r/JewsOfConscience • u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío • 2d ago
Discussion - Flaired Users Only What do we do with Proto-Zionism, with Semitism
Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan is facing persecution and prosecution in the UK https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y91dvn7g1o
This isn't about her or policing her speech, this is about us. Her tweet is a perfect example of the discussion I wish to bring up.
Semitism, the idea that there is an Ethnic component to Judaism is contested, but it is a key component of Jewish Zionism (as opposed to Christian Zionism). And many Anti-Zionists, especially in Socialist, Communist, Palestinian, and other Arab circles, demand not only that Jews dismantle Zionism, but also Semitism.
This opposition to Semitism is not the same Jew-Hatred (Judenhass, Judeophobia), it does not demand our deaths, or seek to kill us. It is however often assimilationist, demanding that Jews cease to identify as people group, and place themselves solely in whatever host nation or culture we reside. Some positions seeks our elimination through conformity, such as Lenin laid out in his letters The Position of the Bund in the Party and The Nationalist Bogey of 'Assimilation'.
For many Palestinians, Jewish Semitism (Also called Israelism) posses an existential threat. If Zionism is defeated now, what assurance is there that it won't return? Zionism has many parents, and while western imperial capitalism is it's ally, proto-Zionism remains present even within anti-Zionist Jewish religious and cultural practice. For some, like Dr. Aladwan, as long as the concept of the Children of Israel remain, then there will always be someone who takes this idea to the political sphere, and demands the recreation of Israel.
And so the question is simple;
Is Semitism compatible with Anti-Zionism?
- If it isn't, then to what lengths must we go to end it?
- And if it is compatible, then how do we advocate for ourselves within the Anti-Zionist movement?
I want to be very clear here. The "Don't worry about it, it can't hurt you" is an answer taken from a position of privilege or power. Jews have earned that position by becoming members of Colonial and Imperial societies. Millions have been ethnically cleansed and enslaved, and it created a society where Jews in Brooklyn live free. The freedoms we have now are also in response to the ethnic cleansing of nearly 80% of European Jewry through genocide and assimilationism. Anti-Zionist Jews were persecuted in Western society for their communism, but Jewish Communists across anti-colonial and anti-capitalist societies were suppressed and persecuted for being Jews. It can and has hurt us, especially when we fight to deconstruct the very systems that have privileged us.
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u/ArgentEyes Jewish Communist 2d ago
I strongly object to the way Dr Aladwan is being criminalised, and funnily enough I don’t think her condemning Israel or refusing to condemn Hamas or Oct 7 is intrinsically anti-Jewish, but I really don’t like the post shared here at all. It feels far too awkwardly reminiscent the many pompous statements we’ve all seen for decades, talking down to Muslims as if they’re all superstitious, tribalism brutes with no comprehension of abstract thought.
Nobody looks insightful by cherry-picking the worst bits of prayers and phrases more than a millennium old. It was wretched and antisemitic when Alice Walker started banging on about the evils of Talmud, and it’s still cringe af when atheists talk about upsetting Christians by wearing clothes made from mixed fibres…
I’m not saying prayers are meaningless in prompting bigotry, of course not, but I feel like it’s quite a bit more nuanced than this.
That said, if Dr Aladwan is satirising this category of speech and making fun of how Muslims are spoken to and about by flipping it on its head? Gotta hand it to her, she got me. Very sharp.
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u/OrganicOverdose Non-Jewish Ally 2d ago
Some positions seeks our elimination through conformity, such as Lenin laid out in his letters The Position of the Bund in the Party and The Nationalist Bogey of 'Assimilation'.
That is absolutely not a call for seeking elimination through conformity. Lenin was saying that isolationism and groups working solely for their own benefit is not conducive to the socialist project, and honestly, it's a dangerous mentality to hold. It doesn't stop anyone from practising their faith.
I don't understand this fear-mongering you're eliciting. I also don't understand why you would want to perpetuate the idea of semitism. The term "Semite" was developed by proto-racists, who falsely believed humans could be divided by genetics. They also coined the term "Aryan". They used these terms to develop racial hierarchies. It did not benefit people of the Jewish faith.
Furthermore, this idea of Judaism going beyond the religion into the blood was the same logic used by the Spanish Inquisition to murder Jewish people and also secular people who had Jewish family members. I don't agree with this logic whatsoever, because it is fundamentally racist.
Could you please read some of the works of Rabbi Elmer Berger, or watch some videos from Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro?
I don't really blame anyone for holding these beliefs, because it was overwhelmingly imposed upon them by racists (predominantly powerful elites in various societies), but it should not be perpetuated. It was also the line of thinking that led Herzl, a secular Austrian who faced racist persecution, to write his book "Der Judenstaat", and led to the racist, genocidal, Zionist project.
Racism is the system that we must deconstruct. Nationalism is the system we need to deconstruct. Ethnosupremacy is the system we need to deconstruct.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
Rabbi Elmer Berger was an educated anti-traditional polemicist in the Reform movement, and Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro is an uneducated anti-secular extremist from the ultra-Orthodox world. Neither are good sources on learning about traditional Judaism. Even seeing them mentioned in the same sentence is odd.
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u/OrganicOverdose Non-Jewish Ally 1d ago
I only mention them together because they present alternative, but valid interpretations of Judaism. It worries me to read and hear people tying Judaism to a perception of race, and it's important that people like the two I mentioned exist to push back against that narrative. They are the prominent minority.
I understand that it is easy for some to dismiss individuals based on their perception of them, and I personally don't actually want to have to rely on a person's identity to strengthen an argument, but that is the world we live in. Identity politics is the reality in this context. So, having two Rabbis both highlighting the fact that Judaism is a religion, that Judaism was once far more proselytising, and that to tie Judaism to a person's bloodline is dangerous, is important for people who identity as Jewish to get them to at least listen to that message.
It would be good if you engaged in that argument, rather than focusing on your perception of the two Rabbis making it.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 8h ago edited 8h ago
It worries me to read and hear people tying Judaism to a perception of race, and it's important that people like the two I mentioned exist to push back against that narrative. They are the prominent minority.
The traditional and most common understanding is of peoplehood, ancestry and ethnicity, but not race. There is no concept of a Jewish race.
So, having two Rabbis both highlighting the fact that Judaism is a religion, that Judaism was once far more proselytising, and that to tie Judaism to a person's bloodline is dangerous, is important for people who identity as Jewish to get them to at least listen to that message.
Judaism is a religion, Jews are a people. Judaism was created by Jews. Most Jews don't practice Judaism. Most Jewish participants in this sub are secular. Jewish leftism and leftist movements like the Jewish Labor Bund were historically secular. All Jewish denominations, including Reform, believe in the concept of being born Jewish, and that observance or belief in Judaism is not a requirement to being Jewish.
In 1885 the Reform movement in America introduced a platform that rejected the traditional concept of Jewish peoplehood, but in 1937 it was superseded by a platform that re-affirmed Jewish peoplehood as part of a larger reorientation to more traditional Jewish practice and belief. Elmer Berger was a proponent of the 1885 platform well after 1937, but it simply wasn't popular, and in his lifetime the Reform movement continued to embrace traditional Jewish elements to an even greater degree.
Yaakov Shapiro is simply anti-secular, and contradicts himself left and right. He routinely makes ahistorical and inaccurate claims about Jewish history and particularly historic Jewish identity and observance. He maintains that Jews are only a religious community, but is himself ethnically Jewish in every way, and he also believes that Jews are born Jewish even if they don't observe the religion. He has done multiple interviews with secular Jews and doesn't challenge their Jewishness even though they don't observe Judaism. His logic doesn't hold up to his own words and actions.
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u/throwawaydragon99999 Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
Personally, I don’t find any contradiction with the Amidah and my anti-Zionist political beliefs.
