There’s a lot of panicky talk about Us Zionists in this piece up at The Current, a Jewish affairs magazine published by Columbia University students. The Current’s mission: “With content that ranges from art reviews and humor essays to bold political analysis, The Current is widely regarded as the Columbia home for exciting, original undergraduate writing.” Emphasis mine. Does this qualify? David Fine, editor:
Zionism must again be taught as a vision, viable long before the Holocaust came around. It must be understood that Israel is not an apology for six million Jewish deaths. It must be understood that Israel is the result of a dream for democratic self-determination. It must be understood that Zionism can exist separate from militant millennialism or revanchism. The central question of why the Jews deserve a democratic nation of their own must be discussed—and answered. Essentially, we need a return to Zionism 101.
How best to make Zionism 101 an everyday reality? Digestible, over arching goals are easy but implementation can be hard. Thankfully for people thinking and writing about Jewish issues—the Jeffrey Goldbergs, Peter Beinarts, and Daniel Gordises of the world—change can come in three important ways:
- If you’re a Zionist, write about why. Present your own brand and refer to it often.
- Engage in more debates, in real life. Stop charging exorbitant honoraria (you know who you are) to come to college campuses and gift the youth with your pearls of wisdom. If you believe in what you say then you should be content with a small fee and a big deliverable when you impregnate someone with a great idea.
- Develop a “great books” list that makes up the core of Zionist thinking. Disenchanted with university courses on Zionism and Israel? Craft your own and use the democratizing power of the Internet to disseminate them. (Hell, start a virtual reading club.)
What if you don’t believe this? What if you don’t believe that Jewish national self-determination is any more meaningful than Marcus Garvey talking about the black nation? And if you’re a young person, isn’t this yesterday’s papers?
come to college campuses and gift the youth with your pearls of wisdom. If you believe in what you say then you should be content with a small fee and a big deliverable when you impregnate someone with a great idea.
are you sure the current isn’t columbia’s answer to the onion?
we need a return to Zionism 101
seafoid said I wonder how much sympathy Israel will be able to milk as more and more info about the cruelty of Zionism seeps out.
link to mondoweiss.net
coincidence.
Day before yesterday alum from my university met to discuss creating a Zionism 101 course to educate the next generation of (predominantly Catholic) students on what really happened, 1881-2012. We prepared a working syllabus; an annotated bibliography; timeline. We developed two or three sources for major funding.
Benj. Netanyahu wrote “A Place Among the Nations.” If Israel is to be “a place among the nations,” then all of us should be able to discuss how it came to be, what its ideological foundations are, what the implications of Israel are on U.S. domestic and international activities. We decided we don’t need Jews to be part of our program; we are quite capable of doing the research and presenting the material.
We’re excited about getting this off the ground.
btw, is Columbia a state/taxpayer supported university? Are the zionist students using American tax dollars to advance a project in support of a non-American state? We’d like to know for our own funding/development planning. If Columbia zionists can get U.S. taxpayers to fund a program advancing Israel’s interests, surely we should be able to get U.S. taxpayer funding to support American-oriented understanding of U.S. interrelations with Israel.
Columbia is both federal and NY state funded. Go here to check out what’s out there for your project funding, AllenBee: link to spa.columbia.edu
zionism represents a dream for jewish democratic self-determination about as much as lebensraum represented a dream for egalitarian expansion of germany’s borders eastward. instead both these doctrines are horrific examples of ethnosupremacism run amok.
One of these days ,Zionist would ask that they should be allowed to teach the Zionism in the Mosques and in the Churches to reemphasize the value and the need for ongoing freedom of expression as these places are the sources of religious ideas and fundamental views originated from the church and mosque goers .
“…a big deliverable when you impregnate someone with a great idea.”
Yeah, the little girl should swoon.
Reference is made to ‘brands’ of Zionism. What are they? I’d have thought that Zio101 should begin by saying what ‘Zionism’ means, so we can see what brands are authentic, which are cheap and unreliable imitations. So much said about an idea not defined.
Just hit me! I went over to Fine’s article, and you know what he doesn’t recommend for Zionism 101? A trip to Israel! Nor having Israelis come to campus to talk about their Israel.
So you see, Zionists aren’t stupid, after all. They are becoming aware that nothing kills American Jewish Zionism like exposure to the real Israel.
“The central question of why the Jews deserve a democratic nation of their own must be discussed—and answered”
What is the answer to why Jews deserve a nation of their own?
If you go the beginning of zionism and leave out the holocaust you are still stuck with the victim justification.
And the more I look into events in BC history the less I think Jews were any more victimized than any other tribes or groups in those times, all groups were in constant conflict with and killing each other off.
Even going into AD times, Christian, Catholics, Muslims ,as well as Jews, all had their turn at being oppressed, discriminated against and victimized.
So the Jewish holocaust of WWII looks to me like the only real legitimate example of unusual victimization above and beyond others, and I am not sure if Israel would exist today if it not been for that holocaust .
So what does ‘self determination” for Jews actually mean anyway? If you discard the holocaust re Israel as a safe haven factor (faulty as it is) then the ‘self determination’ for Jews simply means a Jewish ‘ruled’ state that privileges Jews above others and discriminates against non Jews. I think that would be Zionism 101.
@American,
So should the US pressured UN give the Roma people their own state? It’s never even appeared in as a wispy thought in the West’s head. The sole reason Israel the state exists is because of Zionist big dollars and Jewish media influence. Let’s face it, the Roma were on a par with the Jews in terms of historical European victimization, including during the Nazi regime–don’t you remember Mengele’s experiments with Roma twins? but where has that got them? An American cable TV program on how much the Roma girls like bling and balooning blooming cloth on their wedding dresses? It’s not so hard to deduce that the state of Israel is the modern ghetto/pale of Settlement all in one, and it’s supported for the same old feudal reasons by the equal of the old feudal Goy elite. The short-shifted peasants will (eventually) have their uprising, even in the USA. Pogroms anyone?
