??????? Am Israel Chai!!!!!!!
"The universalist . . . believes and perhaps even sees [Jewishness] provokes resentment, and he concludes that Jews must earn tolerance through disappearance rather than presence."
This gullible Jew declares, "Love me, the Jew, when I make myself the not-Jew." Thus they make themselves the very exemplar of cognitive dissonance.
There is a more sinister form of Jewish anti-Zionism today. It dresses itself up as social justice but actually it is Critical Race Theory bound up with neo-Marxism and Wahabi-Salafist-Muslim Brotherhood religious supremacism. These JINOs are what Stalin and company aptly labelled "useful idiots." So convinced of their righteousness, they will probably go to the showers thinking they are right and their mortal danger caused by Jewish Jews.
No age escapes absurdity because it merely morphs to adapt to the times.
Communist party line opposes zionism. They aren’t thinking for themselves!
Communism opposes all religions. Look at the Falun Gong.
Thank you so much. Brilliantly argued essay. The anti-Zionists Jews are indeed a tragedy, my heart weeps and leaps simultaneously for the predicament of these people, hoping that one day they see the blight of their ways and return to the fold before it is too late for them. Israel will continue to thrive with or without them. Am Israel Chai.
It's ok, you won. Zionism is Judaism now, and your precious state is the focus of worship, not the God of Abraham and Isaac.
Indeed! A poignant and realistic account of the anti-Zionists. I would simply qualify all of them as stupid and insane; two traits that cannot be cured or even managed. I consider them as murderous as Hamas. Hidden history is filled with it.
🤣
Your list of rejectionists is mostly correct, You could add the Satmar view to completeness. But it is *tragedy* when someone is given not by fate but by their desire to please oppressors? I think the term pathetic is more appropriate than tragic.