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According to Jordanian academic Joseph Massad, there is a historic link between the Zionist movement and antisemites, in so far as, as modern Zionism's founder Theodor Herzl recognized, both share at least one basic aim: the negation of the Diaspora.[1] As early as mid-1895, Herzl described his expectation that in supporting the emigration of Jews, "anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies".[2]
The Israeli government's alleged collaboration with antisemitic politicians abroad has been criticized as a manifestation of Zionist antisemitism, in that it seeks to highlight Jew-hatred in order to provide further incentive for Jewish immigration to Israel. In this context, anti-Zionists have criticized the Zionist movement's alleged complicity with or capitulation to antisemitism since it gained traction in the 19th century, and some anti-Zionists have also categorized Zionism as a form of antisemitism. The Austrian-Jewish anti-Zionist writer Karl Kraus regarded antisemitism as the "essence" of the Zionist movement and used the label "Jewish antisemites" to describe Jews who identified as Zionists.[3]
Background
A complex matrix of racial stereotypes invested European representations of the Jews (conceived of as male), notions not only claiming there were physical traits which marked out Jews from other people, such as that Jews had darker skins, larger noses, were prone to disease or limping and the like,[lower-alpha 2] but also that they were rootless and a corruptive presence within Western societies. The massive waves of emigration westwards by Eastern European Jews (known as Ostjuden in German), which were triggered by the recurrence of pogroms throughout Eastern Europe from the 1880s onward, not only intensified prejudices in societies where Jewish communities were well-established and assimilated,[4] but led to the internalization of these putative Jewish characteristics in Jewish self-representations themselves.[5][6][lower-alpha 3] To complicate matters, Western European, especially German, Jewish stereotypes of these Ostjuden were often exploited by antisemites as endorsements of their prejudices.[lower-alpha 4] These antisemitic stereotypes influenced the representation of Jews in Zionism, and are evidenced also in the writings of Zionist public opinion makers.[lower-alpha 5]
Early Zionism
In constructing their image of the "new Jew" or "Hebrew", the early Zionists contrasted this image against the Yid, the negative caricature of European Jewry. In doing so, they employed language similar to that of antisemites. For example, the Russian-born Jewish scholar Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who developed Revisionist Zionism in the 20th century, wrote:
Our starting point is to take the typical Yid of today and to imagine his diametrical opposite ... because the Yid is ugly, sickly, and lacks decorum, we shall endow the ideal image of the Hebrew with masculine beauty. The Yid is trodden upon and easily frightened and, therefore, the Hebrew ought to be proud and independent. The Yid is despised by all and, therefore, the Hebrew ought to charm all. The Yid has accepted submission and, therefore, the Hebrew ought to learn how to command. The Yid wants to conceal his identity from strangers and, therefore, the Hebrew should look the world straight in the eye and declare: "I am a Hebrew!"[7]
American academic Amy Kaplan says that "anti-Semitism and pro-Zionism have never been mutually exclusive. Advocates for a Jewish state enlisted stereotypes of Jews–wittingly or not–to further their cause. Theodor Herzl himself appealed to European leaders that Zionism would resolve the 'Jewish Question' by sending Jews elsewhere".[8] Writing for International Socialist Review, Annie Levin argues that the writings of Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, and other European Zionists were "littered with descriptions of European Jews as parasites, social diseases, germs, aliens"...and she also argues that these antisemitic views "flowed quite logically from Zionism's basic assumptions about Jews. Zionists accepted the 19th century view that anti-Semitism–in fact all racial difference–was a permanent feature of human nature. For this reason it was pointless to struggle against it." Levin said that Jews have often been "hostile to Zionism" because the movement "called for a retreat from the struggle against anti-Semitism."[9]
In his book Conspiracy, American historian Daniel Pipes notes that "some antisemites favor a Jewish state as a means of reducing the Jewish population in their midst." Pipes mentions German journalist Wilhelm Marr, the anti-Jewish agitator who coined the term "antisemitism", as an early example of a "pro-Zionist antisemite". Marr supported Jewish migration from Europe to Palestine as being beneficial both for German Jews and for German antisemites. Pipes describes this variety of antisemitism as less common compared to conspiratorial or anti-Zionist antisemitism.[10]