@ Citizen..
I agree with you on this…..
“So should the US pressured UN give the Roma people their own state? It’s never even appeared in as a wispy thought in the West’s head. The sole reason Israel the state exists is because of Zionist big dollars and Jewish media influence.”
But the reason they used in their influencing, along with the money, was the holocaust……the zionist enterprise was cloaked in ‘moral’ appeal on behalf of the Jews. Amazing how politicians can find moral grounds for anything connected to money.
American, the Roma suffered as much, and as proportionately, as the Jews under the Nazi regime. That fact never even brought forth a single wispy whispering thought among US leaders. The “moral” appeal was uniquely selective.
“The “moral” appeal was uniquely selective.”
Of course, that’s what zionism is about…themselves and only themselves.
“themselves and only themselves.”
I’m sorry Citizen, you go to fast for me. Who is the “them” in “themselves” and “only themselves”?
Huh” Where, Mooser?
Oh sorry, Citizen. I’m always on the lookout (using all three eyes, too) for anything which might imply, or even infer, for that matter, that Zionism was a universal or innate Jewish characteristic, and not the responsibility of the individuals who created it and supported it. I consider the great mass of Jewish people in Israel to be the victims (if not in the same sense as the Palestinians) of the Zionists, and the fact that Zionism is what is indubitably is represents another of the continuing failures of those who call themselves ‘Jewish leaders’. They have ‘led’ us from one disaster to another.
Sometimes I get a little too assiduous about it, or so people tell me.
Okay Citizen, please bear with me a bit longer if you will. As long as it is possible to somehow convince oneself that Zionism was a valid Jewish idea which may have gone wrong at some point, it is possible to avoid the consequences of realising just how badly a group of completely unscrupulous, murderous and megalomaniac men and women took the Jews in, used them and now, holds about half the Jewish population of the world as their hostages. Not to mentioning making over the Jewish religion in the image of their own unscrupulousness, megalomania and murderessness.
To realise this demands certain conclusions, and they’re not pleasant, and they’re not calculated to win Jews over to your point of view. Mondoweiss is trying to stake out or eke out a position on Zionism which won’t face up to this, to avoid the conclusions it generates, in my opinion. Very often people turn on the bearers of bad tidings, and I’m talking about tidings a whole lot worse than the Zionist dream going wrong.
“Not to mentioning making over the Jewish religion in the image of their own unscrupulousness, megalomania and murderessness.”
I’m afraid, Mooser, that the words “the Jewish religion” just make me think of this.
link to youtube.com
“So the Jewish holocaust of WWII looks to me like the only real legitimate example of unusual victimization above and beyond others, and I am not sure if Israel would exist today if it not been for that holocaust .”
But as Ben Gurion wrote to his son, 5 Oct 1937 link to mondoweiss.net.
By 1937, well before even Kristallnacht, zionist leaders had already displaced Arabs to build Tel Aviv; Hebrew University was under construction; Chaim Weizmann’s avant garde residence and Weizmann Institute were already built in Rehovoth.
American, you argue that Israel came AFTER holocaust but that is not the case. The only thing that happened AFTER the holocaust was that Israel made a declaration of statehood. If the Before-and-After is topsy turvy, so is cause-effect.
All of the elements of what Israel calls its zionist Jewish ‘state’ were firmly in place by 1939 — before Hitler invaded Poland (which had more to do with NSDAP expansionism & anti-Bolshevism than with Jews) .
By 1909 Arthur Ruppin had acquired (by stealth, in some instances) large tracts of land in Palestine; had built Tel Aviv next to Jaffa, a location calculated to undercut Arab orange markets as well as rents.
In 1922 British mandate authorities imposed limits on Jewish migration to Palestine, out of concern for displacement of indigenous Arabs.
According to Edwin Black in The Transfer Agreement, “Promising as those orange groves were, Jewish Palestine in 1933 was . . . only 19% of the population. If the enclaves were to grow into an actual homeland and fulfill the promise of God, Abraham, and Balfour, the orange groves would have to prosper. For that, more hands and more lands were needed.
But in 1933, Jewish prosperity in Palestine was in danger of shutting down. . . .The British were once again making strategic plans for the Middle East. ** These plans were dependent upon the Arab potentates England had been stringing along for a decade with conflicting promises of Arab nationalism in Palestine. So Palestinian immigration regulations had been pointedly revised a few years earlier. Severe quotas now applied to all Jewish immigrant categories, except the so-called capitalist settler with proof of £1,000 (about $5,000) in hand.
Few Palestine-bound Jews possessed that much money. Most were poor European workers. Moreover, the “worker immigrant” quota itself was limited by “absorptive capacity” or the ability of the Palestinian economy to expand and provide new jobs. In this way, existing Arab jobs theoretically would no longer be threatened by new Jewish arrivals. The British didn’t really expect the Palestinian economy to grow, because quotas restricted immigration for all but the wealthier Jews, and the great majority of wealthy Jews were uninterested in emigrating to Palestine. With little or no new capital, the Jewish economy in Palestine would stagnate.” [ p. 6-7].
Black continued:
As noted elsewhere, between 1936 and 1939, Erich Mendelsohn had begun (and in most cases completed) almost a dozen major building projects in Jewish Palestine, including Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute. ( link to amazon.com explains Mendelsohn’s design philosophy. Nurit Peled-Elhanans captured it here:
Allen,
All the ‘elements’ might have been there but highly doubtful the British could have imposed a Israel nation on the Arabs, (that they would have had to back up themselves) by themselves.
