Gil Troy Wants Jewish Students to Embrace the Zionist Dream

At a time when the Jewish conversation revolves around ceasefires, freed hostages, a new U.S. administration and an alarming rise in antisemitism, is there room for a book about the Zionist dream?

Indeed, because the timely has a tendency to submerge the timeless, you can argue that this is the best time for such a book, especially since the Zionist dream is one of the great timeless ideas of the Jewish story. 

So let’s enter a book that embraces both a timeless dream and a timely opportunity.

“My American-infused Zionism is a hopeful, second-stage, Zionism,” historian and Zionist author Gil Troy writes early in his new book, “To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream.” 

“If I tried building it reactively, on scars, on my personal trauma from Jew-haters, it would rest on a thin foundation. Instead, it evolved proactively, on bedrocks of Americanness, Jewishness, liberalism, truth-seeking, and meaning-seeking.”

Right away, Troy lets the reader know this won’t be a book of talking points to help you win arguments. Yes, the book is full of information that makes a compelling case for Zionism, and it might even help you win a debate.

But Troy (who is a friend and a contributor to The Journal) is after bigger game. His goal is not to defend Zionism but to find new ways to relate to it. To expand it, to enrich it. To empower it.

It helps that he can tap into his unique perspectives as a Harvard-trained American presidential historian and, in the words of Israeli president Isaac Herzog, “a revered teacher, a leading public intellectual, and one of today’s influential Zionist thinkers.”

Although the letters in his book are addressed to his students, the way he tells his stories and argues his case makes the book relevant for anyone interested in learning more about Zionism. 

Ultimately, Troy, who lives in Jerusalem, has written an unapologetic book about embracing the power of the Zionist dream, at a time when it has been under attack like never before.

The word “power” is important. It speaks to the 19 centuries of Jewish history when Jews were at the mercy of sovereign states. They were guests who had to behave and keep their heads down to protect themselves, and even then, the tenacious hold of the world’s oldest hatred dominated much of their history. 

But through centuries of persecution and chronic insecurities culminating in the Holocaust, the Jews never stopped dreaming. It was a resilience rooted in the soft powers of education and resourcefulness. The dream of having the hard power to defend themselves in their own state would have to wait.

The birth of Israel stunned the world by introducing the Strong Jew, the Jew of hard power. Suddenly, the nebbish and bookish Jew who had been pushed around for centuries could defend himself, and really well.

The birth of Israel stunned the world by introducing the Strong Jew, the Jew of hard power. Suddenly, the nebbish and bookish Jew who had been pushed around for centuries could defend himself, and really well.

Simultaneously, another Strong Jew was coming along — the Jew of soft power, the American Jew. This soft power came from taking advantage of the abundant opportunities of a liberty-loving republic. No field was left untouched by the liberated American Jew — literature, medicine, academia, social justice, art, culture, comedy, Hollywood, business, philosophy, science, politics and more. It was a classic win-win. The Jews won by succeeding and America benefited from that success.

This is the backdrop of Troy’s book — recognition that the modern Jew, whether in America or in Israel, is fortunate, successful, generous and, yes, even powerful.

This is the backdrop of Troy’s book — recognition that the modern Jew, whether in America or in Israel, is fortunate, successful, generous and, yes, even powerful.

But this is where things get tricky, because we’ve been living at a time when things like “power” and “success” are anything but popular. The woke movement of recent years (now target of a serious backlash) has elevated the weak and powerless as the real heroes of America, and the successful as beneficiaries of “white privilege.” Because Jews are seen (rightly or wrongly) as the ultimate whites, this has put them clearly on the defensive.

In a perverse twist of history, the very success of the Strong Jews of Israel and America has become a reason to malign both. Israel became the embodiment of everything the anti-West left hates, from colonialism to imperialism to unbridled capitalism. And the fact that Israel had the gall to defend itself against hostile neighbors has been used to reframe the Jewish state as an oppressive, all-powerful regime worthy of the worst condemnations.

