A Challenge to Anti-Zionist Jews

To American Jews who condemn the state of Israel—to those who have placed that condemnation at the very center of their Jewish lives; to those who have transformed every Jewish holiday and observance into a further opportunity for opprobrium for the state of Israel, its people, and its army; to those who call for boycotts and beg for the “Prayer for the State of Israel” to be torn from the siddurim and cast into a heap along with the Israeli flag that stands to the side of the Ark—to those Jews, I offer a challenge: Make Aliyah. Move to Israel.

There you will find comforts that Israel’s pioneers could not have imagined. Instead of malarial swamps and uncultivated desert, you will have Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Instead of caravans threatened by ambush, you will have Israeli high-speed trains and the light rail. Instead of having to work by the sweat of your brow in an agricultural settlement, you can order takeout from Wolt and shop at Dizengoff Center. Even in the midst of this dreadful and unprecedented war, you will be pampered compared to those who came here with nothing and built everything.

Like you, those pioneers were rebels. Their secular Zionism scandalized their elders, much the way your anti-Zionism scandalizes your parents, who did their best, with summers at Camp Ramah and Birthright trips in high school, to instill in you a love of Israel. 

Unlike you, however, those pioneers put everything on the line to build the Jewish future they wanted to see. They didn’t condemn, or sneer, or despair. They built. They fought. They sacrificed. 

If you were like them, and if you truly believed—as you claim to believe—that Israel is coasting along a path towards illiberalism and religious extremism, then you would show up. 

Instead of condemning Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians from the comfort of the United States, you could be in the West Bank, volunteering in their communities, offering your presence and lending a hand during their olive harvests. 

Instead of bemoaning the monopoly of state Rabbinate in Israel, you could be strengthening progressive Jewish communities in Israel, the ones that struggle to keep the lights on, and fight the daily fight for pluralism and equality.

Instead of denouncing Netanyahu, you could be out in the streets with the exhausted masses of protesters who have been fighting against his cynical and divisive agenda for years. 

The thing is that I agree with you about many of the problems facing Israel. What I don’t understand is why your awareness of those problems has convinced you to further disidentify with the Jewish state, when the truth is that we need you. We need your activism. We need your presence. We need your skin in the game. 

If you perceive brokenness, the answer is to repair, not destroy. The “anti” of anti-Zionism tells me all I need to know about this movement—it is an ideology of negation rather than a positive vision of what could be.

If you perceive brokenness, the answer is to repair, not destroy. The “anti” of anti-Zionism tells me all I need to know about this movement—it is an ideology of negation rather than a positive vision of what could be. 

If you take your passion for condemning Israel and redirect it towards building Israel up from within, helping to shape its culture and its politics as citizens, something incredible could happen. Israel is a small country and small coalitions can make mighty differences. 

Of course, as you shape Israel from within, you must be prepared to be shaped by it in return. With exploding drones overhead, with invasions over the southern border and abandoned towns in the north, you will come to appreciate Israel’s precarious situation in the Middle East, and better grasp the nuances of the choices that Israel faces. 

Israelis will become humanized to you. They will become your friends, your community, your lifelines. 

You will better understand how the country works. Often, you will be impressed by what you see, other times you will be outraged. 

No longer will it be possible to see Israel as an “issue.” It will forever be a place, a home, and a family.

Remember, the archetypal wicked son of the Pesach Haggadah is wicked not because he questioned what his elders taught him, but because he condemned from the outside, rather than challenging from within. Your dissent is welcome. Your alienation is not. So drop it.

Israel needs you. Your people need you. And you have a rare opportunity to make a difference. Don’t let it pass you by. 

Israel needs you. Your people need you. And you have a rare opportunity to make a difference. Don’t let it pass you by.

Matthew Schultz is a Jewish Journal columnist and rabbinical student at Hebrew College. He is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (Tupelo, 2020) and lives in Boston and Jerusalem.