Ralph Seliger: What is Zionism?

Column Left: What Is Zionism?
by Ralph Seliger

Elections loom early next year to select US delegates for the World Zionist Congress, scheduled to convene in Jerusalem in June 2006.

According to our own Meretz USA elder statesman, Moshe Kagan, a "Zionist" is distinct from a mere "lover of Israel." The latter may support the existing government of Israel regardless of the wisdom of its policies. A Zionist actively seeks to be a "partner with Israel" in securing the well-being of the Jewish people around the world. Zionism is about the return of the Jewish people to the historical stage as a sovereign actor; it is not about applauding the decisions of the State of Israel regardless of their content.

I have recently been challenged to define my sense of Jewish and Zionist identity. Most of us are Jews more fundamentally as a matter of Jewish fate than faith (the latter not actually professed or practiced by all Jews). Jewish identity is similar to the historical/cultural/ethnic reality that has generally defined people as French or Danish, for example, for centuries. In fact, our legacy as a people goes back even further than theirs, to an era when each tribe or nation had a unique religion. This doesn't make us better than most peoples, only older.*

(* I don't mean to exclude Jews by choice." Au contraire: even in the Book of Ruth, the Biblical text that celebrates the righteous convert, when Ruth declares her devotion to Naomi (her Israelite mother-in-law), she memorably proclaims "your people will be my people" before stating "your God will be my God.")

As secular Zionists, we promote a Jewish identity that is not primarily religious. To me, a truly revolutionary goal of Zionism would be to forge a new Jewish identity that is independent of religious affiliation.

Our sorrow is that it has been historically problematic to be who we are. This is the fault of anti-Semitism; it is part of what I mean in defining Jewish identity as a function of "fate." We are Jews whether or not we consciously define ourselves as such - religiously, ethnically, culturally, or by ancestry or heritage. Many if not most peoples live with historical baggage; the Irish, for example, carry with them an understandable grievance against the English that has almost but not quite disappeared. Tragically, it is still an aspect of the Jewish condition to attract the outsized enmity that is anti-Semitism. (Philosopher Isaiah Berlin reputedly quipped that an anti-Semite "hates Jews more than is strictly necessary.")

Zionism has been an heroic effort to alter our fate, to freely define for ourselves who we are, both as Jews and as individuals. Ironically, secular Israeli leaders have given a particular stream of Jewish expression - religious Orthodoxy - a disproportionate say in defining who is a Jew, but Zionism has succeeded in building an amazing country. Israel's technological and cultural achievements (its science, its artists, its diversity) and, yes, its military prowess, all have been extraordinary. Still, in not yet having sufficiently changed Jewish fate to constitute a resounding success, Zionism leaves a dark cloud.

Nevertheless, as a child of Holocaust refugees - whose grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous other relatives did not survive - I consider my family as having arisen again from ground zero. The fact that half of my extended family has survived, grown and prospered in Israel, gives me great pride and hope.

Disorientation at Sharon Rally

On May 22, while right-wing [!] protestors in New York City heckled Ariel Sharon about the evacuation of Gaza, representatives of Meretz USA, Ameinu, the Union of Progressive Zionists, Hashomer Hatzair, Habonim Dror and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom sat inside as part of an overflowing audience supporting the prime minister. Needless to say, this inversion felt strange. I sat near a contingent of our associated youth groups - all wearing T-shirts proclaiming on the back, "For Israel's Sake End The Occupation," with a picture on the front of the prime minister in diapers leaving Gaza and the words: "Nice first step Arik." We had occasion to applaud Sharon, even enthusiastically when he was repeatedly heckled by demonstrators who stripped down to orange T-shirts proclaiming "Gush Katif forever" and shouted that "Jews don't expel Jews" and "the Gaza retreat is a reward for terror," as they were led away. Sharon drew loud applause when he said to the police, "Thanks for your help, [but] in Israel, usually I handle these things myself."

Outside there were hundreds shouting "shame, shame" as we exited the building. By their dress, most looked Orthodox, with a very large number of "black hats."

Sharon sounded eerily like Rabin before his assassination. Like Rabin then, Sharon also proclaimed the undovish sentiment that Jerusalem is the "eternal undivided capital of the State of Israel." (We, like Barak in 2000, and as expressed in the Geneva Initiative, understand the importance of negotiating shared or divided sovereignty in Jerusalem.)

But Rabin left you feeling more confident, ten years ago, that he was moving toward a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Sharon expressed the hope that peace will happen, and stated a willingness to make "painful compromises for genuine, real peace," but there's no sense of a mutual process going on, and nothing from his talk to assure us that he is concretely building a peace process. That Sharon did not mention the name of Mahmoud Abbas or Abu Mazen even once, underscored his penchant for unilateralism and disinclination to negotiate.

Brit Tzedek V'Shalom

Brit Tzedek's president, Marcia Freedman, an American who made aliya and served in the Knesset for one term in Shulamit Aloni's nascent Civic Rights Movement/RATZ (a predecessor of Meretz/Yahad) in the 1970's, founded the organization about three years ago with the purpose of mobilizing support among American Jews for the two-state solution. Brit Tzedek has cooperated with more established Zionist organizations, including Meretz USA, in sponsoring speaking tours and petition drives toward this end.

The fact that its national conference, this past February, could draw 500-700 participants from across the country, including a dedicated core of activists, was most impressive. There were professed Zionists, non-Zionists, and all manner of people in between. For the most part, panelists and audiences agreed and disagreed with each other politely and with good humor. The unofficial model for peace known as the Geneva Initiative - pioneered under the leadership of our Israeli colleague, Meretz/Yahad Party chair Yossi Beilin, and his Palestinian partner, Yasir Abed Rabbo - was the gold standard favored by virtually all attendees.

Unlike Meretz USA, Brit Tzedek is not a constituent of the American Zionist Movement and does not emphasize the "Z" word, but as director Aliza Becker put it: "We support Israel as a democratic Jewish state." This places Brit Tzedek within the mainstream consensus of the Jewish community and distinguishes it from such marginal radical groups as the Jewish Voice for Peace, which favor or contemplate "solutions" outside of the two-state framework.

Although Meretz USA and Brit Tzedek are different in organizational structure and to a degree in their sense of mission, we have a history of working together. As a constituent organization of the American Zionist Movement, Meretz USA is a natural place for members of Brit Tzedek to express their Zionist convictions by affiliating with us and voting for our slate in next year's election for delegates to the World Zionist Congress.