In the decades since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, many have equated Zionism with Jewish identity鈥攁nd anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Few remember now that the Zionist movement triggered passionate debate among Jews, with many expressing ambivalence or opposition to the Zionist project. In Jewish Anti-Zionism, Shaul Magid and Zev Mishell have gathered a broad selection of documents, written between the late nineteenth century and the present day, many of them newly translated into English from multiple languages, revealing the rich variety of Jewish opposition to Zionism over the decades. Following Magid and Mishell鈥檚 authoritative introduction on the history of anti-Zionism among Jews, the book features dozens of texts by Jewish writers from diverse backgrounds discussing why they reject the Zionist idea as the best option for Jewish flourishing.
The documents reflect a lively debate carried out though multiple forms鈥攑ersonal letters, essays, speeches, manifestos, newspaper columns, and extracts from learned treatises. The authors range from scholars and other thinkers writing well before the establishment of the state of Israel to well-known contemporary voices including Peter Beinart, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Judith Butler. Magid and Mishell preface each text with a short introduction that offers historical and ideological context.
Shaul Magid is Professor of Modern Judaism in Residence at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of many books, including Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (快色直播) and The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, and the translator of Jewish Anti-Zionism as Political Theology: The Major Writings of Yoel Teitelbaum. Zev Mishell is a writer, activist, and graduate student at Harvard University’s Committee on the Study of Religion.
“Jewish Anti-Zionism offers a powerful rejoinder to those who would equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism and who insist that Judaism and Zionism cannot be disentangled. Shaul Magid and Zev Mishell have essentially retold modern Jewish history from a perspective left out of standard narratives and have provided a valuable tool to those who seek to alter the mainstream Jewish political agenda.”—Hasia Diner, author of Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America
“Jewish Anti-Zionism offers an extraordinary collection of documents spanning 120 years, introducing readers to a long-occluded history of the objections, reservations, and opposition to Zionism among Jews of different political and religious persuasions. Here, at last, is a book that takes us beyond contemporary bitter debates about the relationship of Jewish identity to the state of Israel that for too long have been framed in terms of charges and denials of antisemitism.”—Joan Wallach Scott, author of On the Judgment of History
“As the Jewish Zionist consensus collapses, Shaul Magid and Zev Mishell have presciently excavated the voices of anti-Zionist Jews over the last century. Their masterful introduction and the voluminous sources they present offer readers across the political spectrum an essential guide to modern Jewish life, and prove that Jewish anti-Zionism deserves a place alongside its far more studied twin, Jewish Zionism.”—Lila Corwin Berman, author of Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship
“At a moment of profound rupture in modern Jewish history, Shaul Magid and Zev Mishell’s vital anthology Jewish Anti-Zionism gathers castaway voices who warned about the nationalization of Judaism and the calamitous implications of unchecked state power in Israel. While it is Palestinians who have paid the ultimate price of this violence, Jewish life, religion, and culture have also been irreparably harmed. The primary sources assembled in this urgent collection make an irrefutable case for alternative forms of Jewish existence and the possibility of building new futures in the wake of Zionism.”—Seth Anziska, University College London
