Anti-Zionism, Post-Zionism, Neo-Zionism, and Non-Zionism

The current crisis has seen a proliferation within the Jewish world of various stances—post-Zionism, neo-Zionism, anti-Zionism—that present themselves as ways out of, disengagements from, or transcendences of Zionism. The aim here is to analyze their presuppositions, effects, and unspoken assumptions, and to assess how these positions—far from resolving the contradictions of Zionism—shift or reframe the question of Jewish responsibility in the contemporary world.

A Post-Zionism Already Outdated, a Frightening Neo-Zionism

Two ideologies with very different political consequences have conceived of themselves as moving beyond Zionism, both stemming from a shared diagnosis that Zionism has run its course. These are post-Zionism and neo-Zionism. The former consists of acknowledging the establishment of Israel and, consequently, severing Israel’s ties to the diaspora in order to allow it to become a civic nation—a normal nation, at peace with its neighbors, freed from the lingering influence of the diaspora. The latter consists of reestablishing Zionism by setting a new horizon for it once the first has been achieved: that horizon is Judea and Samaria. Both, consciously or not, signify a divorce between Israel and the diaspora. Neo-Zionism fully embraces this and proposes to revise the right of return to restrict it to a strictly halachic interpretation, as if liberal Jews and patrilineal Jews were not also subject to antisemitism. In truth, this aspect of Zionism—the idea of a refuge state—matters little to them, and their Zionism is based more on a messianic vision, with the end of exile understood by them as the return to control of the land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) and not as the end of minority status. From their perspective, Jews who do not take the plunge into Aliyah deserve their fate; they are excluded from solidarity. The archetypal example of this mindset is the attitude of Diaspora Minister Amichai Shikli, who antagonizes every diaspora community he encounters and forges political alliances with the European and American far right. Messianic Zionism, or neo-Zionism, is what most obstructs Israel’s future, but it is relatively easy to dismiss intellectually. The option of post-Zionism deserves closer examination.

Moving beyond ambiguity and declaring the end of Zionism is too dangerous a gamble for the Jewish people. Doing so would sever the ties between the destinies of Israel and the diaspora. Admittedly, this ambiguity comes at a high price, as it complicates Israel’s secularization and the emergence of an open, civic Jewish-Israeli identity. But it allows for the preservation—at least in a latent state—of the unity of the Jewish people. If the fates of Israel and the Diaspora are disconnected, how then can Israel’s responsibility toward the Diaspora be justified? What common interests exist? Antisemitism persists; it is even emerging in the United States and Canada, and no longer confined to Western Europe and Argentina (elsewhere, there are no longer significant numbers of Jews): in this situation, Israel cannot abandon its responsibility toward the Diaspora. It is true that, as time passes and generations change, Israelis are forging a destiny separate from that of the Diaspora; their demographics no longer depend on Aliyah, and the sense of responsibility toward the Diaspora is fading. These Israelis may also criticize Diaspora Jews for not having chosen Aliyah: “The State of Israel definitively resolves the Jewish problem because its creation imposes an exclusive alternative: either Jews choose to remain citizens of their respective countries and fade into the background as Jews, or they join the State of Israel to become its citizens,” as Arthur Koestler essentially put it, as reported by Danny Trom (La France sans les Juifs). From the Israeli perspective, what responsibility should be assumed toward those who chose to remain citizens of their respective countries when they had the opportunity to become Israelis? Refusing to ask this question is, I believe, a failure of ahavat Yisrael. This failure is not always conscious, but it can become so. For example—among neo-Zionists this time—in Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party, which proposes to repeal the Law of Return out of contempt for American Jewry, which in their eyes is no longer truly Jewish.

As time and generations pass, Israelis are forging a destiny separate from that of the Diaspora; their demographics no longer rely on Aliyah, and the sense of responsibility toward the Diaspora is fading.