Writing for Jacobin, Sarah Levy claimed that early Zionists "partnered with a rabidly antisemitic British ruling class to secure funding for their colonial project in Palestine". Levy argued that British support for Zionism served the "dual interest of securing an “outpost of civilization against barbarism” that could help Britain dominate the Middle East, while also working to defeat left-wing “International Jews” (such as Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Béla Kun, Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman, among others)." According to Levy, British statesman Winston Churchill "understood that revolutionary socialists, organizing against racist pogroms in their own countries, posed a threat to the ruling class’s need to divide and rule its population, and so understood the benefit to supporting a “Jewish movement” that could counter this logic of antiracism and internationalism."[11][failed verification]
According to the political theorist Michael Walzer, early Jewish anti-Zionists in the 19th-century were often Orthodox Jews who believed that Zionism was a heretical ideology. These Orthodox Jews believed that the return of Jews to the Land of Israel and the establishment of a state would only occur after the Messiah came. Until the arrival of the Messiah, Orthodox Jews believed that Jews must accept living in diaspora and defer to non-Jewish rulers while waiting for redemption. Zionists, who were usually secular, despised the perceived passivity of Orthodox Jews to the point that they were often referred to as antisemites by Orthodox anti-Zionists.[12]
The Austrian-Jewish anti-Zionist writer Karl Kraus attacked German-Jewish self-hatred, gaining notoriety at the turn of the twentieth century for his pamphlets A Crown for Zion and Die demolierte Literatur (Demolished Literature). In the former, he thrust barbs at what he saw as the self-hating aspects of German Jewish society and German Zionism, while in the latter, he lampoons a couple of members of the Viennese literary crowd (a Jewish crowd, though this was not an overt part of this second work). In A Crown for Zion, Kraus suggests that in attempting to assimilate, German Jews had imbibed the stereotypes and beliefs in racial power structures pervasive through German society. He describes assimilationist Zionists, and Herzl in particular, as "Jewish antisemites" in the same vein as the "Aryan antisemites" for their common desire to expel Jews from European culture.[13]
Steven M. Cohen, sociologist at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, said that the correlation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is weak, with all combinations of the pro- and anti-Zionist and antisemitist positions being possible. Todd Gitlin, sociologist at Columbia University, said that right-wing Zionism and antisemitism "have the same soul...they rhyme" because both are variants of ultra-nationalism.[14]
Joseph Massad, a Palestinian academic at Columbia University, stated that "It is Israel's claims that it represents and speaks for all Jews that are the most anti-Semitic claims of all." Massad said that "Jewish opponents of Zionism" understood that gentile Europeans "shared the precepts of anti-Semitism" and that Zionists and antisemites held a shared belief in "the expulsion of Jews from Europe." Massad said that most pre-War European Jews resisted the "anti-Semitic basis of Zionism", while European countries typically supported "the anti-Semitic programme of Zionism".[15] Massad believes that the Zionist conflation of Jewish people with Zionism has become a global "antisemitic consensus".[16]
Atalia Omer wrote that in Israel "young activists increasingly recognize that their safety depends on linking the fight against antisemitism to other social justice struggles", mentioning the Israeli activists who have "taken to the streets to protest Netanyahu's regime and many others such as B'Tselem for years have decried the weaponization of antisemitism." Omer said that these "critical voices are silenced within the entrenched ideological regime that the IHRA represents as it coalesces with white nationalist and Christian Zionist antisemitism."[22][undue weight?–discuss]
In the United States
Right-wing evangelical Christians in the United States are often vocally Zionist while also holding antisemitic attitudes towards Jews. Conservative Christians are amongst the strongest supporters of the State of Israel in the United States. With 7.1million members, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) is the largest Zionist organization in the United States. Many Christian Zionists believe that the Gathering of Israel is a prerequisite for the final coming of the Christian messiah, after which a portion of Jews will convert and the majority of Jews will be killed and condemned to Hell.[8]Ben Lorber and Aidan Orly, writing in Religion Dispatches, have described Christian Zionism as "one of the largest antisemitic movements in the world today".[23]Haaretz writer Joshua Shanes condemned CUFI founder John Hagee for promoting an "apocalyptic and deeply antisemitic worldview" and promoting some of the "most dangerous myths of the modern era." Hagee has promoted financial conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family controlling the federal reserve, said that Hitler was sent by God to murder Jews who refused to emigrate to Israel, and described the Antichrist as a "half-Jew homosexual."[24]Slavoj Žižek has also described John Hagee, as well as Glenn Beck, as examples of Christian fundamentalist "anti-Semitic Zionists." Žižek said that Zionism itself has "paradoxically become anti-Semitic" because the movement promotes hatred of anti-Zionist Jews by constructing a figure of Jewish anti-Zionism "along anti-Semitic lines."[25] Žižek describes the way that Jewish anti-Zionists are maligned as "self-hating Jews" by Zionists as an example of Zionist antisemitism.[26]