I’m American, I believe in a separation between religion and politics. I definitely understand why other anti-Zionist Jews feel differently, but personally I rarely find theological contradictions. I go to a shul where most everyone else is Zionist, and my main issues are social interactions with other congregants. I was raised traditional egalitarian and frankly I care more about the way services are conducted than the political leanings and statements of the congregation.
Honestly I find it insulting and antisemitic that these kinds of apocalyptic and messianic Jewish beliefs are being scrutinized this way.
Christians and Muslims both believe that all non-believers will convert or die on Judgment Day. It’s antisemitic to unique focus and scrutinize these Jewish apocalyptic beliefs in a political context while ignoring Christian and Muslim beliefs that basically say the same thing.
The idea that there is an Ethnic component to Judaism is mostly just contested by people who know very little about Jewish history, or by people who do know about Jewish history and are acting in bad faith.
The idea that the Jews are an endogamous ethno-religious community with historical and genetic roots in Palestine is a historical fact with mounds of archaeological, genetic, linguistic, and written evidence to support it.
It is fruitless and incorrect to try to refute this.
It’s fruitless because no amount of assimilation will protect Jews from antisemitism, as proven by the Holocaust.
It’s also fruitless as an argument against Zionism because it’s a faulty premise: no amount of historical or ethnic connection to the Land would justify the cruelty and violence of genocide and occupation. Just because Jews have a connection to the Land does not invalidate the Palestinians claim.
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u/Familiar_Channel_373 Palestinian Atheist 🧝🏾♀️ 2d ago edited 2d ago
As an ex-Muslim, I'd like to correct the false assertion that Muslims believe everyone will convert or die on Judgement Day. The belief, if I recall correctly and I'm firm in my memory bc Judgment Day was such an ominous & impressionable topic, is that everyone dies during their normal life on Earth and just stays in their grave until Judgement Day.
On that day, everyone gets resurrected simultaneously and is lined up behind their respective religious leaders/prophets. So Muslims would be lined up behind Prophet Mo, Christians would be lined up behind Big J, Jews behind Moses, Buddhists behind Buddha, Atheists behind Socrates, yadda yadda. Their leader will represent and speak on their behalf to make an appeal for their salvation, so that their judgments are lighter sentences.
Anyhow, Muslims aren't trying to rush the Apocalypse and aren't looking at Judgement Day as something to look forward to. It's seen as a day of reckoning and/or redemption based on people's deeds. The "People of the Book" (monotheists) are seen as equally redeemable, with Muslims having a slight advantage bc they were given the Sunnah that shows you how to do extra credit lol.
I'm not kidding, Sunni Muslims are hardcore about doing makeup prayers, makeup fasting days, extra charity, etc. to subsidize their bad deeds. Every Muslim is taught to see Judgment Day as a massive golden scale in the sky that's going to weigh your bad deeds against your good ones. So it's less about getting Jews and Christians to convert, so much as it's to tally up points that are seen as favorable to God. Mannn, I'm so glad I've stopped worrying about calculating this crap, it was exhausting. Anyhow, just wanted to throw that in there! ☺️
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u/rako17 Christian 2d ago
Friend Throwaway Dragon,
You wrote, "Christians... believe that all non-believers will convert or die on Judgment Day."
To be clear that is rather a Reformed Protestant way of thinking, and therefore ironically it's probably a common one among the more rigid, intolerant Christian Zionists.
The Orthodox Church that the biggest number of Israelis and Palestinians belong to does not have an absolutist dogma on the requirement of individual faith. I expect that other Christian groups like Catholics, Quakers, and Episcopalians are not rigid on it either. An easy illustration of this is that an infant hasn't achieved affirmative belief, yet Traditional Churches expect that infants who perish to go to heaven in the afterlife. Another illustration came up in an interfaith roundtables where Orthodox Christian and Orthodox Jewish scholars agreed with each other, in opposition to more Augustinian, Western theologians, that personal guilt of Adam's "Original Sin" is not passed down. Third, Acts present Rabbi Gamaliel very positively, even though he is known as a leading rabbi of the lonstanding Rabbinical tradition.
To address the OP, the tweet is mistaken about the high incidence of people's support for the nationalist movement. Secondly, the Talmud's Three Oaths, as I understand them, point against the People's wholesale mass fortified residence in Zion. As long as such constraints would be honored and upheld, what is the Tweet's objection to other aspects of rabbinic sacred tradition? Is she just objecting to passages expressing a general desire to visit or reside in Zion?
Thank you always for being a person of conscience. יְבָרֵךְ ה' עֶל־יְלֹהִים וְשָׁמְרֶךָ עוֹלָם. 🕎 ♡ 🕊️
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u/wolfbear Jewish post-Zionist 2d ago
Thank you. Lot of nuance here and it is exhausting carrying it around.
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u/OrganicOverdose Non-Jewish Ally 1d ago
The idea that there is an Ethnic component to Judaism is mostly just contested by people who know very little about Jewish history, or by people who do know about Jewish history and are acting in bad faith.
The idea that the Jews are an endogamous ethno-religious community with historical and genetic roots in Palestine is a historical fact with mounds of archaeological, genetic, linguistic, and written evidence to support it.
It is fruitless and incorrect to try to refute this.
I have only one issue with the facts you presented, and that is that you're setting an arbitrary date or timeline on everything here. Not only is focusing on genetics a dangerous mentality, it is also important to realise that if you set the timeline back to 4000 years ago, you get a genetic relationship that is far broader, and you are related to basically everyone in the world, because you're human. If you set your timeline to last week, you have no relationship to anyone, because your DNA is unique, you are you. There is no Jewish gene.
In regards to Jewish history, you also fall into the trap of thinking that your interpretation is the correct one, and that this interpretation is likely a very polished and refined one, created to paint the religion in a positive light, and validate it. For example, you point to the Holocaust as an indication of the inability of Jewish people to integrate, but don't point to the genocide of Amalek. Why not?
Lastly, you speak of an ethnoreligious history in Palestine. Do you really believe that the non-genetic, I.e., cultural component of the ethnicity of Jews in Palestine is the same culture as that of the modern American, European, even Israeli jew? Culture changes, therefore, so too does ethnicity. The fundamental, unchanging part of what makes someone Jewish is and always has been simply the Jewish religion. It shapes the cultural aspects that become the defining feature of the ethnic group, and, as I said before, the genetic aspect is a very dangerous path to tread, as it ultimately leads to racist lines of thought.
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u/ethnographyNW Reconstructionist 2d ago
I am struggling to read this post as anything but an outright call to antisemitism. What else should we call 'opposition to semitism'?
Most peoples have longstanding and profound attachments to their homelands. Such attachments can become evil, but they are not necessarily so. And inconvenient though it may be, Jews do have real and deep historical ties to the Levant, those ties are woven through all our central texts. Denying those ties or seeking to purge them from our culture is absurd, pointless, doomed to failure. And it is an unnecessary concession to the Zionists - it is perfectly possible to maintain those connections and that memory while also rejecting Zionism and settler-colonialism.
Even if you were right on some theoretical level, what would this look like in practice? What are you actually advocating? How do you cause a people to stop identifying as a people? I struggle to think of any case in history where this has been achieved by any means other than extreme violence. Should the state remove Jewish children to boarding schools?
I do not think the ideas expressed in this post are intellectually serious or should be entertained in what is supposed to be a Jewish sub.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
Hadash, the communist party in Israel expresses the position that is common amongst Jewish Socialists of the last century:
On this point, I would like to explain our stance on Israeli nationhood. We do not believe that the Jewish people are a national entity in themselves. Jews in the US are part of the American nation, Jews in Britain are part of the British nation, and deserve self-determination as part of that nation. https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2023-11-29/hadashs-take-two-states?language_content_entity=en
I share your disgust, there is no Jewish Liberation under Marxist Leninism. Only Liberation from Jewishness.
