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Conflating Zionism and Judaism Hurts Jews

My experience with Judaism taught me about community, not militaristic nationalism

Mark Misoshnik

Mark Misoshnik

— 13 min read
Conflating Zionism and Judaism Hurts Jews

Since October 7, I have been consistent in my stance: what Hamas did was absolutely horrific, Israel’s colonization and apartheid are responsible (not to mention their installation of Hamas), and carpet bombing entire neighborhoods mostly comprised of women and children is completely indefensible. For this, I have been called an anti-Zionist, a “kapo,” a “fake Jew.”

If opposing wanton murder of civilians makes me anti-Zionist, then I wear that label with pride, but I refuse to accept that being a “real” Jew means supporting war crimes, especially ones so extensive there’s a lengthy Wikipedia page dedicated to them.

Are Holocaust survivors who oppose Israel’s action “fake” Jews, too? What about an ex-IDF general? By that same token, are Christian Evangelicals, antisemites who want all Jews to live in Israel so God can begin the rapture, considered real Jews since they financially and politically support Israel, far outspending any Jewish Zionist group?

Growing up Jewish

I was raised in a Russian-Jewish family in Brooklyn, surrounded by other Russian Jews. They were mostly conservative, highly anti-communist, and pretty insular. Scarcity mindset was common. But despite living in a community of 6,000 people, we knew most of our neighbors to some extent. My barber lived on the same floor as us, as did my mother and sister’s nail technician, and they worked out of their homes. I was friends with the grandson of the nail technician for a while, often playing in the outdoor areas that connected our apartments. I had a friend that lived 6 floors above me, another 5 floors above. I had friends in a neighboring building, 2 of whom lived next door to each other and whose parents were friends.

My parents fled the Soviet Union due to dangerous, institutionalized antisemitism. They stayed briefly in Italy before moving to New York City, where they’ve lived since. Here was a place they could be Jewish, in community with other Jewish people, even if the religious aspects never really came out beyond a giant menorah placed on the lawn of Building 1 for Hanukkah.

I had a bar mitzvah when I was 13 (obviously) but instead of learning Hebrew, I just learned the pronunciation of the prayers I needed to say with English letters. I defiantly asked for real wine but choked on it when I had to drink it, much to the amusement of my family.

I attended, and later worked at, a day camp at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (yes, it’s just like the YMCA). It was run by an Orthodox Jewish couple, but it wasn’t a strictly Jewish organization. From what I remember, it was a relatively progressive space, all things considered.

One of my best friends got me a job at a small mom-and-pop pharmacy run by an Orthodox Jew and his son. This was where I first experienced unabashed, open bigotry from fellow Jews. The owner and the employees regularly denigrated Arabs, Muslims, Black people, queer people, and pretty much anyone who wasn’t a white Jewish man. They were staunchly conservative and I have no doubt they all voted for Trump. I was paid $5/hour cash, while the owner bought a $2.5 million home because his current $2 million home was near too much traffic.

Birthright

I went to Israel on a Birthright trip in 2013, which ironically started my journey to anti-Zionism. It was stunningly beautiful, historic in a way I had never seen, and openly bigoted.

Throughout my 10 days in Israel, Palestine wasn’t mentioned in a positive light once. There was no discussion about the displacement the Israeli occupation was still imposing. There was no acknowledgment of the past and ongoing violence necessary to keep Israel alive. Brutal airstrikes and assaults were labeled with euphemisms like “military operations” while children who resisted with literal sticks and stones were called “terrorists". Almost every day of the trip included propaganda designed to enchant American Jews, to convince them this is their homeland, and to have us make aliyah, a term that describes when members of the Jewish diaspora move to Israel. Our group was at an event where Benjamin Netanyahu himself gave a speech imploring us to make aliyah, insinuating it was where we really belonged.

I’m not claiming to be an expert on Israel based on this trip, I can only recount what I personally experienced: overt racism toward an indigenous Bedouin community that hosted roughly 150 college-age Jews in their tents, misogyny toward not only the American women in our group but also toward Israeli women, and a pretty ingrained paranoia and hatred of Palestinians. We were joined by IDF soldiers who got to join us as a vacation of sorts from their military responsibilities. From what I recall, none of the soldiers had seen any combat, but they were jaded in a way you normally don’t see from recruits. They spoke of their enemies, those horrible bloodthirsty Arabs on the other side of the border, as if they had faced down hordes of them and risked their lives to protect Israel. In reality, they were privates who did basic administrative work for the army and used the trip to hook up with Americans.