Another weakness of post-Zionism: Israel’s existence remains under threat, and its regional normalization is not yet fully secured. It may, of course, be difficult to put forward truly clear-cut arguments against post-Zionism, since its political consequences are essentially the same as those of left-wing Zionism (or “liberal” Zionism): to establish borders for Israel (yesh gvul, there is a border)—those of 1948, adjusted, and to consolidate a liberal democracy there, in order to finally normalize Jewish existence. But why must we start from the premise that Zionism is complete, and that we must therefore move beyond it to reach these political conclusions?

Moreover, one might ask what need there would be to set a border if Israeli civic identity is to replace Jewish national identity, if the blurring between these two identities is no longer to persist: a binational state—though the very word “binational” loses its meaning in this case—can function on these purely civic premises. The reason is quite simple: within the 1948 borders, Jewish identity is grounded in a robust demographic base and can become more flexible. This requires acknowledging it in the first place, rather than replacing it with a purely civic identity. In fact, Jewish identity is already more flexible in Israel. In 2022, 60% of immigrants were non-Jewish in the sense of leom¹, but they were indeed Jewish in the political sense, since 92% of immigration occurred through the mechanism of Aliyah²: this clearly shows that the signifier “Jewish” extends beyond its halachic scope in Israeli society.

Without Zionism, Israel remains like Captain Haddock’s Band-Aid

Another alternative to Zionism, this time within the Diaspora, is “Non-Zionism”—that is, indifference to Zionism. This is not anti-Zionism. This attitude toward Israel may be the diaspora’s mirror image of post-Zionism: since Israel disappoints them and intrudes on their Jewish life in the diaspora—by becoming increasingly mired in this century-old conflict, Israel becomes the justification for antisemitism in the diaspora—some claim to no longer have any ties to Israel.³ Here again—as in the post-Zionist perspective—Zionism is a chapter of history that has come to a close. The starting point for this attitude is a certain embarrassment—embarrassment at having a cousin who brings shame. Cornered by demands to take a stance on Israel, the Non-Zionist responds: “Don’t confuse Jews with Israelis; as a French Jew, I don’t have to take a position on Israel.” This attitude is more widespread than one might think. And it is entirely understandable: it acknowledges a sociological reality of Western Jews. Before arriving in France or the United States, Jews were never quite citizens of the countries where they resided, even if they had been established there for many generations. France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States seem to many to be definitive homelands. Even though Jews there are still the target of antisemitism, the prevailing view among non-Zionists is that they are no longer an oppressed minority there, but, on the contrary, a model minority. Since, in their eyes, it seems plausible that they can remain there—having found a country where it is good to be Jewish—they do not feel the need for Israel as a refuge. And since Israel is a source of shame to them, they sever that tie to Israel. This is a common attitude among left-wing Jewish groups in France—such as Golem—which make the fight against antisemitism here and now their sole focus and feign neutrality toward Israel. This desire to no longer be tied to Israel is obviously wishful thinking, and the focus of all attention within left-wing Jewish groups is indeed Israel and the war in Gaza—along with the simultaneous claim that they need not take a stance on Israel.

This attitude is, I believe, a moral dereliction of duty and a blatant lack of ahavat Israel—in the sense of love for the people of Israel, i.e. for the Jewry. This is what Scholem reproached Arendt for in a famous exchange: “A concept that is difficult to define and yet very concrete… Ahavat Israel, ‘love for the Jewish people’—in you, my dear Hannah, as in other intellectuals from the German left, I see no trace of it.” To better understand this abandonment, let us quote Joshua Leifer, in Tablets Shattered, who perfectly articulates its underlying motivations:

“I understand those who look at this situation and want nothing to do with it—who, in their rage, dream of dissolving the ties between their Jewishness and Israel. But for me and, I imagine, for many American Jews, this is not possible. And it would not be morally right even if it were. As opposed to the Jewish establishment’s complicity, on the one hand, and the diasporist and anti-Zionist impulse toward renunciation, on the other, I prefer the position of responsibility as a response to Israel’s actions. My humanism means that I am appalled by Israel’s carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip and mourn the lives of the Palestinians whom Israel has killed; my membership to the Jewish people, the plurality of whom now live in Israel, means that I am aggrieved by what my people have done.