Israel had to have more than British backing or private Jewish backing to be ‘created’ as a nation. That’s where post war politics re the Holocaust came in with the US and UN.
“If” the US hadn’t signed on for Israel at the UN and the Arabs knew the US wouldn’t interfer for Israel, then Israel would have been, if not totally wiped out, reduced to a small colony that Palestines might accept.
That’s just the reality of it…US,UN, world backing after the WWII -holocaust is the only thing that created the official version of Israel or kept it there.
the great thing about disagreeing with your perspective is that now I will have to dig deeper to figure out just who did what to whom and when.
just off the tip of my library card, I’m thinking that
1. zionist leaders had in mind to kick British out well before 1945/holocaust; Ben Gurion suggested something like that in his letter to his son in 1937.
2. if I recall correctly, British announced they were leaving Palestine on May A, 1948; Israel declared itself a state on May B, 1948.
3. Zionists had an army — maybe two armies or militias — and were heavily armed by 1948. Zionists were already prepared for British to leave because — they had been planning for it for at least a decade.
4. In 1945-48 Holocaust was really not the potent card it is today. Holocaust mania did not erupt until after the Eichmann trial;1967 war; Iranian Revolution 1979. I have a book written in 1968 by an American Jew about Jews in the United States; the word ‘Holocaust’ does not appear in the book. 20 years on and holocaust is a non-event for author James Yaffe in The American Jews.
Jimmy Carter, senior & junior Netanyahu, Edgar Bronfman, Golda Meier and Steven Spielberg were major players in cementing holocaust in the world’s consciousness, but by the time they were on the scene, Israel as a state was fait accompli.
Zionism, as many have stated here, is a 19th century “blood and soil” racist nationalist movement that asserts Jewish supremacy over non-Jews. European Jews should have listened to Einstein who warned that Israel would morph into an ethnocracy at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians.
Israel has morphed into a ethnocracy ‘at the expense of the world’ if you want to be even more accurate.
Exactly. It has nothing to do with returning to Tsion for which we prayed two thousand years. This Zionism is a political 19th century idea, built upon. It has been based upon what exactly. I am trying to find out. Antisemitic pogroms? They were not alone in Eastern Europe. Whatever is the case. It was an idea of the establishment. Sure enough, Jews wanted to get out of Czarist Russia and other countries due to pogroms and dire poverty.So lots emigrated to a.o. the USA. This whole enterprise has gone awfully wrong. The state has descended into the antithesis of what any nation should look like. We have become oppressors with a lust for abuse and discrimination. How do you sell that to students waking up? The Israeli government has lost its battle. But as usual is blind to it. Power and money corrupt.
Abigail, yes, I agree, and even on a religious or biblical history level, the Palestinians have equal, if not much more, claim to the land since their ancestors were Canaanites.
Among the landmarks of early Zionism were the 1621 publication of ‘The Great Restauration’ by Sir Henry Finch, which called on Protestants to help fulfill the biblical prophecies of a renewed Jewish Kingdom, the rise and fall of the Sabatian movement within Judaism in the 1660s, the popularisation from the work of Dr.Alexander Keith in 1844 (‘The Land of Israel According to the Covenant with Abraham’) of the mind-snagging phrase ‘land without a people for a people without a land’, and the success of George Eliot’s ‘Daniel Deronda’, the first major proto-Zionist, Palestinian-ignoring novel, in 1876. Not to mention JN Darby and his Brethren. Not to mention British Israelism, supported by the poet William Blake, morphing into American Mormonism. Zionism was a Christian movement before it had many Jewish adherents.
great overview MHughes, thanks.
re “Zionism was a Christian movement before it had many Jewish adherents.”
Either zionists put the Rahm Emanuel injunction in play way back then– Never let a crisis go to waste, or the history of Jewish/ Christian zionist “restauration” is a dance of dosey-do; or both.
Hebrew scriptures were re-cast multiple times to adapt Jews to new circumstances as they presented themselves. The Hebrew Bible Reborn: From Holy Scripture to the Book of Books: A History of Biblical Culture and the Battles over the Bible in Modern Judaism
and
The Making of the Modern Jewish Bible: How Scholars in Germany, Israel, and America Transformed an Ancient Text yank away the security blanket of Sunday-school “bible tells me so” comfort, and even undercut Luther’s bold stand. The carved-in-stone word of god may be among the most malleable of all texts.
“returning to Tsion”
It’s spelled “Tuscon”. Try and get it right.
Part of Tuscony, I suppose. Thanks to AllenBee – a descendant of the General?- for kind words. The image of the word set in stone but malleable, hammered into new shape, is very truthful.
YoungMassJew, Buber said the same thing.
“European Jews should have listened to Einstein who warned that Israel”
About physics, yes, about politics, no. Einstein was for most of his life pretty politically naive. He can often be found on both sides of an issue. On issues relating to Judaism he can often be found on all three sides.
Phil, who wrote this? I am so glad to see it! -Rachel
Who will wake up the Jewish establishment esp. in the USA? Maybe it is time the Jewish youth should do that. Although the ones who do see what Israel has become are still a minority and seen as “traitors” (to what exactly? The fact that one is not “allowed” to have a different view more in line with a.o. Jewish values and our Torah says everything about the dangerous mindset of this so-called establishment be it in Israel, the USA or wherever.