Zionist leaders and organizations in the United States have been widely criticized, particularly by the Jewish left, for allegedly downplaying the severity of antisemitism in the United States and for alleged complicity with the Trump administration in order to pursue pro-Israel, Zionist causes. Atalia Omer, a professor of religion at the University of Notre Dame, has written that "Israel's silence on white nationalism and its implicit or explicit condoning of antisemitic Zionists" has decisively convinced many American Jews that the Israeli government is not keeping Jews safe and is actively endangering Jews living in the diaspora. Omer cites the "moral shock" of Israeli silence on white nationalist antisemitism for discrediting the "Zionist monopoly over the narrative of Jewish survival."[27]Sarah Levy criticized Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), in Jacobin magazine for being "notably silent" about antisemitism during the Trump era.[11] ZOA was deluged by messages from outraged supporters following ZOA's support for Steve Bannon and Klein's statement that he could not be an antisemite because "He's the opposite of an antisemite. He's a philo-semite."[11][28][29]+972 Magazine's Natasha Roth-Rowland said that a "rise of Zionist antisemitism as a standard behavior among large swaths of the GOP and its ecosystem has become a defining feature of the American far right's worldview and modus operandi."[30]
In 2017, Judith Butler denounced antisemitic manifestations of Zionism within the Trump administration. Butler wrote that Bannon is both a "strong Zionist" and that "his antisemitism apparently does not get in the way of his support for the Israeli state, and that his supporters in the Israeli government do not seem to mind." Butler argued that right-wing antisemitic Zionism is a manifestation of white supremacy, whereby the white Ashkenazi ruling class in Israel makes alliances with right-wing politicians in other countries on the basis of shared anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinianism, and Islamophobia.[31]
In 2019, the Russian-born Jewish-American journalist Masha Gessen described Donald Trump as a "pro-Zionist anti-Semite". Gessen noted that Trump's administration had pursued pro-Israel policies while also spreading Jewish stereotypes, such as the speech Trump delivered at the Israeli American Council National Summit where he declared that "A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well...You're brutal killers, not nice people at all." Calling Trump's comments "plain, easily recognizable anti-Semitism", Gessen said that Trump views American Jews as "alien beings whom he associates with the state of Israel."[32][33]
The liberal journalist Peter Beinart said that Zionist antisemitism is likely on the rise in the United States and that it is unclear that Zionists are less likely to harbor antisemitic sentiments compared to anti-Zionists. According to Beinart, "It is easy to find antisemitism among people who, far from opposing Zionism, enthusiastically embrace it."[34]
During the January 6 United States Capitol attack in 2021, several insurrectionists waved Israeli flags. In this context, organizations including the Adalah Justice Project, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Students for Justice in Palestine made social media posts suggesting a link between Zionist ideology and antisemitic right-wing extremism. The Anti-Defamation League describes these comments as part of an emerging effort among anti-Israel activists to associate "the Israeli flag with white supremacy, racism, settler-colonialism, violence and more". The ADL disputes this association and notes that the organizations promoting the link did not mention the wide variety of other flags present at the Capitol attack, including those of Canada, Cuba, Georgia, India, South Korea, and the former state of South Vietnam.[35][36]
Austin Ahlman of The Intercept said that Zionist organization Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) employed antisemitic tropes during the 2020 election after DMFI released attack ads criticizing the progressive Jewish California politician Sara Jacobs. The ads emphasized Jacobs' wealthy background, portraying her "fortune and privileged life" as making her out of touch with ordinary Americans. The Intercept said that the "imagery and language employed by many of the ads are reminiscent of common antisemitic tropes", noting that DMFI had previously endorsed wealthy non-Jewish candidates. Rachel Rosen, a DMFI spokesperson, denied accusations that the ads were antisemitic.[37]