But I cannot disavow our bounds of faith, language, and heritage. I will not renounce my belonging to our collectivity, nor will I adopt a pose of radical hard-heartedness toward the fate of Israeli Jews, as some on the American left have done. I do not chant “not in my name,” but prefer to accept that because Israel is increasingly home to most of the world’s Jews, I am, as a Jew, implicated in its crimes. I want to speak to my fellow Jews, to beseech them—if necessary, even to force them through sanctions or conditions imposed on future U.S. support—to pursue justice and seek peace, instead of occupation and endless war. Our fates are inextricably entangled, so it is my obligation. […]

But while an event of mundane history, the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state and the imminent return of most Jews to the Land of Israel nonetheless marks a significant turning point—a Wendepunkt, as German philosophers say—in the experience of the Jewish people. The ethical task of global Jewish life is now to make the modern experiment in Jewish sovereignty a just one. Neither the Jewish establishment nor the most radical left offers paths to meeting this challenge. The establishment’s willful blindness to Israel’s deeds is a form of moral abdication. Likewise, the pursuit of exculpation and clean hands through renunciation is to shirk our great collective responsibility.”

Non-Zionism, then, consists of wanting Israel to “leave the Jews in peace.” Not so much that Israel should make peace—that is a by-product—but that it should cease to interfere in our Jewish existence in the diaspora.

A more morally responsible attitude would be to embrace this connection—which is indeed an unchosen affiliation—with Israel, and to possibly express outrage at Israel’s misdeeds in the name of that connection. Because Israel does indeed represent Jewish existence —demographically, half of it—and since it adopts a suicidal and destructive stance, then our role as Jews is indeed to show positive solidarity with Israel, “to ensure that this modern experiment in Jewish sovereignty is just,” as Joshua Leifer further writes.

The error in Non-Zionism’s judgment lies in failing to recognize the role that Zionism and Israel play as a cultural crutch for Jewish identity once the secularization of Jewish life has begun.

Furthermore, without religious separatism, Non-Zionism has nothing positive to offer to ensure the continuity of Jewish life. It is a form of diasporism that recognizes no center: without denying Jewish existence in Israel, one can conceptually argue that it is of the same nature as Jewish existence elsewhere—that all Jewish existences are diasporas. But without binding religious content, it also lacks substance and seems destined to be abandoned through gradual assimilation into the societies to which Jews belong. The error in Non-Zionism’s judgment lies in failing to recognize the role that Zionism and Israel play as a cultural crutch for Jewish identity once the secularization of Jewish life has begun.

Anti-Zionism cherishes its own irresponsibility…

The final alternative stance to Zionism is, of course, anti-Zionism. This is perhaps the easiest to challenge. Unlike anti-Zionism, anti-Zionism is more consistent and does not deny the connection to Israel; it restores Israel as a central pillar of Jewish identity, but a purely negative one. Anti-Zionism is aware of Israel’s centrality to Jewish identity, of the fact that Israel concerns it, and it considers itself responsible for Israel’s destiny: which is why it explicitly rejects its national ideology, Zionism. Anti-Zionism offers criticisms of Zionism—sometimes well-founded—regarding the reality of its implementation and the continuation of the occupation. However, these criticisms do not need to be anti-Zionist to be relevant; they can also be formulated from a Zionist perspective.

Anti-Zionism consists of cherishing total irresponsibility in order to consolidate a moral comfort, an innocence that goes hand in hand with powerlessness.