Develop a “great books” list that makes up the core of Zionist thinking
- Colonialism by Cecil Rhodes
- How to run a caste system efficiently by the Maharajah of Baroda
- Permanent war by Genghis Khan
- Managing fear in a population by Hermann Goering
- F*** the poor by Paul Ryan
“It must be understood that Israel is the result of a dream for democratic self-determination. It must be understood that Zionism can exist separate from militant millennialism or revanchism. ”
link to haaretz.com
“The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which manages the nearby Western Wall Tunnel, responded: “Excavations in the area of the Western Wall are intended to reach the earliest levels possible. Clearly this cannot be done without destroying later periods, whatever they may be. “
The problem as I see it is not whether the Jewish people should be considered a nation and have a land area to call its own. There are arguments either way. But to use a variant of the pizza analogy, it’s like debating whether to eat a pizza – considering questions like calories, hunger, nutrition, pleasure – when the pizza belongs to someone else. The fact that the pizza must be stolen before it is eaten should end the debate.
Would it have been a good idea to create a Jewish State in an uninhabited area of Africa, South America, or Alaska? Maybe yes, maybe no. But was (and is) it a good idea to create (and maintain) a Jewish State where lots of non-Jews have been living? The answer to me is obviously no. The fact that it was necessary to forcibly dispossess another people and continue to discriminate against them as “ethnically challenged” ends the debate before it begins.
David Samel,
What if those indigenous people are invisible by virtue of their belonging to a lower caste?
Rhetorical question.
The problem is that Palestinians are invisible in this entire Zionism 101 nonsense that David Fine, the editor, wrote.
The question is why? Why are they invisible?
Is it because non-Jews are not humans? Is it because non-Zionists are not humans? Or is every goy considered non-human?
And then Zionists come along and argue that Zionism is not a racist idea, ideology or vision.
Well, if it’s not racist, then why are the Palestinians whose pizza you (Zionists) seek to steal not part of the discussion? Why is it that theft is a given, as though it’s perfectly normal?
I’m not really looking for answers to all these questions. I’m merely attempting to further illustrate the dishonest and immoral essence of Zionism.
Thank you David. This is the clearest and of most eloquent comment that I have read this week. I will be saving it to use the next time a Zionist uses the “self determination” argument.
“The fact that it was necessary to forcibly dispossess another people and continue to discriminate against them as “ethnically challenged” ends the debate before it begins.”
David, the fact that another people would have to be, at the least dispossessed, to make a Jewish State was seen as a plus. By vanquishing the Palestinians, the Zionists (and in their minds “the Jews”) would prove their nationhood, or something. There’s no use pretending it was any other way.
Why is Beinart put in the same category as Israeli government shill Jeffrey Goldberg and far-right ethnic cleansing advocate Daniel Gordis?
Zionists are always trying to ‘reframe’ the debate or ‘color’ Zionism ‘good’ – essentially the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig/gift-wrapping a turd/etc. etc.
Never tell the truth, just lie better or learn to ‘network’ (i.e., bullshit) better. So go out there and be better salesmen for Zion!
Expect more of the same: racists will continue being racists. Islamophobes will continue being Islamophobes. Genuine antisemitism will exist totally separate from antizionism while at the same time some overlap existing too (but not to the extent to which the dishonest hysterics allege) and so on and so forth.
And all these factions and more will gravitate to one side (more or less). But more importantly, US policy will be dictated by long-standing regional interests, economic and military interests (intertwined), hopelessly swamped and mishandled institutionalized biases (the Lobby), plus some other blah blah. That beautiful clusterfuck is what produces the incoherent mess that is our foreign policy.
And what we get here in the States is: Israel is a democracy and Arabs hate Jews. Jews love everything and Arabs hate oxygen and babies. Islam is the devil and Israel invented the Internet and slap-on bracelets. Oh and Arabs hate oxygen and babies.
More movies about the Holocaust and Arab terrorism and spooky Muslims and positive reinforcement of Jewish identity (in every single angle – whether it be Isabel Kershner immediately reporting on the hunger strike of settlers protesting their ILLEGAL outpost’s removal versus the nonexistent reporting of the unjustified imprisonment of a Palestinian soccer player who goes on hunger strike for weeks and nears death OR just subtle stuff we see in movies, TV, etc.).
All of this shit is a kind of conditioning that is done almost reflexively and with a kind of nonchalance. It is so common in our society to be anti-Arab. Just look at the one-man anti-Islamic-supposedly-representative-of-American-Muslim groups, groups – such as AIFD. Does any journalist vet this guy, Zuhdi Jasser? How many members does he have? How many members belong to any of the groups headed by evangelical Christians…err I mean Muslims like Walid Shoebat and Wafa Sultan and Nonie Darwish, et. al.
Even that Michigan Muslim beauty queen who got photographed doing some pole-dancing isn’t representative of American Muslims, politically speaking, in any relevant context. She’s just a jackass. A totally Americanized 2nd gen. immigrant – and I say that as one of the type. Except that MY ‘people’ (LOL) aren’t perpetually on trial, nor they in a competition for resources with another immigrant group here in the States (Jews).
All this being said, LOL@yet another lame Zionist b.s. initiative and/or attempt at monopolization of the narrative. The Palestinian side has to work so hard and is always fighting an uphill battle and all they literally have to do is explain the facts or pick the news apart.
Whereas you have to do so much hand-holding and ‘work-shopping’ and ‘seminar-ing’ and a whole ton of other pointless bullshit that costs lots of money and organization (but is an industry unto itself – HENCE THE POINT, kind of like the March of Dimes and their musical chairs game of changing mission statements) when it comes to the Zionist ‘narrative’.
It’s no wonder Zionists just spam the antisemitism ‘button’ – its less work for them and much more effective since their opponents usually come equipped with a conscience.
“3.Develop a “great books” list that makes up the core of Zionist thinking. Disenchanted with university courses on Zionism and Israel? Craft your own and use the democratizing power of the Internet to disseminate them. (Hell, start a virtual reading club.)”