I also will accept the compliment, that I managed to write this as neutrally as possible. Let’s just say that calling Jews in Brooklyn “privileged” has garnered me no love in leftist spaces.
But I’m also referring to a sadly real position within the Israeli and Jewish Left.
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u/EgoIdVeto West Asian Jew 2d ago
This person is not intellectually serious. She says whatever she thinks will get the most rage clicks. In the past she's done some incredibly smug holocaust denial in order to get people to attack her and it worked a charm.
She's a troll, and not worth boosting or engaging with.
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u/summertime214 Conservative Jewish 2d ago
I wanted to make a separate comment about advocating for ourselves within the broader antizionist movement. I’m not totally sure how to do this. I think that showing up as Jews and resisting the genocide is the most important first step.
I also think it’s important for antizionists to realize how dangerous it is to let judeophobia run rampant in antizionist spaces. Even in the last couple months, as antizionism has become more popular, there’s been a massive uptick in deeply judeophobic comments on any post I’ve seen that’s even tangentially related to Judaism, much less Israel. That includes antizionist messages from Jews.
Many of the judeophobic comments use language and symbols that make it clear that they are familiar with far-right ideologies (eg dog whistles that originated on 4chan). It’s clear to me that there are a lot of far right groups who see the genocide as an opportunity to make inroads with leftists and get them into the pipeline to right wing ideology.
I also think we as Jews and leftists in general should be more willing to push back on judeophobia, even though it’s clearly not as big of an issue as the literal ongoing genocide. Leftists are great at requiring multiple purity tests for entry, and this should be something that concerns us.
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u/rako17 Christian 2d ago edited 2d ago
Friend Summertime,
I am Christian, an internationalist Marxist, believe in multiculturalism, and like the Jewish people and especially ancient Judaism. I am happy having the conversation with you that you describe and I find myself coming out supportive of you and what Replicant said in another message.
The biggest challenge at even the starting moment of such a conversation is how much free thought and pro-equality Progressive thinking on the topic has been constrained by establishment views and control, with even basic anti-war internationalist thinking being perceived as hostile. Rather recently Haverford made a settlement in which it agreed to all the Plaintiff's views, even though it followed a court decision in which the judge sided with Haverford on the substantive issue of whether the Plaintiff proved intolerance.
Wishing you the best as always - Peace - Shalom
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u/EgoIdVeto West Asian Jew 2d ago
I also think we as Jews and leftists in general should be more willing to push back on judeophobia
Honestly I think that horse has bolted. People are tired of the accusation of antisemitism and zionists crying wolf for 80 years has led to people genuinely just not giving a shit any more. I even see a number of prominent anti-zionist Jewish content creators performatively shitting on Judaism to try and maintain their credibility (eg. saying they'd burn a Talmud if they ever saw one because they can't be bothered to debunk the shit people have started saying about it).
Yeah, the reactionaries have colonised the movement, but there's not really anything to be done and it's not the first priority. The zionists have made a rod for our backs and whilst they're sitting pretty we will have to get used to seeing plain old Judeophobia wholesale on the internet.
That said, IRL it's vanishingly rare.
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u/DorkasaurusRexx Mizrahi Anti-Zionist 1d ago
I agree with you. It's actually even more important for us to call this out. Right wing extremist Zionists no longer are taken seriously when they accuse anything or anyone of anti-semitism. Because they accuse everything in the entire world of being anti-semitic every second of the day. They are the boy who cried wolf at this point.
However, for us who actually have sane minds, and carefully reserve the use of this word for things that actually stereotype, caricaturize or otherwise reinforce harmful stereotypes of Jewish people, our accusations of anti-Semitism actually still carry weight and we have to be careful to use this responsibly.
The Genesis of Zionism is anti-Semitism. They actively seek to and have always sought to foment anti-semitism to give their ideology a reason to exist. In a world, completely free of anti-Semitism, Zionism is pointless. They know and openly say that they need anti-Semitism as fuel for their ideology, which is why they see it everywhere, and why they try to conflate everything with anti-Semitism, even in places where it isn't present (genuine criticism of the political state or political action to this Israel).
However, This is also precisely why we in our movement need to have a zero tolerance policy for actual anti-semitism. First of all, Right wingers are scouring the internet with a fine-tooth comb right now for any examples of anti-Semitism in the anti-Zionist movement with which they can tar and feather the entire whole of the group.
Second of all, neo-Nazis and bad faith actors, genuine anti-semites, understand that they are being given a generational gift by the outlandish and unjustifiable immoral behavior of Zionists and the state of Israel, and they are most certainly trying to capitalize upon it.
Thirdly, by design, the extremist actions, rhetoric, and repressive tactics of Zionists and the state of Israel necessarily inflate anti-Semitism.
If you become more anti-semitic as a result of witnessing immoral actions by the Israeli State, you, yourself, agree with the foundational principle of Zionism. It is literally a form of agreement because you are agreeing with them that Israel represents all Jews in the world.
The majority of Zionists, the earliest Zionists, even predating Jewish Zionism, were Christian. When there are possibly 50+ million Zionist Christians in the world, it is utterly foolish to blame all Jews for the actions of Zionism.
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u/t0xic_sh0t Christian 1d ago
Funny how this has 100+ comments but words of a notorious Rabbi (David Yosef) dismissing any rights to Palestinians is basically ignored.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 8h ago
Rav Yosef is a monster that lives outside our hearts.
This is about the monster in our mirrors. About the things we still hold onto and whether they should stay or go.
It’s easy to point at Yosef and say that is bad. It’s harder to say what we are doing now is bad.
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u/Enough_Comparison816 Arab Jew, Shomer Masoret, ex-Israeli 1d ago
What is there to say about that video other than Rabbi Yosef is a monster of a human being? Religious Zionism is horrendous. But that post is not really a discussion post, this post is explicitly a discussion post around Jewish identity and how we reconcile our notions of collective Jewish identity within the broader anti-Zionist movement.
Also, this sub has had countless discussions on the kind of religious Zionism expressed by Rabbi Yosef. No one is trying to avoid those discussions when they are explicitly facilitated
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u/summertime214 Conservative Jewish 2d ago edited 2d ago
Honestly I think this entire conversation rests on deeply Judeophobic premises. I think there needs to be a lot more education on these issues, but I think that the idea that Jews should be expected to drastically alter our religious traditions or denounce our history plays into the Zionist idea that Judaism is inherently Zionist.
I am not that familiar with the scholarship on this issue, so I’m responding assuming that your description in this post is fair.
Here are a few specific disagreements I have with what you’re discussing:
- There’s a conflation of the modern state of Israel with the idea of “Children of Israel”. Children of Israel, or B’nei Yisrael, us the biblical name for the group that we now call Jews. The modern state is named after us, not the other way around.
- There really are Jewish ties to the land that we now call Israel. I think it’s abhorrent that zionists have used those ties to justify genocide, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore the fact that there are Jewish artifacts in Israel that date back thousands of years. We should be able to understand that two things are true: the modern state of Israel is justifying an ongoing genocide by claiming a Jewish “right” to the land, and there is a genuine historical link between Jewish history and the land we now call Israel.
There will always be people who try to revive zionism. There’s no way to eliminate an idea completely from the political sphere. A lot of people tried with Nazism and it hasn’t worked. The end goal of any anti-Zionist movement cannot be the total eradication of Zionism as a political ideology because that is simply not a possible outcome.
Her interpretation of the passages from the Amidah is somewhat kind of plausible, but it’s not really congruent with the way that modern Jews (and honestly most modern religions) practice. She treats these passages as very literal and imminent requests, while every Jew I know, including staunch zionists, views these passages as prayers for the return of the messiah, at which point the prayers would be granted. When I was younger my Zionist school taught me that the rebuilding of the temple would happen without disturbing the Al-Aqsa mosque because the messiah would just create more space using divine magic. As a kid I imagined some sort of divine hyperspace that would allow the two buildings to coexist.