Meanwhile, the Strong Jew in America hasn’t fared much better. Aghast at accusations of white privilege and white patriarchy, liberal Jews especially went on overdrive in the opposite direction, furiously signaling their “non-privilege” virtues by endorsing any leftist cause under the sun, from Black Lives Matter to Defund the Police to trans rights to open borders to whatever their political team dictated.

The goal, intentional or not, was to cover up the embarrassing truth of Jewish success. That helps explain why in recent years Jews from the left and right have invested enormous resources telling America that Jews are actually …victims! Forget the success. The modern American Jew is, above all, a victim of antisemitism. 

See, we’re victims like everyone else! Now will you leave us alone?

This turned many Jews into hallway monitors. Any little sign of a swastika became a “gotcha” cause célèbre. It didn’t hurt that all this hate reporting was good for business — good to pump up donors and good to boost media ratings. 

Of course, there was enough truth to these claims of antisemitism to justify some kind of action. But the real issue was and always is: what kind of action?

This is where Troy breaks with the pack.

He frowns on the weak image of the hallway monitor —the Jews who invest most of their time looking for haters.

It’s not that he avoids or downplays the hate, or doesn’t see value in fighting it. On the contrary, before getting to the main thrust of his book, which revolves around optimism, his book does a great job of dissecting the animosity facing today’s Jewish college students.

He describes the “academic intifada” as “the anti-Zionist movement on campus and elsewhere, which includes professors, administrators and students.” It’s a movement, he writes, that “attacks what Israel is, not what Israel does. In its actions and implications, the movement is anti-Jewish, anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-intellectual.”

He describes the “academic intifada” as “the anti-Zionist movement on campus and elsewhere, which includes professors, administrators and students.”

His tone is both candid and conversational. “Many of the movement’s leaders seek to turn your campus against you,” he writes, “treating universities as propaganda camps pushing one nihilistic political view that is unacademic and illiberal.”

He calls the movement “obsessively anti-Israel,” focusing “disproportionate energy and blame on Israel and Zionism, while ignoring bad actors worldwide, from Iran’s genocidal mullahs to China’s and Russia’s imperialistic autocrats.”

The movement is also obsessed with “race and identity politics, erroneously framing the nationalist conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as racial, despite the fact that there are light-skinned Palestinians and dark-skinned Israelis.”

For the many liberal Jews who worship at the altar of social justice, he reminds them that while the anti-Israel movement “overlaps with many other academic trends today including postmodernism, identity politics, critical race theory, antiracism, DEI regimes, Social Justice Warriors, and the ‘woke’ movement,” the Academic Intifada itself fixates on Israel, Jews and Zionism.

He warns his readers, in other words, that anti-Israelism lurks everywhere, whether hidden or blatant.

But all of that analysis is throat clearing for Troy’s main message to Jewish students: embrace what makes Israel and your people great. There’s no better way to fight the haters than by owning who you are.

All of that analysis is throat clearing for Troy’s main message to Jewish students: embrace what makes Israel and your people great. There’s no better way to fight the haters than by owning who you are.

That’s why his letters are laced with optimism. “If you’re tied to Israel in any way,” he writes, “you’re part of the Zionist Dream, a miracle, that, defying its enemies, has allowed individuals to thrive in a society balancing the old and the new while improving the world.”

The book is an antidote to the tortured view of Israel that has arisen among many liberal Zionists. As Matthew Schultz wrote in a recent piece in The Journal, “Liberal Zionists support Israel, but they do so by wagging their finger at the Jewish state, tut-tutting its every move, and trying to ‘save it from itself.’”

Liberal Zionism, he concludes, is thus a paradox: “a stance of support wrapped in apology, as though Zionism were a sin requiring indulgence. It seeks to stand with Israel while undermining and delegitimizing it at every turn. It insists that ‘a Jewish state’ isn’t the problem — just this Jewish state.”

While Troy doesn’t shy away from criticism of Israeli policies — he sees that criticism as a Zionist strength — his Zionism is one that needs no apology.

