At the conclusion of every Passover seder, millions of Jews rise and sing the words our ancestors have chanted for centuries: L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim — “Next year in Jerusalem.” We sing it not as nostalgia but as promise. We recall a place — not abstract values, but land. Stones and soil. A city with a name and a people with a memory. And then, astonishingly, some of those very same Jews — often proudly identifying as progressive, compassionate, and justice-minded — will turn around and declare that Zionism is colonialism, that Jewish nationalism is supremacist, and that the State of Israel is a mistake to be undone. Some even go so far as to say: “Not in my name.” But that position is not only historically and spiritually disconnected — it is intellectually dishonest.
Jewish connection to Zion is not a modern invention or post-Holocaust project. It is the religious DNA of Judaism itself. The Bible does not merely mention Zion or Jerusalem in passing; it centers them. From Genesis to Kings, from Isaiah to Psalms, Jerusalem is named over 600 times in Tanakh. Zion appears over 150 times. The Akedah — Abraham’s binding of Isaac — takes place on Mount Moriah, later identified as the Temple Mount. Jacob’s ladder? Bethel, in the land of Israel. Joseph’s bones are returned to Shechem. Moses sees the Promised Land from Mount Nebo, but only Joshua leads the people in. The entirety of Jewish sacred history is not a disembodied set of ethics but a drama grounded in Eretz Yisrael.
This isn’t just scripture — it’s liturgy. Open a siddur. The Amidah, prayed three times daily, includes the plea: “Return in mercy to Jerusalem Your city… rebuild it soon.” On Yom Kippur and at every funeral, we say: “May God comfort Zion and rebuild Jerusalem.” On Tisha B’Av, we weep not for an idea, but for a destroyed city. The longing is consistent, concrete, and enduring. If you are reciting Jewish prayers, celebrating Jewish holidays, or quoting Jewish prophets, you are engaging in a tradition that longs for return. This is not metaphor. It is Zion. It is Jerusalem. It is a land we named and were exiled from, and for which we have yearned with astonishing spiritual consistency for over two thousand years. To be anti-Zionist, then, is not merely to critique a government. It is to reject the very structure of Jewish longing that has held us together.
Let’s say you reject nationalism altogether. Fair enough — it’s a consistent, if utopian, position. But do you renounce your own citizenship? Are you prepared to forgo the rights, protections, and identity that come with your American, Canadian, or European passport? Most who critique Zionism benefit from the very national systems they claim to disdain. And if your problem is not with nationalism in general, but with Jewish nationalism in particular — then we must ask why. There are 22 Arab League nations, and over 50 Muslim-majority countries in the world. No one questions the legitimacy of Moroccan statehood, or Jordanian sovereignty, or the Islamic Republic of Iran. But the one Jewish state — not in Manhattan or Munich, but on its ancestral soil — is somehow deemed illegitimate?
This is not principled critique. This is exceptionalism, and it is antisemitic in its outcome if not in its intent. The only people told they must relinquish their national project in order to be moral are the Jews. One can hope for a post-national future. But to demand that Jews get there first — to dismantle their one state while leaving the rest of the globe untouched — is not idealism. It is hypocrisy.
Zionism was not born in 1948. It did not begin with Theodor Herzl. It began every time a Jewish community was massacred, expelled, or ghettoized. It began in the ashes of York, the blood of Granada, the ghettos of Warsaw, and the refugee boats turned away from every shore. For nearly 2,000 years, the Jewish people had no state, no army, no embassy, no safe haven. And that experiment in statelessness ended not in utopia but in genocide.
To oppose Zionism is to forget — or to deny — the fragility of Jewish existence in the Diaspora. The existence of Israel is not an abstract issue for academic debate. It is the difference between life and death for Jews fleeing persecution — whether from the Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Iraq, or Iran. Today, it is the refuge of French Jews fleeing antisemitism, Ukrainian Jews fleeing war, and American Jews wondering if they might be next. Zionism is not a theory. It is a response to history. And that history is soaked in blood.
Let’s also dispense with the straw man: being a Zionist does not mean endorsing every Israeli policy or government. Most American Jews disagree with their own government on any number of issues — immigration, abortion, war. But they do not advocate for the abolition of the United States. They do not question its right to exist. Likewise, many Israeli Jews fiercely oppose their current government. They protest. They organize. They dissent. But they do not deny that Israel should exist as a Jewish state.
To be a Zionist is not to sanctify every decision of the Israeli state. It is to affirm that the Jewish people have a right — like any other people — to sovereignty, self-defense, and self-determination. When Jews join the chorus calling for the dismantling of Israel — not just critique, but elimination — they are not being prophetic. They are not being brave. They are demanding of their own people a standard they ask of no one else, and in doing so, they render Jewish safety a negotiable asset. That is not justice. That is self-erasure.
To reject Zionism, one must answer a simple question: what is the alternative? Do you envision a utopian one-state solution where Jews and Palestinians live side by side in peace, even as chants of “From the river to the sea” call for the expulsion — or elimination — of Jews? Do you imagine a post-national Middle East in which the Jewish people are once again exiled, stateless, and scattered — with no army, no borders, no refuge? Or are you simply embarrassed by power? Ashamed that after centuries of powerlessness, Jews have become something else — sovereign?
Anti-Zionism among Jews is often rooted not in history or justice, but in discomfort. A desire to be accepted. To avoid confrontation. To prove that we are the “good ones.” But history has taught us that acceptance bought by self-denial is fleeting. And solidarity that demands Jewish erasure is no solidarity at all.
Zionism is not perfect — no nationalism is. But it is the imperfect answer to centuries of persecution, exile, and annihilation. It is not a betrayal of Jewish values — it is the fulfillment of them. To be Jewish and anti-Zionist is not a nuanced position. It is not a brave dissent. It is, at its core, a betrayal — not just of Israel, but of ourselves.