After the trip, I felt a deep connection to my fellow Birthright travelers and to Israel, but…why? Was it because I “belonged” there? Or was it just because 10 days of nonstop propaganda was working, despite the clear racism I witnessed? I realized over time that a lot of that feeling came from the hasbara shoveled down my throat my whole life.

Why do I have a “birthright” to visit or settle in Israel when neither I nor any of my family nor my ancestors have ever stepped foot in Israel outside of this trip? And why is the same right of return not granted to Palestinians whose families have lived there for decades, if not centuries?

The evolution of my anti-Zionism

I didn’t call myself an anti-Zionist for quite some time, even defending Israel as recently as 2016, before I came to call myself an anarchist. This was a time when I considered Bernie Sanders to be the reincarnation of Lenin, with no concept of what left-wing politics were actually about. As my politics shifted to the libertarian left, so, too, did my feelings toward Zionism. I was against the nationalism of the USA, why shouldn’t I be against the nationalism of Israel, too?

Any time I posted even the lightest skepticism of Israel on Facebook, some of my fellow Birthright attendees complained I was being unfair and hypercritical. My Judaism was questioned, even by non-Jews. A lot of people quietly unfriended me, and a few others messaged me to tell me they were doing so.

I never once posted about support of Hamas or Fatah or any militant Palestinian movement. I never questioned Israel’s right to exist. I never said “fuck the IDF.” Yet, I was still labeled an anti-Zionist, a hater of Israel, a fake Jew.

In the years since, I have openly embraced my anti-Zionism and my Judaism simultaneously. They are not in opposition; on the contrary, they are part and parcel of each other, in the vein of historic and current Jewish anti-Zionist movements like the Jewish Labor Bund and Shoresh.

Israel and Palestine now

The ongoing genocide, and yes, I do mean genocide, has only strengthened my stance. It is a profound shame that hasbarists have worked their whole lives to convince the public that Israel represents Jews, especially when its crimes are plain for the world to see:

Media culpability

The media also holds a huge amount of responsibility, not only for its misrepresentations of the current conflict, but also for its ongoing propaganda in support of Israel’s ethnonationalist project. This is especially disgusting when you consider Israel has killed 95 journalists since October 7, the deadliest period since the Committee to Protect Journalists started collecting that kind of data in 1992, not to mention the countless journalists who have been harassed, doxxed, threatened, or whose family members have been killed.

Most recently, The New York Times was lambasted for hiring Anat Schwartz, a filmmaker with no reporting experience, and a former IDF soldier who liked tweets that openly advocated for war crimes against Palestinians to do a story about the alleged systematic rape of Israeli women by Hamas during the October 7 attacks. The biggest problem, of course, is that even the Times found no evidence of mass rape, a talking point that has been used ad nauseam to justify ethnic cleansing. All of their sources are secondhand witnesses with conflicting stories and people who said they could “imagine” that rape occurred. Was there sexual assault during the assault? Probably, since sexual violence is commonplace in conflict zones. But that’s very different from weaponized, mass rape and completely ignores similar claims made against the IDF and still wouldn’t justify the atrocities we are seeing in response. As a Jewish survivor of rape, I find it morally reprehensible to push this type of propaganda and utilize the very real pain of survivors as a basis for unprecedented destruction.

Because of these misrepresentations, nearly half of Americans don’t even know whether casualties are higher in Palestine or Israel, despite a disparity of 26:1, the US has cut funding to the UNRWA based on flimsy evidence, and our government sent Israel $3.3 billion to continue its destruction.

Talking points

There are quite a few popular refrains among Zionists that are used almost daily on social media, at protests, and in the media. In this section, I will try to respond to them in a comprehensive manner.

Do you condemn Hamas?

Yes. I do not support any right wing religious groups, which is why I also condemn Israel. I always ask Zionists if they can do the same, but they never do. However, the idea that anti-Zionists must always condemn Hamas in order to talk about Israel’s crimes, as if we have any control or say in what Hamas does, is asinine and serves only to deflect legitimate criticism.