While Troy doesn’t shy away from criticism of Israeli policies — he sees that criticism as a Zionist strength — his Zionism is one that needs no apology.

How could it, when it encompasses so much?

This multi-faceted aspect of Zionism highlights a major limitation in the modern conversation about Israel in the era of the TikTok attention span. Major topics are oversimplified. Zionism is Zionism. It’s one word, so it must be one thing.

If Troy does anything with his book, it’s to do a deep dive on the value and richness of Zionism. Students are not asked to be loyal to a label. It’s what the label represents that matters most. “Zionism emphasizes traditionalism, communalism, and particularism more than post-1960s Westernism does,” he writes, as an example of that richness. 

A special aspect of Troy’s book is that he doesn’t just want his readers to rediscover and revive Zionism, but also see how it connects to the best of liberalism and Americanism. In that sense, he  turns the tables on intersectionality. Anywhere you look, you’ll find a Zionism of meaning. 

Part of that meaning is that Zionism also emphasizes bravery, the mark of, yes, the Strong Jew of hard power. My favorite letter in the book is when he describes the harrowing moments in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacres, touching on both the deep communal grief and the Israeli spirit of doing whatever the moment demands. 

Troy felt doubly attacked by the antisemitic wave that was unleashed after Oct. 7. As a well-known presidential historian who taught in North America for decades, the campus disruptions targeted his life’s work. And as the father of soldiers living in Jerusalem, the violence in Israel threatened his and their lives. But through the pain and the fear he found what he always found in Zionism and Americanism – hope.

“How can I despair,” he asks, “when I watch your Israeli peers fighting and dying for freedom – and I see their heroism and moral clarity in many of you too. And it’s not just about bravery, grit, audacity – it’s about a zest for life, a sense of humor, a fierce determination to enjoy and thrive that drives our enemies crazy.”

Instead of becoming hall monitors who are expert at reporting on those who hate us, Troy makes the case that Jewish students have earned the right to become not the victims but the stars on campus. As champions of Zionism, they become champions of a star idea. 

Isn’t Zionism, after all, a star idea?

It’s the story of a people that never stopped dreaming. After the darkest event of its history, the Jews created, against all odds, one of the great success stories of the 20th century. As imperfect as Israel is, who can argue that what it has accomplished in its short history is extraordinary if not miraculous?

Has any country contributed as much to the world on a per capita basis than the tiny Jewish state? Has any country created a liberal, civic society despite being under siege since its very birth? The miracle of Israel is not that it has survived, but that it hasn’t allowed enemy armies sworn to its destruction to stop it from thriving.

It is a blessing and a curse that it had to find itself in a part of the world that despises its presence. A curse because all too often, as we’ve seen recently, it has forced the country to be “Army Nation” rather than its preferred role as “Creative Nation.”

But it’s also ultimately a blessing, because the Jewish state is a model for the failed states of the region to emulate. This truth is smothered by the lies of the anti-Zionist movement which Troy chronicles in his book. But when you cut through the chaff of lies and hatred that color so much of the conversation about Israel, you see that Israel is, indeed, a “star” project.

And just as with other stars, that success has triggered envy, while also giving the Jewish state an inherent strength.  

Israel’s enemies are desperate to hide all this — and redefine Israel as a pariah state. They’re not stupid. They see the Gay Pride parades in Tel Aviv. They see the humanitarian missions from Israel to the disaster areas of the planet, from Guatemala to Haiti to the wildfires of Los Angeles. They see how Israeli innovation is changing the world.

These devoted Jew haters, on college campuses and elsewhere, are in a race against time. They must keep their foot on the anti-Zionist accelerator lest the truth catches up to them.

In the meantime, Troy has taken his truth on the road, preparing for his second book tour, a 10-city and multi-campus tour in February. Federations and other organizations have shown their support, buying his book in bulk for broader distribution.

I hope it’s not just students who read it. When a dream is both timeless and timely, it belongs to all of us.