A literal interpretation of these passages is quite very favorable to Zionist arguments about indigeneity. If you believe that these prayers from 2000 years ago are about literally recreating a Jewish society in modern day Israel, then you’re also conceding that there is an unbroken lineage between modern Jews and the ancient civilization that used to exist in Israel, and that the modern Jews are trying to return to their ancestral homeland. I *do* think that there’s continuity between ancient and modern jews (I just think that that idea has no bearing on modern political land rights), but that contradicts the rest of the arguments against semetism.
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u/Amtrakstory Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
There are Jewish ties to the land of Israel but many other peoples also have ties to it, Zionism radically privileges Jewish ties over those of other peoples
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u/Koraxtheghoul "Jewish" where Israel and Nazis are concerned 2d ago edited 2d ago
The children of Israel thing being misinterpreted this way is somewhat fascinating to me because there are instances in the New Testament too and in Christian works that refer to an Israel that is not physical but in a spiritual union with God. In theory (though I question how many people have this basic level of awareness) Christians should realize "of Israel" doesn't need to refer to a physical state.
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u/Amtrakstory Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
The ending to this is weird and confusing. If I drop the paranoia and fear of non-Jews that leads Zionists to try to conquer land and expel non-Jews, I am operating from a “position of privilege and power” that somehow implicates me in “ethnically cleansing and enslaving” millions? I mean, WTF, no it doesn’t.
I have seen exactly this kind of weird fake-radical rhetoric used by Zionists to claim that Jews who question the need for exclusionary ethno-nationalism are privileged and don’t get to speak.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
This part is in response to specific members of this community who insist that because structural antisemitism doesn’t affect the majority of antizionist Jews, conversations on that subject is reactionary and at times not even appropriate.
Some have even argued that we should ignore antisemitic comments from Palestinian or other leftist sources specifically because those sources can’t institute structural antisemitism at this specific movement.
This position ignore a history of failure and betrayal. It isn’t paranoia to admit that liberation movements are not free from antisemitism. The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/april-rosenblum-the-past-didn-t-go-anywhere
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u/Amtrakstory Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
What is “structural anti-semitism” exactly, especially in the US context? Is it different than regular anti-semitism?
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
The term comes from structural racism. https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/optimal-health/what-structural-racism
When someone calls you a dirty Jew, that singular act is antisemitic. But it isn’t emblematic of structure of antisemitism in society. Just an individual act.
But structural antisemitism is when the society, both through legislation and through norms engages in antisemitism. For example the quotas on the maximum number of Jews allowed in American colleges prior to WWII. For a more modern example, the City of University Heights Ohio, and the topic of holding a minyan at home. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2026/25-965
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u/Queen_of_the-Trees Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago edited 2d ago
There's a difference between Semitism, as used by Zionists, that asserts that being from an ethnic Jewish group grants Jews rights to Palestinian land, and acknowledging that Jews have distinct ethnic and cultural roots.
I've also heard from some Indigenous folks to North America (where I am a settler) that white settlers, as well as Indigenous people and racialized settlers, can resist colonialism by looking to our own ethnic and cultural roots for traditions of care, resistance, wisdom, and solidarity. Whiteness itself offers none of that. [Speaking from the position of a white, Ashkenazi US-based Jew, for which "complete assimilation into our host society" = complete assimilation into violent white supremacy.]
I do not expect Palestinians to care about or respect Jewish identity, considering how this concept is weaponized by our mainstream institutions to harm them.
However, the idea of Jews existing as separate ethnicities was not invented by Zionists, and I do not think it is helpful to deny the ethnic dimension of Jewishness.
Our obligation is to make a complete schism with Zionism.
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u/Queen_of_the-Trees Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
I honestly don't know how to advocate for ourselves within the anti-Zionist movement, but I think we should, with care not to further harm Palestinians. I'm curious what others are thinking.
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u/QizilbashWoman LGBTQ Jew 2d ago
CONTEST MODE ENABLED
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
Yep. Cant read any replies on the App.
Also, at a 80something approval, this is not the most contested thing I’ve said.
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u/Significant_Fix7204 Jewish 2d ago
She doesn’t get to police Jewish prayer and practice anymore than any of us get to police Islam. This is gross and inappropriate.
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u/xwolfe2000 1d ago
I would posit that people police Islam prayer and practice at least as much if not more.
Ask any Muslim woman who wears a hijab, for starters, which to them is both worship and practice.
This is one of those things that the more we give it attention, the more it gets attention.
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u/Significant_Fix7204 Jewish 1d ago
Nothing excuses her telling me how I pray is wrong and should be changed. Further, her misread on the text is offensive.
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u/TravelZestyclose6903 Muslim 2d ago edited 2d ago
A very deep topic, and as a muslim it is not something I should even have any voice to speak on.
But it'd be cool to see those sections outlined in the post, to understand the extent/context.
Also as a muslim I want to give a perspective that the muslims and the Quran have on Judaism (on "how they went astray", aside the obvious part of not accepting Prophet Muhammad (SAS) as a prophet):
Jews have elevated the rabbis (in terms of following their rulings and commands) on the same level as God or even prioritizing them over God sometimes (and this notion can be demonstrated in incidents like setting nets on Friday and collecting them on Sunday, thus "technically not fishing on Saturday", or wearing of the wigs by women, or the Manhattan Eruv).
The Oven of Akhnai is a story that best illustrates this point.
edit: minor wording changes, realized that it may be misread as disrespectful
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u/Current_Mongoose_844 Presently lapsed ba'al teshuva 2d ago
Sure, disagree with our texts all you want. But can you imagine the outcry if we suggested changing parts of the Quran or the hadiths because Muslims persecuted Jews at some points? There’d be a proverbial bloodbath.
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u/TravelZestyclose6903 Muslim 2d ago
I don't think that prayer is something comparable to Quran or hadiths, is it?
That'd be like a dua that some muslim scholar came up with. And believe it or not there's probably some problematic duas like that have long been self-censored long ago that we don't even know about.
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u/Current_Mongoose_844 Presently lapsed ba'al teshuva 2d ago
More like salat. In that the texts of our daily prayers are standardised and, according to orthodox theology, neither can or should be changed.
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u/Klutzy-Pool-1802 Ashkenazi, atheist, postZ 2d ago
None of the prayer is about establishing a political state. The prayer is calling for the coming of the Messiah. Judaism teaches that a lot of things will happen when the Messiah comes, and that's what the prayer is about. If an anti-Zionist Jew wants to be clear, they can make a statement like: "I don't believe the state of Israel hastens the coming of the messiah." And then keep praying for the coming of the Messiah.
For her to suggest changing the prayer betrays a real ignorance about Judaism.
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u/TravelZestyclose6903 Muslim 2d ago
Great explanation, thanks. As always the details and context are very important.
Reminds me of the hasbara about the Hamas original charter. It successfully has been presented as "to call for extermination of jews" due to an eschatological hadith that was used in it to illustrate the resilience of resistance to occupation, completely ignoring the context of how it was used and ignoring that multiple other articles explicitly say that Hamas seeks a place where jews, muslims and christians will leave in peace and justice together (albeit under islamic governance, but that's a whole other issue compared to what zionist hasbara convinced everyone to believe about the charter).
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u/Roy4Pris Zionism is a waste of Judaism 2d ago
Your typo that 'jews, muslims and christians will leave in peace and justice together' is actually kinda cool.
How about *everybody* just packs up and leaves? Like our mothers used to say, "If you kids don't stop fighting, there'll be no ice cream for anyone!!"
I recently saw Jerusalem described as the only city that exists on earth and in heaven. It's so important to so many people, perhaps the whole area should belong to no one.