Hamas’ own doctrine states they want to kill Jews

While it’s abundantly clear that many senior members of Hamas are full-throated antisemites, the idea that the current doctrine openly calls for the murder of Jews is incorrect. It says, “Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.” Whether you believe this or not is up to you, but that doesn’t change the fact that they changed the doctrine language to make a distinction between Jews and Zionists.

Release the hostages and the war ends

There is an absurd naïveté in thinking Israel would suddenly stop its offensive if all hostages are released, especially given its track record in the past 75 years. That aside, Israel itself doesn’t seem to care about saving hostages. It brutalizes their family members, attacks released hostages, and rejects ceasefire deals that the families themselves support. I don’t believe there is a world in which indiscriminate bombing and cutting off necessary supplies helps the hostages in any way, since they will also be victimized. As plenty of victimized families have said before, the only solution is all for all, releasing Palestinian hostages in exchange for Israeli ones.

Hamas is using civilians as human shields

While this is most definitely true, there are a few issues with this argument. First, the notion that it’s okay to bomb civilians because they are being used as shields is cruel beyond words. Imagine some robbers occupied a bank and took hostages. Is the moral response to negotiate with them and ensure the safe release of everyone or to launch a missile at the bank, killing everyone inside? If, as Zionists say, so many civilians are being used as human shields, does that not make them victims, too? Why is it acceptable to kill them for crimes an oppressive regime has committed against them?

Second, if the official position is that killing civilians used as shields IS acceptable, then that necessarily means condoning war crimes, which is, in my eyes, an indefensible position to hold.

Israel hasn’t occupied Gaza since 2005

Aside from being wildly irrelevant, it’s also not strictly true. This piece explains the situation in detail, better than I can.

The Palestinians keep rejecting offers from Israel

While it’s true that Hamas has rejected a deal during the conflict, this argument completely ignores Israel’s own history of rejecting offers, including a 2017 concession to a two-state solution and at least two during the current conflict.

Hamas kills gay people/Palestinians would kill you for being queer

There is no doubt that homophobia is present in Palestine, just like any conservative religious society, sometimes with deadly consequences. But the claim that Hamas regularly executes queer people is not grounded in reality. One of the most cited stories is that of Mahmoud Ishtiwi, who was murdered after being detained for a year. Many people use this story and claim Ishtiwi was killed just for being gay, but when you actually read it, it seems far more likely that he was killed for being a “spy,” which is consistent with the other executions Hamas has conducted.

That being said, queer Palestinians who seek refuge in Israel don’t always fare much better than those who still live in Palestine. They face a ton of systemic barriers, leading to risky sex work, drug use, abuse, and more. Some queer Palestinians are even blackmailed into being spies for Israel.

It is also the very height of hypocrisy for conservatives who have nothing but disdain for the LGBTQ+ community to feign interest in service of genocidal aims. It also does not help that community when you bomb them, starve them, and leave them for dead. Queer Palestinians exist now, today, in Gaza and are being killed just as indiscriminately as heterosexual Palestinians. I would think this is a more immediate danger to their survival.

Even with all this being said and acknowledging that Palestine is not necessarily a safe place for queer people, I still do not believe it justifies what Israel is doing.

They voted for Hamas

The last election in Palestine was held in 2006. Considering nearly half of its population is 18 or younger, that would mean that nearly half of its population would not have even been born when Hamas was elected. Additionally, less than 50% of Gazans even voted for Hamas to begin with.

If civilians are supposed to be held responsible for the actions of the people in power, would the citizens of the US not deserve to be hit by drone strikes, armed incursions, and nuclear bombs for everything the nation has done?

If civilians are responsible, then wouldn’t the actions of Hamas on October 7th be justified, given Israel’s long history of war crimes and extrajudicial imprisonment, or hostage taking, of thousands held without trial, including children?

My point is not that these things are justifiable; just the opposite, I do not think civilians should be punished for the sins of their ruling class.

Hamas lies about the death toll

If that’s the case, why do the US, Israel, and many NATO countries all use those numbers and say they are credible? How about the World Health Organization and the UN? A renowned and well-respected medical journal?