I wonder what the top ten books would be….?????
This is the umpteenth time I’ve published this here, but since the kiddykins at my alma mater seem incapable of doing basic research, time to spell it out again. Anyone who knows a member of this group, send it along.
This is historically wrong, at least in the US.
The Petition
Transcript of archival scan of a 1919 petition to Protest to ‘Wilson against Zionist State
link to home2.btconnect.com
Link to NYT original here: link to query.nytimes.com
The full text of the document was published 5 March 1919 in The NY Times under the headline, “Protest to ‘Wilson against Zionist State: Representative Jews Ask Him to Present it to the Peace Conferences.” It was divided into three sections: 1. Reject “National Home” Idea, 2. Against “Political Segregation,” and 3. Contrary to Democratic Ideals.
They slammed it out of the park. There were 31 signatures attached to the document in the NY Times. The petition handed to Wilson was signed by over 300 prominent Jewish Americans. What follows are the 31 plus a partial list of the 300. Not a shabby list.
1. Congressman Julius Kahn, R-Ca.
2. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau
3. Simon Rosendale, Attny.General , State of NY, founder of the Jewish Publication Society.
4. Simon Wolf, U.S. Consul in Egypt
5. Max Senior, 1st Pres. National Conference of Jewish Charities
6. Lee M. Friedman, attny, Boston Ma.
7. Judge Seligman J. Strauss, Wilkes-Barre Pa.
8. Dr. Morris Jastrow Jr., Professor of Semitic Languages, U.of Penn. & Librarian of the University.
9. Rabbi Henry Berkowitz, 1st Sec. of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR – Reform Mvmt.)
10. Rabbi David Philipson, founder and past pres. CCAR
11. Edward Max Baker, Pres. Cleveland Stock Exchange
12. Mayor L.H. Kempner, Galveston, Tx
13. Jesse Isidor Strauss, Pres. Macy’s, Ambassador to France
14. E. Robert A. Seligman, Prof. Political Economy and Finance, Columbia U.
15. Jacob H. Hollander, Prof. Economics Johns Hopkins U., Special Commissioner to com.Rep.(TR Roos.)
16. Adolph Simon Ochs, publisher The New York Times
17. Lessing Rosenthal, esq. trustee – Brookings Inst., Johns Hopkins U.
18. Abraham Kochland, Boston Ma.
19. Jacob R. Morse, esq. Boston Ma.
20. Daniel Peixotto Hays esq., head of the NYC Municipal Civil Service Commission, member exec. committee UAHC, President of YMHA
21. Louis Stern, Pres. Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, Pres. National Jewish Welfare Board
22. Rabbi William Rosenau, Pres. CCAR, member board of governors HUC
23. Rabbi Willaim Landsberg, Rochester, NY
24. Judge M.C. Shloss, SF, Ca.
25. Dr. Julius Rosenstein, Mt.Zion Hspt. SF. Ca
26. Isiah Wolf Hellman, founder Union Trust Co., LA, Ca.
27. Judge Josiah Cohen, Pittsburgh Pa.
28. Judge Horace Stern, Chief Justice of Supreme Court, Pennsylvania.
29. Julius Walter Freiberg, Past President UAHC
30. Rabbi Abraham Simon, organizer of Nat.Conf. of Christians and Jews, past pres CCAR, founder Synagogue Council of America.
31. Isaac Wolfe Bernheim, Distillery Owner, Louisville Kentucky and noted philanthropist
Other signatories:
Rabbi Tobias Schanfarber, Kehilath Ansche Mayrin Cong.;
Rabbi Felix Levy, Temple Emanuel, NY;
Abraham Cohen, PhD. Prof. Mathematics, Johns Hopkins U.;
Rabbi Richard M. Stern, Temple Israel, New Rochelle NY;
Rabbi Max Landsberg, Cong. B’rith Kodesh, Rochester;
Rabbi Eli Mayer, PhD, Temple Beth Emeth, Albany NY;
Rabbi Max Schlesinger, emeritus, Temple Beth Emeth, Albany, NY;
Charles Stern, dep. attny General, NYS;
Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson, Temple Rodef Shalom, Pittsburgh, Pa.;
Rabbi David Lefkowitz, Cong. B’nai Yeshurin, Dayton Ohio;
Rabbi Aaron Weinstein, Fort Wayne Indiana;
Rabbi Louis Witt, Cong. B’nai Israel, Little Rock Ark.;
Leon L. Solomon, M.D. U. of Louisville Medical School;
Rabbi Morris Newfield, Temple Emanu-el, Birmingham, Ala.;
Rabbi Louis Bernstein, Temple Adath Joseph St. Joseph Mo.;
Rabbi William Friedan, Temple Emanuel, Denver Colo.;
Lea Goodman, commisioner of public utilities, Memphis Tenn;
M.H. Rosenthal, director American Red Cross;
Rabbi William Gineshrevber, Cong. Children of Israel, Memphis;
Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, NY;
Abraham S. Isaacs, professor of semitic languages NYU;
Dr. K. Kohler, pres. HUC, Cincinatti;
Henry Englander, professor HUC;
Ralph W. Mach, board of governors, HUC;
Leo Wise, editor, American Israelite;
Joseph Raushoff, MD prof. of surgery U. of Cincinatti Medical School;
G.J. Brown, vp Cincinatti Chamber of Commerce;
Eli Winkler, vp board of governors HUC;
Leopold Roth, Roth Shoe Company;
Henry Berkowitz, DD chancellor of Jewish Chautauqua Soc. Philadelphia;
Louis Leftwich, prof. medical jurisprudence, Vanderbilt University, Nashville;
The Book
Allan Brownfeld’s Explaining the Long — and Largely Untold — History of Jewish Opposition to Zionism reviewed Yakov M. Rabkin’s book A THREAT FROM WITHIN: A CENTURY OF JEWISH OPPOSITION TO ZIONISM.