Anti-Zionism clearly recognizes that the exercise of Jewish sovereignty is not without injustice; the solution it proposes—whether it be a binational state or no solution at all (Israel should never have existed—and then what?!)—consists of rejecting outright the very possibility of Jewish sovereignty. The most prominent French anti-Zionist group has chosen the name Tsedek!, in reference to the verse in Deuteronomy: “Justice, and only justice, shall you pursue, so that you may dwell in the land that the Lord your God is giving you”⁴; by appointing judges there, the following verse adds. In their anti-Zionist interpretation of this verse, if one does not take possession of the land with justice, then one commits a sin. What solution do they propose? Not to take possession of the land. That is to say, not to fulfill the positive commandment to take possession of it with justice. Anti-Zionism consists of cherishing total irresponsibility in order to consolidate a sense of moral comfort. Since Jews are no longer quite outcasts—at least not as much as they were during the pogroms of Tsarist Russia—they must cherish what that former outcast status conferred upon them—and still confers upon them today by proxy—: a moral high ground, an innocence that goes hand in hand with powerlessness. In The Liberation of the Jew, Albert Memmi wrote:

“And when for the first time I witnessed a bullfight, I was annoyed at my disgust, my desire to vomit, my moral distress before the obvious collective satisfaction of the most evil, the most aggressive instincts of humanity. How tempting it was to say, once again, that we, the Jews, had gone beyond all that, on the long path which must lead man from bestiality to humanity; that we had already stopped loving the sight of blood, that we refused to be part of the death of others. But then I told myself as you might pinch yourself to keep awake: progress obtained by and in oppression is worthless. Progress of the vanquished is suspect progress. The rejection of drawn blood is also the fear of blood: sanctuary-value. It is a progress which must be remade, this time in liberty. Humanism yes, but humanism after the liberation and not this fake humanism, a one-way street where I must consider all men as saints in a humanity in which I still have no place.”

If we are to take pride in any kind of Jewish moral superiority, then it is valid only if it is achieved freely, autonomously, in a state where Jews are politically Jewish, endowed with political responsibility as Jews. This is not the choice that anti-Zionism makes. On the contrary, it turns the legacy of being an outcast in Western European or North American countries into a “banner,” a right to “petrify” one’s interlocutors, the possibility of being a “superfluous rebel in a peaceful era. Expatriate deluxe” nestled in the “security of anachronism,” all of this achieved without “the wisdom of wandering and the sorrow of persecution.”⁵

… and perpetuates the idea of election that it rejects in words

Anti-Zionism stumbles over another central notion, one that this time pertains not to Zionism but to Judaism itself: that of election. Anti-Zionism, when secular, goes hand in hand with a rejection of Jewish communitarianism and the ideological blindness it would produce. Yet it nevertheless reproduces a form of communitarianism that does not acknowledge itself as such. The secular Jewish anti-Zionist derives a moral high ground from his Jewish heritage, which he would not have without this crutch of Judaism. What else is this but a matter of election? Israel is viewed by anti-Zionism as a project founded on heritage and demography—two völkisch criteria that are therefore reprehensible. These judgments are unjust: no nation can be founded without these criteria, and it is only possible to relax and broaden them once they have been secured. France is founded on open heredity because its majority culture is already secure, and can therefore be civic—while granting French nationality to the children of its citizens by right of blood. Israel has a clear Jewish majority within the Green Line, and is able to foster a Jewish-Israeli culture there without halachic criteria, while ensuring equal individual rights for all its citizens. This is not the case for a number of discriminatory laws, such as those regarding the right to settle in the yishuvim kehilatim⁶, not to mention the apartheid regime⁷ imposed beyond the Green Line.

Furthermore, Israel grants Jews in the Diaspora a special right to immigrate—this is its very raison d’être—because Jews, by virtue of their Jewish heritage, suffer from antisemitism to varying degrees in the Diaspora.

But what, then, of the anti-Zionist conception of Jewishness? The cure is worse than the disease. As we have seen, this involves deriving moral glory from the fact of being born Jewish. And furthermore, it involves stripping Jewishness of all religious content—of all religious practice—as well as its communal and national dimensions: all that remains, then, is heritage alone. And anti-Zionism does this with utter inconsistency, showing no concern for its own survival or its “demographics .”