This argument also begs the question: even if the numbers are somewhat inflated, so what? Is 15,000 dead civilians much better than 20,000? At what point do you draw the line?

There was a ceasefire on October 6
  • 9 Palestinians were killed by the IDF on January 26, including an elderly woman, with at least 19 wounded.
  • The IDF raided Al-Aqsa mosque on April 5, wounding 50 attendees and arresting 400.
  • Between May 9 and May 13, Israeli forces killed at least 9 civilians, breaking a ceasefire agreement. At least 140 Palestinians were wounded, and at least 800 were displaced.
  • Israeli soldiers actively helped settlers commit pogroms in Huwara on February 26, as well as in Turmus Ayya on June 20.
  • 12 Palestinians were killed by the IDF between July 3 and July 5, and at least 100 were wounded, 20 critically. At least 3 of those killed were minors. Thousands had to flee.
  • On August 20, Israeli forces raided several Palestinian towns while settlers rampaged, injuring dozens.
  • A Palestinian man running to aid a wounded individual was shot in the back of the head on August 22.
  • Israeli soldiers killed a 19-year-old in the West Bank on October 6.
  • 234 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in 2023.

This is just in 2023 prior to October 7, so, no, there wasn’t a ceasefire in place. Israel routinely attacked and killed Palestinians, just like every year before.

I’m not posting these arguments to justify my position as much as I am to field any incoming bullshit meant to derail any conversations about Palestine. It’s also so that when I am inevitably faced with these ludicrous arguments, I can link to this essay and continue the actual conversation. Most of these lines come directly from hasbara manuals, whether people realize it or not, and are designed specifically to distract from and justify Israel’s ongoing crimes. I refuse to be distracted by them any longer and I will never believe collective punishment is moral or right.

American nonprofit propaganda

There are 2 particular Zionist nonprofits that I have a lot of issues with, the first one being the Anti Defamation League. Despite claiming to support and defend Jews and other minorities, they stood behind Elon Musk in the wake of his spreading Neo-Nazi conspiracy theories, called anti-Zionists “fake Jews,” legitimized Trump’s decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem, advocated for surveillance of all Muslims, hosted fascist Jared Kushner’s speech in which he said American Jews should be more appreciative of Evangelical Christians, and claimed leftist anti-Zionists were the “photo inverse” of violent white nationalist groups, among a litany of other issues that are perfectly laid out in this article.

The ADL equates any level of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, especially in the wake of October 7, while simultaneously claiming Jews do not represent Israel. You cannot have it both ways. Either we are responsible for Israel’s actions because it represents us, or we aren’t because it doesn’t.

Another group, the Jewish Community Relations Council, particularly the San Francisco chapter, has been similarly pushing Zionist propaganda and claiming to speak for Jews. They equate anti-Zionist protestors, many of whom are Jewish, with Neo-Nazis. They smeared an organization dedicated to supporting Arabs and Muslims in the Bay Area by labeling them “pro-terrorism.” They rallied alongside John Hagee, a Christian Evangelical who said Hitler was sent by God to hasten the creation of Israel and, by extension, the rapture. They have never apologized for any of these.

Final thoughts

What does this all have to do with how Zionism hurts Jews?

When you look at the Zionist project as a whole and the destruction it has wrought, particularly in the last few months, it becomes increasingly clear: Israel and the propagandists defending it are desperate to convince the world that it exists as a representation of worldwide Jewry, while doing unspeakable, horrific damage. By casting Zionism as the only “legitimate” expression of Judaism, Israel’s proponents create an intrinsic link between Jews and Israel’s actions, creating an ouroboros of hatred that does not distinguish between Zionist Jews and anti-Zionist Jews.

If we are to fight antisemitism, we must not spread the idea that Jews are a monolith that supports a bloodthirsty regime. We must not accept the concept of religious ethnonationalism as a legitimate and moral response to oppression.

The Jewish concept of tikkun olam calls on us to repair the world, not further fracture it, much less in the name of Judaism. I reject the notion that Israel speaks for me, that its actions represent me, that its settler-colonialist project is done on my behalf.

Never again means never again for anyone.

Here are some resources to learn more about Israel’s ongoing genocide and how to help Palestinians:

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