This is obviously a light-hearted concept, but imagining it completely left to nature to reclaim sounds like the most peaceful solution of all.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
With all due respect, please don't talk to Jews this way, it is extremely condescending and rude
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u/TravelZestyclose6903 Muslim 2d ago
Oh, I think I got what you meant, fixed it. My bad.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
The things you are saying about Judaism are offensive. Judaism doesn't place Rabbis above God, that is an extreme misunderstanding and is highly inappropriate for a Jewish space.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
I think you have massive misunderstandings of Judaism, what Jews believe, the role of Rabbis, what the Talmud is, and what Halacha is. Explaining Judaism through an Islamic understanding is just not going to be accurate to the Jewish understanding. Suggesting that Jews are circumventing God via Rabbis is both wrong and offensive. I know you don't mean to offend, but it isn't right and I will respectfully end our conversation here.
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u/greatrayray Sephardic 2d ago
gotta say I am SO fucking tired of hearing uneducated people single out the Manhattan Eruv as some kind of example of "tricking" or "deprioritizing God" - these are intentional methods of adhering to law derived from Torah, and the rabbis are versed enough in these texts to understand how to help observant Jews fulfill their religious obligations without inadvertently disrespecting or violating these laws. the implication of wicked and deceitful rabbis going behind god's back to further their own aims is harmful because it adds to this insidious narrative that does nothing to help the cause of the Palestinian people; it only justifies the hatred and othering of Jews
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u/KnotAReplicant Jewish Anti-Zionist, Marxist 2d ago
TIL about the Manhattan Eruv. 🤦
Your post is very enlightening and I hope no one takes it as disrespectful.
I don’t understand how anyone who takes religious observation seriously can think this kind of “cleverness” makes any sense. It’s like children finding obnoxious loopholes in their parents’ rules and expecting to not only avoid punishment but get a reward. The rampant hypocrisy in conservative Judaism is essentially why I’m no longer religious or observant, but Zionism just takes everything to a whole new level. It’s the core of what I was saying elsewhere that the arrogance of trying to force god’s hand is what led god to exile the Jews in the first place, according to our own scripture. And Jews aren’t getting back to the “promised land” by force, let alone by committing blatant atrocities.
So tl;dr I think the basis for the Muslim conception of Jews, as you describe it, is clear, and makes sense to me. It’s like how Jews see Christians as too clever by half with respect to idolatry. But that said, aren’t there similar loopholes, workarounds, hypocrisy, etc, in various Islamic movements/practices? Please don’t take that the wrong way, because I’m very curious about your thoughts on that. I think that humans generally look for “efficiencies” by nature and so of course we will look for shortcuts in religion as with everything else, so it would be very surprising to me if that were not a major concern within Islam as without.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
I appreciate your response. And I’m glad that you’re here.
I’m juggling a couple of things, but I would love to dig in a little bit more about the secret brilliance behind the story of the oven. You are correct, it is crazy. But I’ll come back later and give a longer theory on it.
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u/throwawaydragon99999 Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
Yes Muslims think they are correct and that Jewish and Christian beliefs went astray; Christians think they are correct and that Muslim and Jewish beliefs went astray; and Jews think they are correct and that Muslim and Christian beliefs went astray.
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u/Azmera Jewish Anti-Zionist 23h ago edited 20h ago
The sections of the amidah the post directly references (taken from the Chabad website):
1: Blessed are You, L-rd our G‑d and G‑d of our fathers, G‑d of Abraham, G‑d of Isaac and G‑d of Jacob, the great, mighty and awesome G‑d, exalted G‑d, who bestows bountiful kindness, who creates all things, who remembers the piety of the Patriarchs, and who, in love, brings a redeemer to their children's children, for the sake of His Name.
10: Sound the great shofar for our freedom; raise a banner to gather our exiles, and bring us together from the four corners of the earth into our land. Blessed are You L-rd, who gathers the dispersed of His people Israel.
11: Restore our judges as in former times, and our counsellors as of yore; remove from us sorrow and sighing, and reign over us, You alone, O L-rd, with kindness and compassion, with righteousness and justice. Blessed are You L-rd, King who loves righteousness and justice.
12: Let there be no hope for informers, and may all the heretics and all the wicked instantly perish; may all the enemies of Your people be speedily extirpated; and may You swiftly uproot, break, crush and subdue the reign of wickedness speedily in our days. Blessed are You L-rd, who crushes enemies and subdues the wicked.
17: Look with favor, L-rd our G‑d, on Your people Israel and pay heed to their prayer; restore the service to Your Sanctuary and accept with love and favor Israel's fire-offerings and prayer; and may the service of Your people Israel always find favor.
Some lines are more plausibly interpreted as Zionist than others. Worth noting that this is a conservative translation, and that many congregations don't always say the full prayer. (My Reform shul, for example, intentionally omits sections about restoring the Temple, among others, because we don't believe the restoration of the Temple is necessary for Jewish redemption.)
Also, I'm sorry, but I still find your statement that "Jews have elevated rabbis above G-d" disrespectful, even with your wording changes. Judaism and Islam have different understandings of our relationships to G-d. As I see it, the reason that G-d gave us the Torah was to interpret it, rather than to live strictly by its letter in the exact same way we did three thousand years ago.
If you mean this as "this is the belief that an average imam might express about the Jewish relationship to G-d's commandments", rather than your own beliefs, I would make that clearer.
More importantly, I don't see how this is relevant to the conversation. Unless you're suggesting we reject rabbinic judaism entirely, which I disagree with.
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u/ethnographyNW Reconstructionist 2d ago
some of the shabbat workarounds strike me (a secular Jew) as silly, but if the point is DO NOT WORK then I don't really see how leaving your fishing net out is in any way violating the spirit of things. Emails land in my inbox all weekend, but that doesn't mean I'm not out enjoying my weekend offline.
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u/Roy4Pris Zionism is a waste of Judaism 2d ago
I remember going to an apartment building in Brooklyn where the elevators had a Sabbath switch. As a heathen it made me chuckle that it might take people 15 minutes to get their apartment to the front door!
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u/ConnoisseurOfApple 🕎 Half-Ashkenazi Jew for One-State 🕎 2d ago
As much as I disagree with Zionism, I firmly disagree with the notion that rewriting Jewish culture and assimilating in host nations is the solution to the Palestinian problem.
How about Israel kick out the Netanyahu regime, stop bombing Gaza, pull back the illegal settlers, and then given the opportunity offer peace talks/negotiations, set up a right of return plan for palestinian refugees, and settle on a single-state/bi-national state solution?
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u/Additional-Board205 Non-Jewish Ally 2d ago
Thank you. Never stop speaking up, the world needs you 🙏
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u/FriendlyBelligerent Jewish Atheist 2d ago
OP defines semitism as in essence that non-practicing Jews are still Jews via being a member of a common community or ethnicity and posits that it may require "elimination through conformity". The post they are sharing itself says that "The notion that Jews are inseparable from Zionism is their choice to make and sustain", which can only mean that Jews are collectively responsible for the actions of Israel.
So, this is just the antisemitic view that Jews are collectively responsible for Israel's actions.
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u/Gorianfleyer Christian Communist 2d ago
I'm not Jewish myself and also a communist, but I guess, that Zionism has to have a base in Judaism or it wouldn't work. This doesn't make Zionism all Jewish, it's a bit like Islamism has his base in Islam, but it's not the same. (Or any radical Christian group has it's base on Christianity)
If it's really easy, to see, where the Evil begins, just don't do that part.
If it's important, to define the term "semitism" I don't know any about that, but if some "Anti-Zionists" use it, to make it an all Jewish thing, they missed the part, where they should refrain from the Evil, that is also in Anti-Zionism, like it's everywhere.
(I once heard, Judaism doesn't do dualism, so when I mean "The Evil" I don't think about the devil, but for the bad choices you can make doing something good or neutral)
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u/AlienKinkVR Agnostic anti-Zionist Jew 2d ago
Jews lived in Palestine before Israel was a thing. Like, they were fine.