Furthermore, anti-Zionism rightly condemns Zionism for its consequences for the Palestinians. It must be emphasized that when it does so, it is perhaps one of the rare occasions when it hits the mark—when it criticizes Israel for good reasons, and not out of the lamento of a Jew proud to remain an outcast. The Yishuv was indeed built at the expense of the Palestinians, and what could have been the State of Israel within the borders proposed by the Peel Commission or the UN Partition Plan could not have been a Jewish and democratic state: it required the expulsion and exile of 700,000 Palestinians in 1947–1949 for this to come to pass. Thus, prior to the establishment of Israel, one could have opposed it in order to avoid committing wrongdoing against others, and thereby accepted the diminished status offered to the Jews.

It is normal that no people would want to be the ones to pay the price for this restoration of the Jewish condition, but it is not normal for Jews to consent to this injustice against themselves, and the world should not expect such resignation.

The fact remains that the entire earth is already populated. Any plan to elevate the Jewish condition to a normal one would inevitably entail causing inconvenience, injustice, dispossession, etc., toward another people—in Bavaria, on the Danube, in Kentucky, in Argentina, in Madagascar, in Uganda, in Birobidzhan. There would not have been any less unjust than here. It was for this reason that Yusuf Diya Khalidi, then mayor of Jerusalem, in his correspondence with Theodor Herzl, opposed the success of the Zionist movement and urged Herzl to “leave Palestine alone”.⁸ This refusal—whether autonomous (Jewish anti-Zionism) or heteronomous (the Palestinian rejection of Zionism)—is deeply unjust. The Jews were acting in accordance with their nature in wanting this land, and the Palestinians were acting in accordance with theirs in not wanting to share it. It is normal for no people to want to be the one to pay the price for this redress of the Jewish condition, but it is not normal for Jews to consent to this injustice against themselves, and the world should not expect such resignation. This is an attitude that may not be of the same nature as that at the Evian Conference, but which stems from the same cold “what can we do about it?” mindset—one that laments a situation but, unable to share the burden of resolving it, proposes maintaining the status quo.

A Radical Hardness Toward the Fate of Israeli Jews

Moreover, now that Israel exists, maintaining the anti-Zionist thesis and calling for the dismantling of Israel would amount to redressing yesterday’s injustice with today’s injustice. There is in anti-Zionism—at least in the form expressed by its activists and ideologues, from the UJFP to Jewish Voice for Peace—a “radical callousness toward the fate of Israeli Jews,” writes Joshua Leifer. An indifference to the plight of Israeli Jews, because they have been declared guilty. The dismantling of their state, the loss of their national autonomy, their expulsion, and even—to tell the truth—their ordeal on October 7, matter little to those who glorify the condition of the Diaspora. They are anti-Zionist because they are Jewish, they say, yet they show no ahavat Israel.

For Diaspora Zionists, Israel is all too often an idea—an idea deemed good, but one that obscures the reality of Israel as it actually is. For anti-Zionists, too, Israel is an idea, and condemning an idea is easier than condemning a people or a society. They thus condemn Israel without giving any thought to the consequences of their condemnation of the idea for the people who embody it. They condemn Israel while also aligning themselves with fundamentalist and nationalist movements—such as Hamas and Hezbollah—which explicitly condemn the country of Israel and not the word “Israel”; and very often the entire Jewish people as well. Perhaps those who support Zionism do not always see Zionism for what it is, but those who condemn it do not see the anti-Zionism with which they align themselves either.

What Remains Valid in Zionism

The three alternatives to Zionism—post-Zionism, Non-Zionism, and anti-Zionism—are of no help when Zionism fails or struggles: in normalizing the Jewish reality, in the clear-eyed understanding of our own responsibilities. They may even fail even more.

While it must be reiterated that the resolution of the Palestinian question is the condition for a sustainable Zionism⁹, we must also recall what remains valid in Zionism¹⁰ in general.

To do so, we must return to the foundational texts of Zionism—to what they say and what they sometimes gloss over—in order to draw out what remains relevant a century or a century and a half after they were written.