From: link to acjna.org
The least the Columbia students could be is historically accurate about their vision thing.
This is a continuation of the Birthright campaign started in January 2011 and reported here at MW then: Birthright Israel calls on its alumni to ‘take back Zionism’
link to mondoweiss.net
btw, I wish I were able to change my username to something more appropriate for my style. It would be YoungNeuroticNotLikeWoodyJew. I couldn’t think of anything better at the time of joining the blog, so Phil, wink, wink, I wish there was this option.
“The central question of why the Jews deserve a democratic nation of their own must be discussed”
Australian Jews have got a nation of their own. It’s called “Australia”. It is the nation of all Australians.
Making Zionism normal is impossible. Teaching schoolgoing Jews that their neighbours are primitive barbarians is part and parcel of the Zionist system of education and indoctrination .
Is there any other country in the OECD that does this ?
Oooh, it must be soooo threatening what I said since it didn’t make it past the censors, because of coooourse I advocated violence and terror. It guess you don’t get my message of peace. [sigh]
ymj, you might want to familiarize yourself with the comment policy link to mondoweiss.net
if, as you suggest, you ‘advocated violence or terror’ based on ethnicity (iow a threat) that could have been why your comment did not make it thru. you can always write adam and phil and ask them to review the comment if you think you were treated unfairly.
“disparage, intimidate or attack a person based on perceived ethnicity or gender. “
But it is apparently always “open season” on those of us who are differently specied.
It’s not worth it at this time to go through the trouble of contacting them. I basically was saying that Zionists should be confronted on their throne. I believe this is similar to what Klaus said about how Jews should give up their elite status in society because they don’t need to be middle-man minorites as a go-between the peasants and the aristocracy, or something to that extent. I may have eluded to alternative methods of confronting Zionists if public shaming fails and if I sounded too much like a white supremacist whack-job, then I apologize for that. It’s hard not to get carried away when you’re so passionate about an issue when you feel like the only thing you hear is crickets.
instead of eluded to, a better word would be “referred” to
Instead of “eluded”, a better word would be “alluded”.
Also, I’m don’t wish to put words into Klaus’s mouth. I should have really said this is “akin to what Klaus said about Jews…” I don’t want to get in trouble with him or anyone else here. I highly admire his [Klaus] perspective on this matter about Jews giving up their unearned elite status.
“Jews giving up their unearned elite status.”
Please, YMJ, please tell us where, besides Israel, Jews have an “unearned elite staus”? As far as I know, Israel is the only place where there is a difference between Jews and others, as far as “elite status” goes.
And please hurry! I don’t think I can stay here much longer without getting apprehended. So please, tell me where being Jewish will earn me “unearned elite status”
Mooser, I work wierd hours as I’m in retail at the moment trying to move onto better things. I need to hop in the shower now but I’ll leave it at this and I can go into detail another time…Since the Jews were largely a middle man minority in Eastern Europe they were economically between the peasants and the Church/nobility. When many immigrated to America during the late 19th and early 20th century they already had a leg up so to speak over the Italians and Irish, for example who came to America as generally poorer than the Jews. That unfair advantage allowed the Jews to rise quickly economically, faster than other groups. It is nothing to do with Jews being smarter than the other “ethnic-whites,” rather it had to do with being placed into that economic niche which they generally acccepted by the church, because it allowed them not to have to be peasants. More to come.
Intellectually, Zionism is kind of trite. It’s an artifact of the nineteenth century obsession with racial nationalism, deriving a spurious validity from a reading of the Torah as factual, secular history. It’s about as defensible as Naziism — and indeed, is remarkably similar both in its origins and as an ideology.
Zionism- I may comment on it in a few days on this anti Zionist web site. Homes of genius hate Israel and thus the discussion on this home of genius is monotone. Yes, this place is designed to shake up the MSM. But why is “dialogue” still a word listed in the purposes of this web site. Dialogue between those that hate Israel and those that hate Israel, Jews and Israelis and those who hate the idea of Israel, but not Israelis. Is that the dialogue you wish to cultivate here? You’ve succeeded in creating a place of genius without dialogue.
WJ, this site stands for the proposition two wrongs don’t make a right; any way one looks at it, and the Zionist state of Israel, as implemented, and as it continues to exist implementing itself (with US dollars & diplomatic cover) is a dire case example in direct point. Both the writers and regular commenters here have a stake in this big strategic world case, as Jews, and/or Americans, and as humanists. Can’t wait for your comment on Zionism. We’re all ears since you have characterized us as haters. It’s not a mark of genius, let alone a useful and well-meaning attempt at dialogue, to call people bad haters. That should be left on the kiddie playground.
Citizen- the relevant quote that I was riffing on was Phil’s quote from April 13th of this year in a post titled “Denial” in which he wrote, “And every home of courtesy, genius and conscience is educating haters of Israel and its misdeeds.” He is trumpeting the virtue of hate.
And according to you the only thing that qualifies as hate is when you say something false about the Jews, if you say something true about the Jews, that isn’t hate. Which is bushwa, but that’s what you claim.
WJ, the logic in your comment leaves a lot to be desired. And show me where I said “the only thing that qualifies as hate is when you say something false about the Jews, if you say something true about the Jews, that isn’t hate.” There’s an old adage, “The truth will set you free.”
Citizen- I don’t have time to research the archive of your comments currently. If you really believe the truth will set you free, you would provide me with an accurate quote rather than my paraphrase.