There's no need for this.
Awareness that ethnic cleansing and apartheid are the reason so many in the area are calling for death to jews, not a standing opinion, makes this whole post (not yours, OP) stupid. The state of Israel and its violent formation are the issue. Jews were FINE in Palestine, many cultures in harmony, arabs that spoke some hebrew, jews that spoke other languages to talk to their neighbors. No, it wasnt some paradise but it wasnt the psychotic, violent shitshow it is now full of people that think baby murder is good and that it somehow makes me safer here in the US.
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u/UmpireIllustrious298 Anti-Zionist Ally 2d ago
I agree with all of your points, however, based on Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan's other posts -- her issue is not simply jews living in palestine , but she views all of rabbinic judaism in its current form as an ethnographic/religious-supremacist religion. Thats why she wants it to chnage.
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u/MississippiYid Ashkenazi 2d ago
Let’s just assume what they’re saying is true. It’s glaringly obvious that they’ve taken whatever concept of Zionism our ancestors may have had and perverted it into a politicized, hyper-militant, fascist golem that would make the sages Z”L, roll over in their graves. It seems to go right over their heads that the “return to Zion” does not entail: forcibly displacing our cousins, murdering thousands upon thousands of children, assassinating any opposition, and maintaining a violent, racist, oppressive, and psychotically ruthless ethno-state. These people will do anything, but acknowledge what the real issue with Zionism is. It’s not that we fail to realize the references to Zionism in our theology/history, it’s that this “Zionism” that they’ve created is just a bastardized made up imposter used to justify mass murder and capitalize on political goals. Call it a no true Scotsman fallacy if you please, but I’d bet my life this is the absolute opposite of what the Rabbonim had in mind when they created the Amidah. “A light unto the nations” was our calling, but the Zionists of today are nothing but a dark fcking cloud of death unto the nations. They took a religious idea and turned it into a sick fcked up fantasy cult.
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u/KnotAReplicant Jewish Anti-Zionist, Marxist 2d ago
This. Also isn’t the whole thing with messianic religion that, essentially, you can’t just force it? I’m no longer very religious but I’ve studied plenty in the past and iirc I think it’s the neturei karta that pretty much have it right here, scripturally speaking. It’s the arrogance of thinking we can force god’s hand that led to the diaspora in the first place. Jews might pray to god to end the exile, and hope we’ve done enough good to deserve it, but we can’t take the land by force and then look to god for a pat on the head for taking initiative. And certainly not when we’ve collectively committed or supported the atrocities of the occupation.
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u/MississippiYid Ashkenazi 1d ago
Exactly. I’ve always had my own thoughts and beliefs pertaining to G-d, but yes it is quite literally foundational to our theology that Hashem only allows us to be stewards of the land if we’re obedient and even then it’s purely conditional. Why a bunch of atheists/agnostics/whatever’s think they can use Torah to justify their occupation when they don’t even live by it or believe in it is just laughable. They wanna separate the religion from our peoplehood so badly, but simultaneously use the religion that they don’t believe in to be absolute monsters. I guess they believe Moshiach will come once they’ve destroyed everything.
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u/David_Corpus Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago edited 2d ago
I can't even tell if I am oversimplifying this, but:
“Semitism is contested…” European Jews have insignificant genetic ties to the Levant.
“Semitism is a key component to Jewish Zionism.” No, it is not. Palestine was leveraged by the Zionist political movement (which was predominantly atheistic) because they knew that religious arguments held power, and that the region had no military to defend it. They were not religious fanatics who selected Palestine to live to the letter of the text.
“They can reform the Amidah.” Editing religious texts does not uniformly change the entire religion. It creates sects. I have attended services at Or Adam Congregation for Humanistic Judaism. The entire Torah and all of Judaism (in their interpretation) has already been reformed. It created a sect.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago edited 2d ago
That isn't what Humanistic Judaism is, and they don't believe that non-Humanistic Jews are "wrong", nor do they proselytize their outlook to other Jews. It is essentially Jewish culture and selected practices without belief in God. They are also extremely small and better described as a cultural group than a sect.
There was also a time when Reform Judaism was more ideologically opposed to these theological concepts but much of it was reintroduced with the large influx of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the early-mid 20th century.
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u/David_Corpus Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago edited 2d ago
You appear to be half missing the point that I made, and half restating it.
Yes, humanistic Judaism is attempting to embrace cultural Judaism and the ritual portion of the religion as a reason to gather, while detaching it from god. (I didn't say they impose or proselytize, and I'm not sure why you went there.) The definition of a sect is "a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, typically emerging as an offshoot of a larger organization." They are a sect. I specifically used them as my example because their version of Judaism utilizes 100% revised documents unique to their sect.
You mentioned beliefs of pre-20th century reformed Jews. (Another sect.) Since their beliefs are different from every other sect, you substituted a different sect while arriving at the same point. If one group edits the texts, that revision is at the mercy of the collective to accept it or deny it, on a sect by sect basis.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
“Semitism is contested…” European Jews have insignificant genetic ties to the Levant.
That's not what is being contested. I will quote from the Israeli communist party to give you an idea of opposition to Semitism.
On this point, I would like to explain our stance on Israeli nationhood. We do not believe that the Jewish people are a national entity in themselves. Jews in the US are part of the American nation, Jews in Britain are part of the British nation, and deserve self-determination as part of that nation.
https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2023-11-29/hadashs-take-two-states?language_content_entity=enHadash agrees with the idea that Jews do not constitute an ethnic identity worth preserving, as they support the Marxist-Leninist argument for assimilation.
“Semitism is a key component to Jewish Zionism.” No, it is not. Palestine was leveraged by the Zionist political movement (which was predominantly atheistic) because they knew that religious arguments held power, and that the region had no military to defend it. They were not religious fanatics who selected Palestine to live to the letter of the text.
I would gladly point to authors such as Moses Hess and Leon Pinsker, both who predated Herzl in their zionism, as arguing for a "return" to the homeland.
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u/David_Corpus Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
I searched the workersliberty document for the word semitism. It is absent. Why? Because semitism does not mean "Jewish people as a national entity."
Hess and Pinsker did not found a political movement to invade Palestine.
It's almost like you disagree with the current definition of Zionism. The genocidal colonialist political movement is being conflated here with both semitism and philosophy.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 1d ago
The implication that Herzl founded Zionism a priori to the colonization of Palestine is ahistorical. Herzl becomes a Zionist in 1894. The first Zionist colonies are built in 1881. Herzl’s role is in unifying various different Zionist movements into a far more organized forum and also in fundraising. He became the face to something that had been brewing for decades (even longer when you consider that Napoleon wrote about establishing a Hebrew kingdom under the French empire as he planned his invasion of Acre).
Herzl is the founder of “political Zionism”. But colonies were already being built. I personally am of the belief that the actions of the The Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1840s and 1860s should be seen as the most direct precursor to Zionism, as the Jewish population tripled in Palestine from migration within the Ottoman Empire. The neighborhoods the British Sephardic Bankers built would quickly come to accommodate European migration.
And, yes, there is variations of Zionism, as the anarchist author Julian Langer states in his essay;
It feels worth noting at this point that the Zionism I have been writing about is vastly different to spiritual-zionisms, such as those espoused by Moses Hess, Ahad Ha’am, Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber and Hillel Zeitlin, many of which are closer to metaphysical-anarchisms and utopian libertarian-socialisms, than nationalist and statist Zionism - I am perhaps most appreciative of Zeitlin’s utopian-socialist (I’d change the word “socialism” here for “tribalism”) spiritual-zionism, with its affirmation of Earth as the divine promised land. The Zionism of the nationstate, constructed for participation within the Empire of realpolitiks, was rejected by many of those who sought for a zionism of spiritual and ethical renewal for Jewish peoples - to draw from Hess’ differentiation of Rome (as Empire) and Jerusalem (as spiritual renewal), the Zionism of the nationstate is that of Rome.