First, the Zionist analysis of the modern Jewish question following the Emancipation has not aged a bit. The Jewish condition remains a grain of sand in political modernity, and neither non-emancipation—that is, the continuation of feudalism, in which Jews are serfs of the King or dhimmis—nor civic emancipation can resolve the Jewish question. The former cannot guarantee the dignified and basic conditions for the survival of the Jews, while the latter requires the abandonment of the Jews’ national rights, without any nation being able to assume those national rights on their behalf. And neither succeeds in curbing antisemitism. To this, Zionism—that of Pinsker, Nordau, Bochorov, and Bernard Lazare—rightly responds: we can only rely on ourselves, and it is not up to the Jews to resolve the psychosis that is antisemitism. Five-quarters of a century after the Basel Congress, three-quarters of a century after the establishment of Israel, the need for self-emancipation and a refuge state persists.

By building a thriving Jewish society, Israel has warmed the hearts of Jews around the world, reinvigorated a sense of dignity, and has de facto taken on the role of a cultural crutch for secular or liberal communities in North America and Western Europe.

Second, it is not true to say that Zionism is a failure. Israel has built a society of 7 million Jews, where Jewish cultures from dozens of countries can flourish. For most of them—including certain countries in Eastern Europe, as well as Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Ethiopia, and Dagestan—this is the only place where these cultures—which no longer exist in their homelands—continue to thrive. These Jewish traditions have survived thanks to Israel. There, they are valued as part of the national culture—as a living culture, not merely a museum piece or heritage. This certainly did not happen without difficulty, given the reception afforded to the Mizrahim and Sephardim in Israel during the first decades of its existence, but since the political upheaval (maapakh) of the late 1970s, the state has acknowledged its shortcomings toward the Mizrahim and has elevated their cultures to the same status as other Jewish cultures. By building a thriving Jewish society, Israel has warmed the hearts of Jews around the world, reinvigorated a sense of dignity, and de facto assumed the role of a cultural crutch for secular or liberal communities in North America and Western Europe.

Although this was not necessarily a conscious effort, cultural Zionism has triumphed in the Jewish diaspora. Israel is the birthplace of a Jewish national culture, and it serves as the cultural center for the Jewish diaspora. This national culture is based on the myths of the kibbutz galuyyot (gathering of the exiles), Aliyah (ascent), ge’ula (redemption), atzma’ut (independence), dror (freedom), chalutz (pioneering spirit), shlilat hagalut (negation of exile, or rather rejection of the condition of exile), and the return to the land and to work. These myths coexist with other myths of exile, exceptionalism, prophecy, or serving as a canary in a coal mine¹¹, and Jews need them to lead a healthy and vibrant Jewish life. The courage of the pioneers, working the land in the kibbutzim, reconnecting with the land—all of this reassures them by proxy and makes them a people who are finally normal, who do not have to contort themselves or be on their guard, in short, to have no choice but to be an eternal Bloch, the archetype of the clumsy and overly demonstrative Jew that Proust portrays in In Search of Lost Time. The very existence of a thriving Jewish culture—one that values the same things as other cultures without losing its Jewish significance, if only through its language—finally provides a sense of identity and peace of mind. The kibbutz galuyyot is thus not the desire to see all Jews gathered in one land, but the opportunity given to Jews to do so, through the Law of Return, which makes every Jew a potential Israeli citizen. The existence of this law serves both as a safety net and as a horizon of shared destiny, even if that destiny is not imminent.

French Jews, when they do not plan to make Aliyah without being compelled by antisemitism, and do not live in a closed bubble of orthopraxy, are thus cultural Zionists without realizing it. This position consists of cultivating a relative ambiguity toward Israel, entrusting to Israel the perseverance of Jewish identity while affirming the certain permanence of French Jewish identity—the alignment of Judaism with the French Republic. Both assertions are both performative and true, while acknowledging their inherent inconsistency. This is neither a matter of condemning French Judaism to extinction nor of ruling out the possibility of Aliyah. This is precisely what the representatives of the CRIF, the FSJU, and the rabbinate do quite naturally. The same could be said of American Jewishness, at least up until the previous generation, as the main pillars of American Judaism are, according to Joshua Leifer’s analysis, undergoing a major restructuring.