In August 2022, the left-wing Jewish organization IfNotNow tweeted that AIPAC was antisemitism after AIPAC said that "George Soros has a long history of backing anti-Israel groups" and that "J Street & Soros work to undermine" pro-Israel Democrats. IfNotNow tweeted that AIPAC was not a Jewish organization, did not represent Jews, and in allegedly promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories about Soros, AIPAC had become part of the "antisemitic far right."[38]
In 2023, George Washington University psychology professor Lara Sheehi faced accusations of antisemitism from the Zionist organization StandWithUs after claiming, among other things, that Zionism itself was antisemitic and that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.[39][40]
The March for Israel, held in Washington, D.C. in November 2023, featured the Christians United for Israel founder and Evangelical pastor John Hagee as a speaker. No Jewish clergy were invited to speak.[41] Hagee has sparked controversy in the past for claiming that Jews were responsible for the Holocaust by being "disobedient" to God, that God sent Hitler, and that Hitler was of Jewish descent.[42] Critics, including progressive Jewish organizations, denounced Hagee's presence. Rabbi Jill Jacobs of T'ruah tweeted that she and other members of the Progressive Israel Network believe Hagee's "so-called support of Israel is based in antisemitism."[43] Writing for Mondoweiss, Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg and Reverend Allyn Maxfield-Steele wrote that Hagee's presence was "entirely predictable...for those familiar with the long-standing alliance between Zionists and antisemites" and that supporting Israel doesn't automatically make someone an ally to Jewish people.[44]
During the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, the historian Stephen F. Eisenman of Northwestern University wrote that it is false to equate all anti-Zionism with antisemitism, both due to the existence of Jewish anti-Zionists including himself as well as "the existence of Zionists who are anti-Semites". Eisenman listed Alfred Balfour, Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, Glenn Beck, Richard Spencer, and Donald Trump as examples of "Zionist anti-Semites".[45]
Far-right Zionist antisemitism
The historian David N. Myers wrote that "Leading white nationalists such as Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor liken their movement to Zionism, seeing it as a model for the kind of monoethnic purity they favor in [the United States]." Myers states that the "combination of pro-Israel and antisemitic sensibilities" is common within American politics due to the combined influences of the "Christian evangelical Right with its end-game theology", "archly conservative" Catholics, and the political ideology of Donald Trump.[46] Atalia Omer noted "convergences between white supremacist violence and exclusionary politics which often comes in the form of Zionist antisemitism", citing Richard Spencer's "white Zionism" as an example.[47]
The Norwegian far-right domestic terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is both an antisemitic neo-Nazi and a strong supporter of the State of Israel. The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek described Breivik's ideology as an "extreme version" of "Zionist anti-Semitism", writing that Breivik is "antisemitic, but pro-Israel" because in Breivik's view the Israeli state is a "first line of defense against Muslim expansion". Žižek notes that Breivik believes that France and the United Kingdom have a "Jewish problem" due to their large Jewish populations, whereas the rest of Western Europe doesn't, describing this as Breivik's belief that "Jews are OK as long as there aren't too many of them" living in diaspora.[48] Journalist Michelle Goldberg referred to Breivik as an "ardent Zionist" who "has nothing but contempt for the majority of Jewish people", arguing that his "embrace of Israel...far from being unique, is just the latest sign" that "in European politics, fascism and an aggressive sort of Zionism increasingly go together." Goldberg cites Islamophobia as a commonality between the State of Israel and "European white nationalists".[49]
Ben Lorber, writing for +972 Magazine, argued that American white nationalist support for the "Jewish state's supremacist values fits comfortably with its deep antisemitism" and that "philosemitic Christian Zionism carries deep undercurrents of anti-Judaism." Lorber refers to the phenomenon of right-wing Zionism fitting "comfortably alongside simmering currents of antisemitism" as "Antisemitic Zionism".[50]
Desire to expel the Jewish diaspora
Richard S. Levy, a scholar of antisemitism, wrote that "Antisemites certainly found Zionism useful" because Zionism provided "antisemitic Zionists" with a justification as to why Jewish people who were living in the diaspora should be expelled from the societies which they had lived in for centuries. Coerced emigration to the Land of Israel appealed to antisemites because it provided them with a "solution to the Jewish question".[51]