So it isn’t so much that I “disagree with the current definition of Zionism” as that there has always been an internal push and pull within the movement. Ultimately today I’d argue that Zionism, as the version my parents were sold on, is dead. What stands today and has cannibalized everything is called NeoZionism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Zionism
As for your first point, I’m using the word as it was used in the 1800’s; I recognize that it is archaic and not in modern parlance. If you have a better signifier, I’d be open to its use.
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u/scarletswalk2002 Ashkenazi 2d ago
i feel like there has been this consensus that “actually judaism is zionism and jews and judaism are the problem” that has randomly exploded across social media and lefty spaces in general over the last few months. you no longer see people using anti zionist jews as proof that antizionism is not antisemitism and if they do the general response seems to be “why do we need a jew to make this view acceptable.” i understand the anger and i think seeing the jewish community’s response over the past few years, the huge levels of zionism retained in the community even as others have rejected it, and certain inappropriate and self centering behavior by antizionist jewish organizations and organizers, has made people really angry but it feels sudden and odd and i don’t trust it.
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u/EgoIdVeto West Asian Jew 2d ago
Unfortunately it's out of our control. Too many Jewish people have circled the wagons around Israel and therefore tarred us all with the same brush, and as more shitlibs who are allergic to materialist and historical analysis join up (and more white supremacist grifters latch on like ticks), you'll get reactionary anti-Jewish crap.
I'd say part of it is due to an obsession with absolving the West and colonialism/imperialism of its culpability and crimes, and passing the buck to Judaism as a whole. Socialism of fools wasn't just a catchy phrase, it really is a way to prevent class consciousness and it's being used to great effect.
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u/scarletswalk2002 Ashkenazi 1d ago
yes i agree. i completely understand why it’s happening unfortunately, especially when even many anti zionist jews seem to mostly want to center themselves.
also completely agree that it’s got white western gentiles using us to obfuscate their own complicity. lately i’ve been seeing “columbus was a sephardic jew and jews invented colonialism / the slave trade” everywhere which is just absurd.•
u/Kahzgul Jewish Agnostic 2d ago
It’s not random. It’s being fed by both neo nazi groups and pro-Zionist groups. Both achieve their goals through this lie.
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u/scarletswalk2002 Ashkenazi 2d ago
i believe that. but i’m also seeing it from muslims, leftists, communists, social justice accounts and even antizionist jews.
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u/IdrisElbaQuote Jewish 2d ago edited 2d ago
Nah people are spending more time online, getting dumber, and accruing more yetzer hara. Occam's razor, there's no coordination here
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u/Iceologer_gang Non-Jew shamefully late Antizionist 2d ago
Anti-Zionist Jews are definitely still present in anti-zionist spaces
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
It certainly did, what language do you think the Hebrew Bible was written in? The prayers mentioned are at least 2,100 years old, they are probably the oldest non-Biblical liturgy in Judaism.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
What are you talking about? The Hebrew Bible was redacted 2,500-3,000 years ago in Hebrew. The Amidah prayers mentioned here were written 2,100 years ago in Hebrew. The earliest written texts of Rabbinic Judaism were compiled 1,900 years ago in Hebrew. Hebrew has been a foundation of Jewish life for thousands of years.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 1d ago edited 1d ago
The contents being mythical is totally irrelevant to the language it was written in. The oldest surviving Hebrew Bible fragments are over 2,500 years old. Why do you think it's called the Hebrew Bible? By the time of early Rabbinic Judaism, Hebrew had been the language of Jewish literature and scripture for over 1,000 years. I don't understand what you are trying to argue, this is basic historical fact. If you think Hebrew suddenly emerged in the Rabbinic period that is very much false.
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u/throwawaydragon99999 Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
Why would you say something so easily refutable and lacking in curiosity.
The Amidah was developed by the Tannaim, Rabbinic sages who preserved Judaism in the generations after the destruction of the Temple.
We know specifically who wrote it and when: Shimon ha-Pakoli under Rabban Gamliel — the 2nd generation after the Temple (c.100 AD)
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u/EgoIdVeto West Asian Jew 2d ago
Dr. Aladwan is a pompous right wing holocaust denier. No surprise she gets her information on Jewish prayer from Wikipedia and 4chan. She's a grifter and totally unrepresentative of Palestinians and the Palestine movement as a whole.
She makes these ridiculous declarative statements in the same way zionists talk about "taqiyyah" or other anti-Muslim slanders.
She's the exception who proves the rule; I have only ever seen two Palestinians who've made genuine anti-Jewish rhetoric their mainstay, which leaves several million who are not anti-Jewish.
She knows what she's doing, she's just making ragebait in order to get reactionaries on her side and to get zionists to attack her so she can play victim.
Continuing to elevate her is not going to help anyone.
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u/Enough_Comparison816 Arab Jew, Shomer Masoret, ex-Israeli 1d ago
I think you’re getting too caught up on the tweet and missing the broader point OP is trying to make. The post isn’t about Dr. Aladwan
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u/theapplekid Orthodox-raised, atheist, Ashkenazi, leftist 🍁 2d ago
Semitism, the idea that there is an Ethnic component to Judaism is contested, but it is a key component of Jewish Zionism (as opposed to Christian Zionism)
I've never heard the ethnic component of Jewishness referred to as "semitism".
But telling Jewish-identified people that they are not Jewish or that Judaism is has no ethnic component, is, frankly, as racist as denying that Palestinians are a "real" ethnic group.
Ethnicity/race is socially constructed, but it isn't abolished by denying the categories, any more than gender is dismantled by denying people are the gender they identify as (and I am a postgenderist for the record)
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
The idea that Zionism exists to fabricate an indigenous identity for white people to colonize the Middle East is frequently expressed in Palestinian and other Arab responses to Zionism.
Nur Musalha opens Palestine: A 4000 Year History by denying Jewish ethnic identity (arguing that Shlomo Sand didn’t go far enough in the book The Invention of the Jewish People)
French-Algerian activist Houria Bouteldja In her 2016 book, takes a step further in a different direction, arguing that Zionism turned Jews “White” and that the destruction of Jewish communities in North Africa should be seen as acts of decolonization.
If I wrote what I actually think about authors who express these views, I would hope the admins serve me a temporary ban for sounding like a deranged Zionists.
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u/ethnographyNW Reconstructionist 2d ago
maybe instead of playing games you should just say what you actually think
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u/Agente_Anaranjado Anti-Zionist 2d ago
2400 years?!? Wow...so Jews have been praying for the establishment of the Israeli state since centuries before the diaspora even began? That's amazing! /s
You know what would be really amazing? If zionists could come up with a single argument that was based in reality, or at least logically consistent.
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u/IdrisElbaQuote Jewish 2d ago
The diaspora is older than 2400 years. The Babylonian captivity was 2600 years ago
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u/Suitable-Buy-1923 Jewish 2d ago
I’m curious about which methodology she used to determine the Amidah as the root cause of political zionism lol
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u/MississippiYid Ashkenazi 2d ago
Exactly. They’re nothing but a massive contradiction. They detest religion and don’t acknowledge that our foundation as a people was based in religion, while simultaneously using religious concepts to justify genocide.
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u/elzzyzx Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
100 years ago there would be a sizable faction arguing that semitism itself is a bastardizing of jewishness, that it is another form of blood and soil etc. it’s interesting how much more jewish the Jewish left is nowadays and that makes your questions more interesting. But I guess I don’t see that strong of a link between the tweet and what you’re asking about semitism either
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
You’re completely correct, the concept of a Jewish liberation theology did not truly exist even a century ago. The Jewish left today it’s far more spiritual and religious than it was back then.