Antisemitism has not been defeated, and there is no guarantee that it ever will be. This is why Zionism remains our ultimate goal.

Finally, the last cornerstone of Zionism is the idea of a refuge state. It goes without saying that antisemitism still exists, and that it is by no means a relic of the past. Outside the West, it runs rampant, as in Tunisia, where the attack on the Ghriba in May 2023 and the arson attack on a synagogue—fortunately unoccupied, as the community has dwindled to almost nothing—during a riot on October 17, 2023, were not condemned in any way by Kaïs Saïed’s government, much less recognized as antisemitic. In Dagestan, in late October 2023, there were further antisemitic riots. In the West, antisemitism is combated by the state, but it has exploded since October 7. It has increased tenfold in France, according to figures from the CRIF. In the United States, the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue was the first major deadly antisemitic act of violence in the postwar era. Since October 7, antisemitism has also surged there, placing Jewish institutions—synagogues, schools, yeshivot, cultural centers, museums, and kosher restaurants—in the same situation that Jewish institutions in France have known well since the Second Intifada: walled off, under mandatory state protection. In Canada, kosher restaurants are regularly vandalized, and bomb threats against synagogues have become commonplace.

Under these conditions, to believe that Jews could do without a refuge-state would be mere lip service. Antisemitism has not abated, and there is no guarantee that it ever will. That is why Zionism remains our ultimate horizon. It is insurmountable in this precise sense: not because it brings Jewish history to a close, but because we see no other answer beyond it to this age-old precariousness—no other answer capable of facing antisemitism head-on without relying on the goodwill of others. Still, a horizon is no excuse. It compels us to move forward and to take responsibility for what we do along the way.

1.  In Israel, the notions of nationality and citizenship are split. Citizenship (ezrahout) is Israeli, whereas nationality (leom) corresponds to ethno-religious communities (Jewish, Arab, Druze, Circassian, etc.). Civil rights are based on citizenship rather than nationality, with the exception of matrimonial rules (marriage, divorce, conversion).
   Both were recorded on ID cards until the early 2000s.
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2.   I24, « Israël : 60% des immigrants qui sont arrivés en 2022 ne sont pas juifs (rapport) », January 16th, 2023
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3.  To be thorough, it should be noted that there is a form of Non-Zionism that is genuinely diasporic, which believes it need not be tied to a national-state project and can flourish within another nation. Jewish identity can be sustained there through a religious or cultural bond that is sufficient in and of itself. I do not examine this idea in this article because I do not believe in it; I share the Zionist assessment of the cultural vulnerability of the Jewish minority, as developed by Léo Pinsker, Bernard Lazare, and more recently by Albert Memmi.
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4.  Deut. 16:20, Rabbinic translation
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5.  Excerpts from Alain Finkielkraut’s The Imaginary Jew, pages 11–14.
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6.  Yishuvim kehilatim, or community villages, are villages in which the law allows admissions committees to reject applicants for residency, thereby discriminating against Israeli Arabs.
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7.  On the appropriateness of the term “apartheid” to describe the legal regime to which Palestinians in the West Bank are subject, see the written justifications by the Stroumsas, Abe Silverstein, and Joel Whitebook in K. regarding their signing of the op-ed “The Elephant in the Room.”
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8.  Correspondence between Theodor Herzl and Yusuf Diya Khalidi, published in French in the journal Conditions by Hamza Esmili.
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9.  That was the topic of “Staying Zionist” in K.
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10.  I am using the singular form of “Zionism” here not only to distinguish “a” potential Zionism from the various forms of Zionism that actually exist, but also to focus on what unites the diverse forms of Zionism—from cultural Zionism to Rabbi Kook’s religious Zionism, including general Zionism and Labor Zionism.
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11.  In pro-Jewish discourse or in the fight against antisemitism, antisemitism is thus seen as a warning sign of the erosion of democracy; we must therefore be attuned to the vitality of Jewish life, which serves as an unwitting barometer of the proper functioning of democratic societies.
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