# 253 / Editorial
A project, even one that has already been completed, must constantly be revisited, unless it is to be left to drift. Those who observe the current state of Israel, while understanding the significance of its existence for the Jewish people, cannot fail to be acutely aware of this. However, revisiting a project cannot be limited to a question of fidelity to its original ideal: generations follow one another, and each must appropriate, in the face of the challenges of the present, the meaning of what it continues. This week, we give the floor to a young voice, that of Alexandre Journo, who is engaged in this movement of critical renewal, without which yesterday’s achievements are doomed to fade away. For him, “staying a Zionist” means first and foremost diagnosing the inertia of the Jewish relationship with Israel, the difficulty in admitting the downward spiral in which this state has embarked, and recognizing that it is his responsibility. Drawing on his experience of transmitting Zionism in French community institutions, he highlights the risk of calcification and, ultimately, of the younger generations abandoning Zionism. “Staying”, in this sense, is not synonymous with immobility: it is more a matter of swimming against the tide in the hope that things will change.
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Echoing the conflicts over what it means to be a Zionist are those over the scope of the term antisemitism. Here too, the tension between historical inertia and generational renewal plays a decisive role. Italian historian Gadi Luzzatto Voghera proposes to tackle this issue head-on by introducing a new word: “J-Hate”. His initiative stems from the observation that 20th-century history overshadows our understanding of current manifestations of hatred toward Jews, preventing us from grasping their specificity. The aim is therefore, without denying what remains, to clear away our dusty categories in order to renew our relationship with contemporary issues. While it is doubtful that a new word is enough to put an end to the endless debates about what constitutes antisemitism, the aporetic nature of these debates clearly indicates the need to relaunch them with new developments.
From the drift of rhetoric on Jews to the drifting of Jews…“For years, I wandered abroad. Now I will roam in my home,” wrote Itzik Manger, the prince of the Yiddish poets, “the bird deprived of his nest,” describing his move to Israel at the end of the fifties. Macha Fogel, in our third article of the week, uses Itzik Manger as an illustration of the expressive power of Yiddish down to our own time.