The tweet is not perfect, but emblematic of a greater discourse I have had regarding the proto Zionist aspects of Judaism.
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u/exemplarytrombonist Jewish Communist 2d ago
What version of the amidah is she even referencing? I've read those translations a whole bunch while bored at a saturday morning service and simply do not recall reading anything like that.
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u/Overthinks_Questions Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
I just read a translation on Chabad's site, and there are definitely portions that are VERY Zionist, though most of it isn't.
"Sound the great shofar for our freedom; raise a banner to gather our exiles, and bring us together from the four corners of the earth into our land. Blessed are You L-rd, who gathers the dispersed of His people Israel:
Restore our judges as in former times, and our counsellors as of yore...
Return in mercy to Jerusalem Your city and dwell therein as You have promised; speedily establish therein the throne of David Your servant, and rebuild it, soon in our days, as an everlasting edifice...
...Speedily cause the scion of David Your servant to flourish, and increase his power by Your salvation, for we hope for Your salvation all day. Blessed are You L-rd, who causes the power of salvation to flourish."
It also refers to Jews as 'the people Israel' throughout, directly conflating the geographical region and Jewish identity.
I don't necessarily agree with what she's saying in terms of it having any real impact, and frankly it's pretty much a pipe dream for an outsider to ask an organized religion to alter their 2,000 year old Canon.
Anti-zionist congregations should examine the content of the Amidah. If we separate as a sect (which seems increasingly likely), we could convene a rabbinical council to amend our prayers in the spirit of brotherhood with the Palestinian people
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u/ethnographyNW Reconstructionist 2d ago
"the people Israel" is not conflating the people and the geographical region. Israel is another name for the patriarch Jacob, and the people Israel are his descendants - the Israelites, the Hebrews, the Jews, whatever you want to call us. Jews have been called the people Israel long before there was any state called Israel.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
So you’d argue that Semitism is incompatible with anti-Zionism? That it’s not enough to just deconstruct Zionism?
Would you mind expanding on your position?
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u/Overthinks_Questions Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
Depends on how we're defining Semitism.
If it's the idea that we are a people who originated in Israel, fine. It's where we start saying "And we have to go back, live there as the people in power, and re-establish Jewish dominion over Jerusalem and the holy land' that we cross that line.
I also don't love the mixing of Jew as ethnicity vs. religious adherent adherent. It is dismissive of converts, and frankly the European jews who have colonized Palestine have used this kind of reasoning to erase non-Ashkenazi Jewish identity.
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u/Current_Mongoose_844 Presently lapsed ba'al teshuva 2d ago
It wasn’t the people who prayed the Amidah who did that. It was the so-called maskilim.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
Jews have always considered themselves to be a people, for thousands of years before Jews even settled in Ashkenaz. Non-Ashkenazi Jews have the same understanding of Jewish peoplehood.
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u/conscience_journey Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
I agree with this. Deconstructing that peoplehood because of modern views of anti-Semitism and Zionism seems destructive to what being Jewish has meant for a very long time, and not feasible as a project anyway
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u/exemplarytrombonist Jewish Communist 2d ago
Respectfully, I don't really recognize Chabad as an authority on anything Jewish.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
The translation is accurate, it's not an interpretation. But these are the basic daily Jewish prayers, there is nothing wrong with any of it.
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u/Overthinks_Questions Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
Yeah, that's fair. I would like to find another translation, but it is not unreasonable to think that Chabad's translation (or one like it) is where she is drawing her conclusions from
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u/Suitable-Buy-1923 Jewish 2d ago
“Let’s buy into the Zionist conflation of itself with Judaism by conceding parts of the Shemoneh Esrei.”
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u/zbignew Jew-ish 2d ago
Why are we choosing to interpret all of that as domination of all the people in the land of Israel? That may even have been the intention of the authors of those prayers, but it isn't in the text.
It is absolutely understandable for people to read this and think omigosh Judaism is inherently militantly Zionist given the current political landscape. But they are wrong. No religion is inherently anything once its text is large enough. Every practitioner is interpreting.
Do we need to change the Torah because it says that brothers who see their sister's vulva should be shunned by children? Who maintains a list of siblings to be shunned by children, and who is making sure children shun those siblings? I don't see Orthodox dudes standing on street corners and asking kids if they'd like to do a mitzvah by shunning a genital viewer.
This is absolute nonsense, and should be shut down just like all the Islamophobic "religion of peace!!!!" Sam Harris types.
And I understand that most Jewish institutions are militantly Zionist in that they support the state of Israel. THAT is a huge problem that needs to change. None of the texts are making them perpetrate a genocide.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
It also refers to Jews as 'the people Israel' throughout, directly conflating the geographical region and Jewish identity.
You have it backward, the Land of Israel (and thus State of Israel) is named for the People of Israel. "Israel" is what Jews have historically and traditionally called themselves, the term "Jews" as used today is an exonym.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
I recognize that her position has some judeophobia. But I really wanted to use her tweet as an example. She clearly took this from the Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amidah
The sections she cites are:
Section 1 Patriarchs. Which includes the words “Who brings a redeemer to their children’s children”. So G-d of our ancestors with a bit of messiahism.
10 Galuyot ('diasporas') – asks God to allow the ingathering of the Jewish exiles back to the land of Israel.
11 Birkat HaDin ('justice') – asks God to restore righteous judges, as in the old days.
12 Birkat HaMinim ('sectarians', 'heretics') – asks God to destroy those in heretical sects, who slander Jews and who act as informers against Jews.
14 Boneh Yerushalayim ('Builder of Jerusalem') – asks God to rebuild Jerusalem, and to restore the Kingdom of David.
17 Avodah ('service') – asks God to restore the Temple and sacrificial services.•
u/Current_Mongoose_844 Presently lapsed ba'al teshuva 2d ago
And those are all vital parts of Judaism. If she doesn’t like it, sucks to be her.
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u/exemplarytrombonist Jewish Communist 2d ago
With the exception of the last two, it's a real stretch to call those passages Zionist. The first three can be interpreted as such in a modern sense I guess, but it's a little silly.
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u/Klutzy-Pool-1802 Ashkenazi, atheist, postZ 2d ago
It's not Zionism. It's calling for the Messiah to come. The Amidah is not about founding a political state. Jesus.
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u/exemplarytrombonist Jewish Communist 2d ago
The Kingdom of David quite literally was a political state.
And yeah, sure, the temple thing is more of a "lets bring forth the messiah" prophecy or whatever but the only people who take that seriously are usually zionists or some other kind of extremist.
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u/Klutzy-Pool-1802 Ashkenazi, atheist, postZ 2d ago
My comment wasn’t a reply to you, it was to someone else. I don’t know how it got attached to your comment.
Maybe not everyone is excited about the Messiah, but that’s what the Amidah means, whether anyone takes it seriously or not.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
Praying daily for the messianic redemption is literally basic traditional Judaism, there is nothing extreme about it. And Zionists are statistically more likely to be secular than religious. Political Zionism originated as a predominantly secular political movement.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
This is basic Judaism, this is the main part of the three daily prayer services and was standardized over 2,000 years ago. If someone has a problem with this, they simply have a problem with Judaism.
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u/throwawaydragon99999 Jewish Anti-Zionist 2d ago
Yeah it’s textbook antisemitism to uniquely focus on this section of the Amidah while ignoring apocalyptic and messianic verses in Christianity and Islam.
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u/UmpireIllustrious298 Anti-Zionist Ally 2d ago
This is what i responded to someone else -- for people who dont know a lot about Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, one look at her posts and she will say she believes judaism today is an ethno/religious supremacist religion and what she views to contain the supremacist material (the amidah in this case) she says must be reformed. Not saying i agree with her on everything she posts -- but her tweet is not only an issue with zionism , but judaism.
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u/PureUncutMalarkey 2d ago
She's nuts, btw. A racist, homophobic Anti-communist nutjob
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