The Return of the Zionist

The surge in antisemitism is forcing the surge in something else too: integral reminders about Jewish survival, identity, and nationhood.

David Ben-Gurion (First Prime Minister of Israel) pronouncing the Declaration of the State of Israel in 1948 in Tel Aviv, beneath a large portrait of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism (photo: Rudi Weissenstein/Wikipedia)

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For much of the last few decades, many Jews quietly came to believe that Zionism had become less necessary — not necessarily obsolete, not irrelevant, but softened, symbolic, and historical, perhaps a chapter that had achieved its primary goal.

I used to be one of those Jews.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I barely remember hearing about Israel or talking about Israel in Hebrew school or among my Jewish peers.

I knew the State of Israel existed, but Jewish life in America and most parts of the West appeared prosperous. Jews entered elite institutions, built successful businesses, won cultural influence, and experienced freedoms unimaginable to previous generations.

For many, Zionism slowly transformed from a survival doctrine into a matter of identity, culture, politics, or personal preference.

Then reality returned.

October 7th did not create antisemitism. It revealed how thin the ice beneath Jewish normalcy really was.

Across universities, streets, media institutions, workplaces, and online platforms, many Jews discovered something deeply unsettling: The social contract they believed protected them was far weaker than they imagined. Some watched people justify massacres within hours. Others saw Jewish fear mocked, Jewish grief dismissed, Jewish identity treated as uniquely suspect among the world’s minorities.

Many Jews who once viewed Zionism primarily through the language of politics suddenly encountered it through the language that birthed it: vulnerability.

This is not new in Jewish history.

Zionism was born from many streams at once. It emerged from Jewish indigeneity and the ancient Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. It emerged from covenant, memory, faith, longing, language, and civilization. It emerged from 2,000 years of exile in which Jews turned toward Jerusalem in prayer while building communities across continents.

But modern Zionism was also born from something far more painful: the realization that even the most assimilated, patriotic, educated, or successful Jews could become unsafe very quickly.

Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, did not arrive at Zionism because Jewish life in Europe was failing materially. In many ways, Jews were integrating successfully. He arrived there because the illusion of permanence shattered before his eyes during the Dreyfus Affair. He realized that acceptance could be conditional, progress reversible, belonging fragile. That realization now echoes again across the Jewish world.

Rav Kook, one of the fathers of religious Zionism, saw something even deeper: that the Jewish return to Zion was not only about escaping danger, but about recovering wholeness. He believed the Jewish People in exile had become fragmented — spiritually, physically, nationally, psychologically. In returning to our land, building farms, reviving Hebrew, defending Jewish life, and rebuilding sovereignty, Jews were not simply creating a state; they were reassembling a civilization.

For Rav Kook, Zionism was not merely a refuge from antisemitism. It was the return of Jewish vitality itself.

The aftermath of October 7th has forced many Jews back toward Herzl’s realization that Jewish vulnerability never disappeared. But perhaps it is also pushing Jews toward Rav Kook’s insight: that Jewish survival alone is not enough. Jews must build a Judaism and a Jewish civilization strong enough, confident enough, and alive enough to inspire loyalty, meaning, purpose, and continuity for generations to come.

The return of the Zionist is not primarily about politics; it is about clarity. It is the recognition that Jewish safety cannot depend entirely on the goodwill of others. It is the understanding that Jewish continuity requires Jewish agency. It is the rediscovery of an old truth: A people scattered across the world without the capacity to defend themselves eventually become dependent on forces they cannot control.

For years, some Jews spoke about Zionism apologetically, cautiously, almost nervously. They reduced it to a political ideology instead of understanding it as one of the central survival mechanisms of Jewish civilization.

But Zionism was never merely a political movement; it was a civilizational response to Jewish powerlessness. It said that Jews should not only survive history, but shape it. It said Jewish children should not have to rely exclusively on the tolerance of kings, presidents, universities, corporations, or cultural trends. It said the Jewish People deserved the normal rights afforded to other peoples: sovereignty, self-defense, national memory, cultural confidence, and the ability to determine their own future.

The events of recent years have forced many Jews to revisit questions we thought had already been settled. What happens when elite institutions fail to protect Jews? What happens when mobs celebrate Jewish death? What happens when antisemitism mutates faster than societies can confront it? What happens when Jews are told their vulnerability is illegitimate because we possess too much perceived success?

These are not theoretical questions anymore. And yet this essay is not about despair.

Despair is one of the oldest temptations in Jewish history. Jews have buried enough worlds to earn cynicism many times over. But Jewish history also contains another recurring pattern: Moments of rupture often produce moments of renewal.

The return of the Zionist is not simply the return of fear; it is the return of responsibility. It is the return of Jews who understand that Jewish survival requires Jewish seriousness. It is the return of Jews who no longer outsource Jewish continuity to institutions that may not share their priorities.

It is the return of Jews who want to build Jewish schools, communities, businesses, media platforms, cultural institutions, technologies, charities, security networks, and families strong enough to withstand unstable times. It is the return of Jews who understand that Israel is not merely a refuge for emergencies, but one of the greatest collective achievements in Jewish history.

For decades, some Jews treated Jewish particularism as an embarrassment to overcome. The future, they believed, belonged to frictionless universalism. But October 7th and its aftermath reminded many Jews that people who abandon their identity rarely persuade the world to forget it alongside them.

The answer to rising antisemitism is not Jewish disappearance; it is deeper Jewish presence, stronger Jewish confidence, more Jewish literacy, more Jewish courage, more Jewish unity across denominations, classes, and geography — and more investment in Jewish life rather than slow retreat from it.

The return of the Zionist does not require abandoning universal values. Quite the opposite. A secure people is often better positioned to contribute morally and creatively to the world. But Jews are rediscovering that universalism detached from Jewish survival eventually collapses under pressure. A Judaism uncomfortable defending Jewish existence cannot sustain itself for very long.

The coming generation of Zionists may look different from previous ones. Some will be more religious, others more secular. Some will express Zionism culturally, spiritually, intellectually, technologically, militarily, or philanthropically. Some will move to Israel, others will strengthen Jewish life in the Diaspora. Some will build companies, others will build schools, and others will build communities capable of producing resilient Jews.

But beneath all these forms will lie a shared realization: Jewish history did not end. The conditions that produced Zionism did not fully disappear. And the responsibility to secure the Jewish future now belongs to this generation too.

The return of the Zionist is therefore not a regression into fear; it is a movement out of illusion. It is the abandonment of the fantasy that Jewish safety is automatic, permanent, or guaranteed by historical progress.

And it is also something far more hopeful: the rediscovery that the Jewish People still possess the will to defend our future. That after thousands of years, Jews still choose Jewish continuity. That despite everything, Jews still believe the story is worth continuing.

And perhaps that has always been the deepest meaning of Zionism itself.

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