British Liberal Party politician Edwin Montagu, the sole Jewish member of the Lloyd George ministry and an ardent anti-Zionist, was "passionately opposed to the [Balfour] declaration on the grounds that... it was a capitulation to anti-Semitic bigotry, with its suggestion that Palestine was the natural destination of the Jews".[52]Arthur Balfour was opposed to a British mandate over Palestine, but supported Zionism as a method to reduce the "alien entity" of Jews in gentile societies, whose presence he considered destabilizing.[lower-alpha 6] Writer Bari Weiss considers Balfour as an example of a historical antisemitic Zionist; though Balfour was instrumental in establishing the creation of a Zionist state, he did so because he did not want Jews emigrating from Eastern Europe, many of whom were escaping pogroms, to immigrate to Britain. Weiss cites Balfour's support of the Aliens Act 1905, which restricted Jewish immigration into Britain, as an example of his antisemitism.[53]
The Polish government of the 1930s supported Jewish immigration to Israel for reasons similar to Balfour.[53] The Polish government during this period was a staunch supporter of the Zionist movement, while also adopting increasingly antisemitic domestic policies. The Polish government actively encouraged emigration to Mandatory Palestine because it decreased the population of Polish Jews. Historian Emanuel Melzer wrote that the Polish government's attitudes towards Zionism and Jewish emigration "implied that Jews were superfluous, alien, and even a destructive element" and that this attitude "might have had its repercussions on a part of the Polish population's attitude towards the Jews during the war", but acknowledges that the Shoah itself was not caused by the intensification of Polish antisemitism between 1936 and 1939.[54] During the 1920s and 1930s, the General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland was vocally critical of this antisemitic Zionism. The Bund produced election campaign materials including the terms "antisemitic Zionists" and "Zionist antisemites", arguing that the Zionist promotion of emigration and cooperation with the Polish government strengthened antisemitic forces within Polish society.[54]
The French-Jewish journalist Alain Gresh noted that the antisemitic right-wing politician and Nazi collaborator Xavier Vallat said that "Jews would never integrate into France and that they had to go to Israel."[55]University of Glasgow lecturer Timothy Peace has noted that some members of the French far-right could be considered "antisemitic Zionists", because they want French Jews to emigrate to Israel.[56][undue weight?–discuss]
↑ "Since Zionism's birth in Europe more than a century ago, it has attracted support from Christians who supported a Jewish state at least in part because they feared Jews would undermine the ethnic and religious purity of their own countries. That tradition remains alive in both Europe and the United States today, where research suggests that antagonism towards the Jews in one's own nation correlates with support for Israel, which offers Jews a nation of their own." (Beinart 2023)
↑ For a comprehensive survey of these physical stereotypes, which Jewish doctors also accepted as "scientific", see Sander Gilman (1991/2013) (Gilman 2013).
↑ "a 'Jew' would be defined as much by the social setting as internally. Indeed, my sense is that the greater the identification of the Jew with the goals and values of the broader society, the more impacted the Jew is by the power of such images. But no one who identifies, either positively or negatively, with the label 'Jew' is immune from the power of such stereotypes." (Gilman 2013, p.1)
↑ Speaking of the Austrian-Jewish novelist Karl Emil Franzos's Aus Halb-Asien (1876) where many later anti-Jewish stereotypes are portrayed in the depictions of Eastern Jews, Aschheim writes: "AntiSemites regularly annexed the language and descriptions of half-Asia to buttress their case. To make matters worse, they often invoked Franzos as proof that German Jews opposed the Ostjuden as much as they themselves, Some politicians in the Weimar period defended German Jews by deflecting negative Jewish characteristics onto the Ostjuden in specifically Franzosian terms." (Aschheim 1982, p.31)
↑ Anita Shapira remarks:"Anti-Semitic stereotypes and tropes did nourish, to some degree, the thought of Zionist public opinion makers." (Efron 2003, p.259)
↑ "He did however believe that Zionism could alleviate the continued presence in gentile society of an alien entity that posed a continuing danger to the stability of that society." (Defries 2014, p.52)
↑ Theodor Herzl, Entry of June 12, 1895, The Complete Diaries Of Theodor Herzl, Volume I, pages 83-84, "It would be an excellent idea to call in respectable, accredited anti-Semites as liquidators of property. To the people they would vouch for the fact that we do not wish to bring about the impoverishment of the countries that we leave. At first they must not be given large fees for this; otherwise we shall spoil our instruments and make them despicable as “stooges of the Jews”. Later their fees will increase, and in the end we shall have only Gentile officials in the countries from which we have emigrated. The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies."
Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism which developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, tends to manifest itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s, although the identification of anti-Zionism with antisemitism has "long been de rigueur in Jewish communal and broader pro-Israel circles".
