A Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) poll has Zionists mourning and anti-Zionists rejoicing. Only 37% of American Jews call themselves “Zionist.” That will perpetuate the false claims that young American Jews are a “lost generation” giving up on Israel.
Consider two far more important JFNA findings. Most American Jews – 88%, including 76% of young Jews – believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state. Only 7% call themselves “anti-Zionist” and 8% “non-Zionist.” Some 71% said their emotional attachment to Israel has increased since 2020. Clearly, the poll exposes false consciousness and educational failure. As I explain in my new e-book, The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, and Jew Hatred, Zionists believe that:
- Jews are a people as well as adherents of Judaism, the Jewish religion;
- Jews have ties to a particular homeland; and
- Jews have the right to establish a state on their homeland.
Zionism, the movement of Jewish national liberation, initially sought to establish a state and create a New Jew. Since 1948, Zionists have defended Israel and the Jewish people when necessary, while building, being rebuilt, and dreaming always.
In short, Zionism declares – and what 88% of American Jews believe: that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish democratic state.
![American and Israeli Jews [Illustrative]](https://images.jpost.com/image/upload/f_auto,fl_lossy/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_537,w_822/433149)
So, what’s really happening?
More than half (51%) of American Jews are abandoning the word “Zionism,” partially because of some heavy-handed Jewish right-wingers, but mostly because of Jew-hating, Israel-bashing left-wingers.
Some diehards insist that Zionism means supporting everything Israel’s government does. That alienates too many Jewish Bibi-Bashers from the Z-word itself. That’s as foolish as Americans rejecting “Americanism,” whenever their candidate loses the presidency.
FAR WORSE is the systematic campaign, by the 7% of Jewish anti-Zionists – the un-Jews! – and millions of others, to libel Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish people. Many pro-Israel non-Zionists in the poll ignorantly claimed Zionism means considering the Jews “superior to Palestinians.” That position would have appalled every major Zionist thinker, from Theodor Herzl to David Ben-Gurion and his arch-rivals, Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin.
In celebrating Identity Zionism and a Values-Based Zionism, I have been warning for years about the suffocating impact of an all-or-nothing Zionism from the Right and the demoralizing impact of the obsessive demonization of Israel and Zionism from the Left.
American Jewish leaders, teachers, rabbis, and parents must go back to basics – learning what Zionism means, then teaching it to the next generation. Identity Zionism emphasizes Zionism as a big, broad, welcoming peoplehood platform – giving Jews a sense of grounding, of community, of history, and of purpose, through their deep historical ties to our people and our one ancestral homeland; Values-Based Zionism emphasizes the beauty of the many ideals embodied in Jewish nationalism and our Jewish democratic state.
Zionism is a broad enough term to contain Bibi-lovers and haters, settlers and peaceniks – and Israelis and Diaspora Jews, too.
This poll highlighting mass and almost willful ignorance among so many mis-educated, misled, and battered American Jews is relevant to the intensifying debate about how they should respond to antisemitism. Some 93% viewed Jew-hatred as a major American problem, while 60% report feeling unsafe in certain Jewish settings.
Such Zionist illiteracy vindicates Bret Stephens’s claim in his “State of World Jewry” address that American Jews over-invest in fighting antisemitism while under-investing in fighting Jewish ignorance and spreading Jewish joy. If more American Jews mastered Jewish and Zionist history, they would recognize their feelings of deep attachment and pride to Israel as “Zionists,” and they certainly wouldn’t let extremists or haters sour them on this term. They would also learn to resist the partisanship of the moment and the hate-storm bombarding Israel.
AMERICAN JEWISH schools, institutions, and families need an intervention – and a reset – learning to celebrate Zionism for what it is: a successful, healthy, liberal-democratic nationalist movement that created the miracle of Israel.
Similarly, despite good intentions, it’s unfortunate that the $15 million Super Bowl ad targeted antisemitism, rather than building Jewish pride, applauding Israel’s victory, or simply sending another 3,000 kids on Birthright to live Zionism for 10 days.
In June 1895, Theodor Herzl “recognized the emptiness and futility of efforts to ‘combat antisemitism.’ Declamations made in writing or in closed circles do no good whatever; they even have a comical effect,” he wrote. “Antisemitism has grown and continues to grow – and so do I.” As “incidents of maltreatment and persecution of Jews” multiplied, he wondered: “What, then, is to become of the Jews?”
He started writing. On February 14, 1896 – 130 years ago – he published his answer:
Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State.
“We are a people, one people,” he declared. Going far beyond anti-antisemitism, he articulated a sweeping, idealistic, constructive vision that proves he was not a defensive Garrison Zionist and demonstrates the power of liberal-democratic Jewish nationalism to redeem a people and the world.
“The Jews who want a state of their own will have one,” he concluded. “We will live at last as free people on our own soil and die peacefully in our own homeland.” Then he soars, as every liberal-democratic nationalist should, building up universal hopes and values, while remaining rooted and proud in his soil, his people: “The world will be freed by our freedom, enriched by our riches, and made greater by our greatness.”
That’s Zionism! That’s a vision most American Jews have embraced for decades – whether they know it or not.
The writer is an American presidential historian and Zionist activist, who edited Theodor Herzl: The Collected Zionist Writings and Addresses. Last year, he published To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath. His latest E-book, The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-hatred, was just published and can be downloaded on the website of JPPI – the Jewish People Policy Institute.