My comment here was not one of logic. I used a word- “hate” that you felt was inappropriate (kindergarten). I cannot prove the word’s relevance to this current post, nor was I attempting to prove such logic. I used the word illogically at this time due to agita stored up from April. Logic had nothing to do with my comment.
But logic is just a pose. If you’re interested in truth, let’s have it out.
Wow, speaking of somebody who has an onappropriate screen name. I mean what the heck do you have to “wonder” about if you know everything already.
And BTW, “Wondering Jew”, you can go over the “about” page with a fine-tooth comb, but the word “anti-Zionist” (okay, it’s two words and a hyphen) does not appear, nor does this site anywhere claim to be “anti-Zionist”.
If you think the site owners are outright liars, why not come out and say so?
hey moose,
long time, no see. hope you are well. if you every have a question other than the rhetorical sort, let me know.
regards.
I do. You referred to Mondoweiss as an “anti-Zionist” website. Can you please tell me why you say that? I’ve been all over the “about” page, but do not see the words “aqnti-Zionist anywhere, nor any sentence which I can construe as saying the purpose of the website is “anti-Zionist”. Are you saying that the people who wrote that “about” page are lying, not being truthful about the website’s intent on content?
Of course, you completely misuse the expression “rhetorical question” to mean ‘one which “Wondering Jew” would prefer not to, or can’t answer” but that’s all right.
I say that when you say Mondoweiss is an anti-Zionist website, you are lying, and what’s more, you know it. But then again, I guess there’s simply no limit to what you have the right to do when sdealing with a Jew who won’t submit to Zionist control, huh. Lying about them is just the beginning.
Mooser- I suppose if we widen the definition of Zionism to include Buber Zionism and not just Ben Gurion Zionism, you might get a grunt of approval from Phil to the extent that he is agnostic regarding such a movement. There is a lot wrong with Ben Gurion Zionism and I think a blank check to Ben Gurion Zionism is certainly an insufficient strategy and a questionable world view, but I think the line: “And every home of courtesy, genius and conscience is educating haters of Israel and its misdeeds.” pretty much qualifies as anti Zionism. It is not really agnostic whatsoever, wouldn’t you agree?
wondering here’s a response from David Fine at Columbia saying kids like Zionism. i might post on it tomoro.
link to columbiacurrent.tumblr.com
and yes i think we have to honor a lot of people’s desires to move across the world for any number of reasons, including spiritual movements
“It is not really agnostic whatsoever, wouldn’t you agree?”
So you are saying the “about” page is a lie? That the objectives for the blog printed there are disingenuous?
Why don’t you get the mush out of your mouth and just say it?
Yes or no? Are the objectives of the Mondoweiss blog not as they are presented in the “about” page?
Wow, I just clicked over and read that example of the fine thinking at Columbia. I’ll never poke fun at Harvard again. Anyway, it’s a fine example of a brain on Ziocaine.
“But logic is just a pose. If you’re interested in truth, let’s have it out.”
Now, that made a hell of a lot of sense. Like, none at all.
“I suppose if we widen the definition of Zionism to include Buber Zionism and not just Ben Gurion Zionism,”
Is there any point to including fantasy Zionism in the definition? The real Zionism is the problem.
Moose,
Here is the relevant aim from the about section.
To publish a diversity of voices to promote dialogue on these important issues.
Here’s the gist. Does Mondo publish a diversity of voices? I don’t think it does. Does it promote dialogue on these important issues? I don’t think it does.
It is feasible that my impression regarding the promotion of dialogue is related to the comments section (the Mondoweiss community) rather than the intentions of the editors.
Regarding the editors: I think when one labels families of genius who hate Israel (paraphrase) this is decidedly not a promotion of dialogue but rather an exaltation of one’s own emotions. I think that Phil gets carried away at times and while that may fit his personality and its passion, it does not fit the desire to promote dialogue.
I think you, Mooser, do not share the editors’ stated desire to promote dialogue or if you do, you have a very strange way of showing it.
RoHa- I think Buber Zionism (fantasy Zionism) is relevant as a form of Rorschach blot test. For example, you have never said anything positive about any Jewish desire (or need) to move to Palestine/Israel. You mock any identification that is different than your identification with your Australian home or with your British roots. Buber’s Zionism has never gotten any positive word out of you, not just because it is a fantasy, but because you don’t approve of it. The only acceptable political ideas to you are those that fit in with your individualistic rationalistic philosophy and everything else only gets mocked by you.
On the other hand, Buber Zionism exists for me as a utopian goal. To label it utopian is to put it in the category of fantasy. But to label it as a goal is to differentiate from those who have other goals in mind. Some right wing Israelis would confess that Buber Zionism is a beautiful goal, but not of this world. But there are right wing Zionists who don’t even have a fantasy about pure democracy, but instead fantasize about some Biblical concoction that would satisfy some vision of Jewish supremacy. So also in their case, the reaction to Buber Zionism would reveal something.
WJ,
How do we dialogue with people who truly believe that Jews were entitled to displace and oppress and steal from other people because of a “higher good for Jews”?
Not to mention those who believe in bible claims to land.
Or those who believe that Jews make up some kind of seperate ‘race like’ ethnic instead of a religious ‘culture and tradition’ despite all evidence to the contrary.
I am seriously asking you these questions.
I don’t know how to talk to people who believe that they are justified in doing wrong to people who haven’t wronged them, because it was done to them by someone else. And to systematically do it for decades while pretending to be victims and lying about their motives for doing it.
In every single conversation I have ever seen or had, the zionist circular wheel on Israel always comes back to the claim of 1) the higher good for the Jews and 2) their right to some kind of ‘special’ self determination.