John Charles Hagee is an American pastor and televangelist. He founded John Hagee Ministries, which telecasts to the United States and Canada. He is also the founder and chairman of the Christian Zionist organization Christians United for Israel.
The terms "self-hating Jew", "self-loathing Jew" and auto-antisemite are pejorative terms used to describe a Jew whose viewpoints on any specific matter are perceived as antisemitic. In recent decades, the term has been widely deployed pejoratively, especially by people with right-wing views, against fellow Jews with left-wing views or otherwise with views perceived as contrary to one's own political view.
Stephen Robert Sizer is a priest in the Church of England. He is banned from serving as a priest until 2030. From 1997 to 2017, he was vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water, in Surrey.
Joseph Andoni Massad is a Jordanian academic specializing in Middle Eastern studies, who serves as Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. His academic work has focused on Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli nationalism.
Racial antisemitism is prejudice against Jews based on a belief or assertion that Jews constitute a distinct race that has inherent traits or characteristics that appear in some way abhorrent or inherently inferior or otherwise different from the traits or characteristics of the rest of a society. The abhorrence may find expression in the form of discrimination, stereotypes or caricatures. Racial antisemitism may present Jews, as a group, as a threat in some way to the values or safety of a society. Racial antisemitism can seem deeper-rooted than religious antisemitism, because for religious antisemites conversion of Jews remains an option and once converted the "Jew" is gone. In the context of racial antisemitism Jews cannot get rid of their Jewishness.
Different opinions exist among historians regarding the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism contrasted with its European counterpart. In contrast to the horrors of European history, John Higham states that in the United States "no decisive event, no deep crisis, no powerful social movement, no great individual is associated primarily with, or significant chiefly because of anti-Semitism." Accordingly, David A. Gerber concludes that antisemitism "has been a distinctly minor feature of the nation's historical development."
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents.
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.
Antony Lerman is a British writer who specialises in the study of antisemitism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, multiculturalism, and the place of religion in society. From 2006 to early 2009, he was Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, a think tank on issues affecting Jewish communities in Europe. From December 1999 to 2006, he was Chief Executive of the Hanadiv Charitable Foundation, renamed the Rothschild Foundation Europe in 2007. He is a founding member of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights, and a former editor of Patterns of Prejudice, a quarterly academic journal focusing on the sociology of race and ethnicity.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its declaration of independence in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The "three Ds" or the "3D test" of antisemitism is a set of criteria formulated by Israeli human rights advocate and politician Natan Sharansky in order to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. The three Ds stand for delegitimization, demonization, and double standards, each of which, according to the test, indicates antisemitism.
Yaakov Hagoel, is the Chairman of the Executive of the World Zionist Organization. He was formerly acting chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel.
This timeline of anti-Zionism chronicles the history of anti-Zionism, including events in the history of anti-Zionist thought.
There have been instances of antisemitism within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom (UK) since its establishment. Notable occurrences include canards about "Jewish finance" during the Boer War and antisemitic remarks from leading Labour politician Ernest Bevin. In the 2000s, controversies arose over comments made by Labour politicians regarding an alleged "Jewish lobby", a comparison by London Labour politician Ken Livingstone of a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, and a 2005 Labour attack on Jewish Conservative Party politician Michael Howard.
The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) is a document meant to outline the bounds of antisemitic speech and conduct, particularly with regard to Zionism, Israel and Palestine. Its creation was motivated by a desire to confront antisemitism and by objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, which critics have said stifles legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and curbs free speech. The drafting of the declaration was initiated in June 2020 under the auspices of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem by eight coordinators, most of whom were university professors. Upon its completion the declaration was signed by about 200 scholars in various fields and released in March 2021.
Mauschel is an article written and published by Theodor Herzl in 1897. The text appeared in his newspaper, Die Welt, which was to become the principal outlet for the Zionist movement down to 1914, and was published roughly a month after the conclusion of the First Zionist Congress.
A Crown for Zion is an 1898 anti-Zionist polemic written by the Austrian-Jewish writer Karl Kraus.
When antisemitism accusations are exploited for political purposes, especially to counter criticism of Israel, it may be described variously as a weaponization of antisemitism, as instrumentalization of antisemitism or referred to as playing the antisemitism card. Such accusations have been criticized as a form of smear tactics and an "appeal to motive". Some writers have compared this to playing the race card. When used against Jews, it may take the form of the pejorative claim of "self-hating Jew".
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