Since the creation of K., we have strived to provide a clear-headed analysis, from our European perspective, of Zionism, its historical significance, and its future. However, following the recent Israeli elections, the most “right-wing” coalition the country has ever seen has embarked on an aggressive judicial reform, polarizing Israeli society as never before. Religious Zionism plays an important role in this, permeating even the Likud party, so it is up to us to understand this dangerous shift in all its aspects. For it is the very meaning of Zionism and its product, the State of Israel, that is at stake here. This week, we are therefore presenting the first installment of a new series on religious Zionism, which is set to grow. We spoke about this movement, its origins and its orientations with Yehudah Mirsky, a specialist in the history of Zionist thought. We felt it was necessary to shed light on this issue in order to understand what is currently at stake within Israeli society: without doing so, it is impossible to comprehend the challenges of the battle over the nature of Zionism, or the means to combat the slide that is taking Israel away from modern democratic norms. The dialogue between Yehudah Mirsky and Danny Trom, without glossing over their disagreements, provides an opportunity to take a step back and look at the historical foundations of religious Zionism and the multiplicity of its political expressions, including liberal ones. The contrast between their perspectives highlights the fundamental alternative to which we must return: with the realization of the Zionist national movement in the land of Israel, did modern Jewish politics make use of messianic expectations, or was it the other way around?
Last week, we published the first part of Rafaël Amselem’s investigation into the Brusselmans affair, which shed light on the shortcomings of Belgium’s handling of the fight against antisemitism. After noting that it was possible in Belgium to publicly express fantasies of stabbing Jews in the street without triggering any media, political, or legal backlash, the investigation continues with a deep dive into the inner workings of the Belgian institution responsible for combating discrimination: Unia. In short, what we are talking about is a disappointment: that of Belgian Jews who hoped to find…
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In this interview with Danny Trom, Yehudah Mirsky looks back at the intellectual and spiritual roots of religious Zionism, from its internal tensions to its contemporary manifestations. Underlying this is the figure of Rav Kook, a mystic and visionary who is now claimed by the most opposing factions of the Israeli religious Zionist scene. One question arises out of this exploration: how did a movement born of an ideal of reconciliation between tradition and modernity partly derive into becoming the vehicle for an aggressive nationalist messianism.
After examining the political, media, and judicial indifference surrounding Herman Brusselmans' call for the murder of Jews published in Humo, this second part of Rafaël Amselem's investigation focuses on the ambiguous role of Unia, the Belgian institution responsible for combating discrimination. Between legalistic interpretation, refusal to act, and confusion in the face of anti-Zionism, the case reveals the profound limitations of the Belgian legal and political framework in dealing with contemporary antisemitism.
Following the disturbing election results in eastern Germany, which saw the triumph of authoritarian, xenophobic, and antisemitic parties, Antonia Sternberger examines the roots of far-right ideas in the former GDR and their influence on Jewish life. Her investigation highlights a particular inability to learn from historical experience—whether Nazi crimes or Soviet dictatorship—which forces Jews in eastern Germany to navigate, with a remarkable amount of courage, an environment that oscillates between ignorance and outright hostility.
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Danny Trom’s article “Holy Week on Xanax” sparked numerous reactions. Among the letters, some more constructive than others, one stood out: the response from anthropologist and historian Leopoldo Iribarren, which the editorial staff of K. unanimously decided to publish. Danny Trom, having come to his senses but far from repenting, responds to his colleague’s friendly challenge.
Have you heard of Herman Brusselmans? He is the author of the following lines, which appeared in August 2024 in a popular Belgian magazine: “I see an image of a little Palestinian boy crying and screaming, calling for his mother who is buried under the rubble. I become so furious that I want to stab every Jew I meet in the throat with a sharp knife.” Less than a year later, the case brought forward by a Jewish organization ended in acquittal. In a two-part investigation, Rafaël Amselem explains why—and how. A journey to Belgium, where these words are (almost) no longer shocking.
Keith Kahn-Harris, author of Everyday Jews: Why the Jewish people are not who you think they are, questions, with a hint of provocation, this strange and alienating Jewish tendency to want to make themselves indispensable to the world. What if the best response to antisemitism was ultimately to claim the right to frivolity, to allow oneself a perfectly superfluous existence?
From the Iran-Iraq War to the bloody suppression of uprisings, to the current war, which has buried the Mullahs’ nuclear hopes, the memory of violence runs through an entire generation of Iranians. Iranian poet Atefe Asadi, now a refugee in Germany, shared her story with us. She questions the ethics of states faced with a criminal regime that has gone unpunished for decades. Between traumatic memories, lucid anger, and unyielding hope, she paints a portrait of an abandoned people. She looks back on the bloody repression, the lost illusions, and the ongoing war—and yet continues to dream of a free Iran.
While certain historical truths are too often silenced, stating them does not necessarily mean taking on the role of demystifier. The great merit of this interview with Benny Morris, first published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on June 20, 2025 [on the eve of the US attack], is that it illustrates how accurate and lucid historical work can lead to salutary political clarifications. As the war with Iran raged, the Israeli historian, a leading figure among the “new historians” of the 1980s and author of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949 – a pioneering work on the causes of the Palestinian exodus – revisited the roots of the Middle East conflict and the myths surrounding it.
The conflict between Israel and the mullahs’ Iran — which, at the time of writing, appears to be coming to an end — has highlighted the significance of war itself for Israel. By depriving the Islamic Republic of Iran of the means to achieve its exterminatory goals, Israel is redefining the concrete conditions for its security. This raises with even greater urgency the question of whether to continue the endless and deadly war in Gaza. But the confrontation that has just ended also calls into question Europe’s inaction in the face of the criminal threats made for decades against the State of Israel and the Jews, which is merely the other side of its indifference to the fate of the Iranian people.
As Israel’s operation to decapitate the Tehran regime and target its nuclear program continues, triggering a response across the entire territory of the Jewish state, Bruno Karsenti and Danny Trom question the political significance of this major turning point in the Middle East conflict. Compared to the distortion of Zionism represented by the current conduct of the war in Gaza, the war against Iran takes on a whole new meaning, both for Israelis and for the entire Jewish world.
From June 13 to 15, the first anti-Zionist Jewish congress was held in Vienna, aiming to give voice to fierce opponents of the Zionist abomination. From the Austrian capital, and in the name of the memory of the Shoah, the slogan “Neither Herzl nor Hitler” was chanted in unison, as if the two were ultimately one and the same. Is this moral “clarity” sufficient to illuminate the political path ahead? Our correspondent Liam Hoare’s report suggests not: all is not clear among the anti-Zionist Jews, who were joined for the occasion by their allies Roger Waters and Rima Hassan.
The antisemitism that hangs in the air today, to the point of making it unbreathable, is primarily a matter of signs that we learn to recognize. Signs that must be deciphered, but which, for those with memory, appear shrouded in the ominous halo of the obvious. The testimony that Boris Schumatsky gives us in this text reminds us that this world saturated with disturbing signs has the power to suffocate us. It therefore raises the question – what is the meaning of the fight we are waging against it?
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