BTW WJ, we do dialogue, we keep giving you reasons and proofs that sane, reasonable and fair people agree on as to why zionism is a destructive ideology and Israel is a country that operates on racism in fundamental ways. And even if liberal zionist agree on some points they still go back in the end to that higher good for Jews in taking and keeping Palestine.
It’s a hopless run around in a circle debate.
American- Let me start with your first comment on this post.
“Even going into AD times, Christian, Catholics, Muslims ,as well as Jews, all had their turn at being oppressed, discriminated against and victimized.”
I suppose this statement is strictly true, but also irrelevant. The primary motive for Zionism vis a vis “we aren’t wanted here” was Europe circa 1880 to 1933 (thus excluding the Holocaust from said consideration). In this period in that place what other significant forms of discrimination existed? When the French Revolution broke out in 1789 it promised “freedom” to the Jews as individuals and not as a group and if Europe had followed in those footsteps, Zionism of its current variety, would not have been born. The Jew hatred of Germany in the late 19th century and of Czarist Russia from 1795 to 1917 were the most significant forms of hatred and deprivation of citizenship rights of the groups that you mentioned in your sweeping generalization.
Humanity’s tendency to discriminate against outsiders and foreigners is a well known fact. You seem to use it as a “so these other religions suffered too, so what makes you so special?” and that is an argument, but not a particularly useful one. Zionism was born under specific circumstances and sweeping generalizations do not help us understand those circumstances and increasing understanding should be the priority rather than winning an argument.
(I use the term Jew hatred because the term anti semitism leads right into the semantic argument cul de sac. The Yiddish term was “sonay yisroel” literally haters of Israel, referring to the corporate body of the Jewish people rather than the nation born in 1948. Thus the term Jew haters is close enough to the original Yiddish, the Hebrew branch of Yiddish and not the German branch of Yiddish.)
In this period in that place what other significant forms of discrimination existed?
Roma/Sinti, homosexuals, women, not to mention place-specific minorities, advocates of certain philosophies and political ideologies, “colonials” abroad and at home (Italy’s first race laws were against blacks, second against Roma/Sinti and only third against Jews), the poor and remnants of the peasant class, immigrants and migrants.
The Yiddish term was “sonay yisroel”
The Yiddish-speakers I grew up with all used “antesemiten”. “Sonay yisroel” sounds a little highfalutin – rabbi talk, or “the Hebrew branch”, as you call it.
‘How do we dialogue with people who truly believe that Jews were entitled to displace and oppress and steal from other people because of a “higher good for Jews”?”
This whole post asks really important questions. Even though I cringe at the use of “dialogue” as a verb, I too would like an answer, but I fear that the answer will be “We can’t.”
One problem is that the Zionists who come here to “discuss” are not actually interested in an exchange of ideas, but in repeating tired Hasbara talking points and canards (e.g. “Israel was attacked in 1967″) and deploying convoluted justifications for clearly indefensible Israeli behavior. When said Zionists are confronted with well-documented refutations, they suddenly vanish, only to return a few days later, in another thread, to continue the cycle of disruption.
So that yes, the whole process is rather monotonous, but I can’t see how the blog authors can be blamed for it. Zionists are given ample freedom to say whatever they wish. It is up to them to say something interesting.
What’s wrong with hating Israel? Who doesn’t hate the plague, or cancer? It’s hateful. Duh.
Got to agree with you, kapok. As a Jew, I consider Istrael and Zionism a personal threat. At this point Zionists and Israel are the biggest danger to Jews in the world.
And as “giladg”s little plea on another thread reveals, Israel is low on Jewish cannon fodder, and needs more, and will prevaricate incessantly, or worse, to try and get it.
It hit me two nights ago. Sure I can see how a non-Jew would be content with a “solution”, something that would bring peace and a livable life to the Palestinians. Zionism doesn’t threaten them. As a Jew, unfortunately, it’s not possible to be satisfied with that. As long as their is a Jewish State, there is always the possibility that the Zionists could convince other countries to turn their Jews over to Israel, ‘for their own good’.
Jews will not be safe until Zionism is gone.
>> Sure I can see how a non-Jew would be content with a “solution”, something that would bring peace and a livable life to the Palestinians. Zionism doesn’t threaten them. As a Jew, unfortunately, it’s not possible to be satisfied with that. As long as their is a Jewish State, there is always the possibility that the Zionists could convince other countries to turn their Jews over to Israel, ‘for their own good’.
Jews “returning” to their “Promised Land”: Surely there has never been a better, more final, solution? ;-)
I agree that Zionism is a threat to the “average Jew”, whose dilemma I do not envy.
“Zionism doesn’t threaten them.”
“Them” meaning the non-Jews. I am certainly not referring to the Palestinians, which Zionism does way more than just threaten.
“When said Zionists are confronted with well-documented refutations, they suddenly vanish, only to return a few days later, in another thread, to continue the cycle of disruption.”
So you’ve noticed the Ziocaine amnesia, too! Everything will be lots better once it is recognised that Zionism, like alcoholism and drug addiction is most efficiently dealt with when treatment is based on the “disease model”. Who knows, maybe they’ll come up with a pill (Zionon?) which can counteract or eliminate the Ziocaine syndrome.
Perhaps “normalized Zionism” is possible. As it was observed, in 19 century Central and East Europe there was a shift from the old feudal model of a nation that was basically allegiance of assorted national and religious groups to the Crown, with peasants being despised and oppressed majority. As the feudal model lost its attraction it was replaced by the ideologies of national solidarity, but unfortunately it was pitting constituent nations of several empires in conflict with each other.
Now almost all those nationalism have their separate states, but in the process there are quite a few bones buried. And there is a process of normalization, so that open vilification of other nations, while not rare, is increasingly shunned, and least palatable national heroes are less and less emphasized.