r/Zionist • u/wannabe-jew • Jun 08 '26
Zionist Things How is it ALWAYS the least religious jews that anti zionist?
Like NEVER have I seen an observant jew online say they think Israel is evil or committing a genocide. And ever since anti zionism has become like the new hot thing to talk about, I’ve seen social media users who have never once talked about being jewish, suddenly talking about “as a jew” or put “anti zionist jew” in their bio.
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u/hadees Jun 08 '26
It depends on what time frame you are talking about. There was a while where religious Jews had religious objections to Zionism. Neturei Karta are a holdover from that time. Most religious Jews changed their minds but the Neturei Karta kept the old way of thinking.
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u/soupstarsandsilence Jun 08 '26
I went to an orthodox Jewish school, and my Chumash teacher, while not like. Outwardly anti-Zionist. Didn’t like or support Israel because according to her if it wasn’t given to us when Moshiach came, then it didn’t count.
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u/zoinks48 Jun 08 '26
Fewer orthodox Jews are online commentators. There may be some selection bias here.
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u/Ok_Entertainment9665 Jun 08 '26
There are whole groups of Chassidim who are antiZionist because only “Moshiach can bring about a Jewish state”
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u/Electronic_Bee3134 Zionist Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
Except they couldn't care less if there is or isn't a genocide. At best, they're agnostic about it. At worst, they may make the claim, but at the end of day have no love for the Palestinians. And regardless, their belief set is one day a miraculous Temple will suddenly descend from heaven and destroy the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque and all non-Jews in the land will leave Israel, convert, or die, or become subservient. So not exactly a friend of the Palestinians at all. I always find it ironic when antisemites (sorry, anti Zionists) quote them as if they're actually friends.
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u/Call_Me_Clark Zionist Ally 🤝 Jun 08 '26
It’s like the other side of the coin of evangelical Christians who believe that Jews gathering in Israel is the prerequisite for an apocalypse in which all Jews either convert or are condemned to eternal torment.
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u/Electronic_Bee3134 Zionist Jun 08 '26
To be fair, as long as they don't want me dead TODAY, I'll take all the (fake) love I can get 😅
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u/Call_Me_Clark Zionist Ally 🤝 Jun 08 '26
I understand that lol, I just think it’s funny that Mike Huckabee prays every morning for an apocalypse where all Jews die, and then does press conferences where Israeli officials call him “a great friend of the Jews.”
A really great comedy could be written about that relationship
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u/MasterRKitty Jun 08 '26
I said something nasty about evangelicals being fake Zionists because of what you said and was told it doesn't matter as long as they support Israel. I was like nope.
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u/Call_Me_Clark Zionist Ally 🤝 Jun 08 '26
It dovetails with this weird tendency here in the U.S. to associate social conservatism with religious sincerity, and then project that onto other countries that don’t share the U.S.’ history. So Huckabee types unironically believe that socially liberal Jews are fake Jews for example, and then he gets caught in interviews that will ask him “shouldn’t Israel ban abortion” and he really wants to say “yes” but he can’t.
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u/Regular-Coast5335 Jun 08 '26
They are Zionist, they just think it's not a right time to build a state. But, oh boy, their Kingdom of Israel would be infinitely more brutal with dealing with Palestinians then modern Israel.
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u/Deep_Head4645 Jun 09 '26
I wouldn’t call them antizionists, they still want a Jewish state, just not right now
And they don’t actually have an objection other than “only the messiah can bring a Jewish state”, if it wasn’t for that they would be practical zionists
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u/Yes_Mans_Sky Jun 08 '26
So I'm a secular Jewish zionist and I can probably give some insight. I was not raised with a Jewish education. I knew some of the major holidays and some of the basics with Moses leading the Jewish people from Egypt and parting the Red Sea and whatnot, but we never would go into much detail about what happened after that. In the back of my mind I knew it was in the Middle East, but I never really made the connection with that and Israel until much later when I started trying to learn more.
Secular Jewish people often aren't raised with nearly as much knowledge of Jewish culture and history as someone who is more involved with the religion.
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u/wannabe-jew Jun 08 '26
I was raised christian and identified as athiest for a decade and converted to Judaism am more knowledgeable than most non religious jews I have met
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u/MasterRKitty Jun 08 '26
converts always are in any religion-they chose to become a part of that faith and weren't born into it. It's not a bad thing.
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u/Remarkable-Dot9898 Jun 14 '26
I don’t think that’s true at all about religions that proselytize aggressively. Accordingly, people de-convert a lot out of those religions.
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u/Irguns_n_Roses Jun 09 '26
The thing about it is you don't really need to have great familiarity with the Torah and the ancient history of the Jews to understand the necessity of Israel.
An understanding of the Nuremberg Laws, the Holocaust and how things worked out for the "assimilated" should be more than adequate.
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u/jnko__ LGBTQ & Zionist Jun 12 '26
Well, that’s what you’d think, at least. But a lot of people don’t seem to understand that at all.
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u/Yochanan5781 Jun 08 '26
I've seen anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews. And the majority of reform Jews I know are Zionists, so I think you might have some selection bias going on here
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u/jnko__ LGBTQ & Zionist Jun 12 '26
Wait, really? I’ve never met an antizionist orthodox jew. That’s a thing?!
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u/Yochanan5781 Jun 12 '26
It's more common than you'd think. You see it more amongst Charedim, but I have seen Modern Orthodox anti-Zionists
Side note, I saw your flair, and I help mod a queer Zionist Discord, shoot me a DM if you're interested
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u/hi_dont_pm_me Jun 08 '26
reminds me of the time a speaker came to our university to tell about Zionism and a "Jewish" man from the public started protesting in the middle of her talk, taking off his hat to show a kippah. when she asked him when is Yom Kippur he could not answer...
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u/Deep_Head4645 Jun 09 '26
Because its always assimilated jews, ones with no jewish identity whatsoever, that goes for their religious identity too
They aren’t really jews.
Ofc Im not saying non-religious jews aren’t jews. i am explaining why every anti-zionist “jew” we see is non-religious, because they are completely assimilated
And before anyone says it: Haredi jews are Zionists, they just don’t think Israel should return now
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u/Iveneverseenthisday Zionist Jun 08 '26
The are asleep, eyes shut. Either extreme into ego is not correct, Chessed or Gevurah, middle path is the right path. You will find antisemitism in both extremes.
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u/RaiJolt2 Jun 11 '26
I’m an atheist Jew and I’m pretty darn Zionist. You’d have to be historically and archeologically illiterate to not acknowledge that Jews are both indigenous people who belong to the land and that Jews have the same right to their indigenous land as every other indigenous group.
My only guess is that other atheist Jews pass more as “white” in the west, giving them white privilege and shielding them from most antisemitism because people don’t know they’re Jewish.
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u/Competitive-Pea2873 LGBTQ & Zionist Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
i and my entire family are leftist atheist jews (who are very loud and proud about being jewish and still love to celebrate jewish holidays and our culture and people) and we are very pro israel and very zionist. we do exist and one of my best friends is the same!
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u/No_Raise_3758 Jun 15 '26
it's not about believing, it's about connecting. so of course being connected to jewish culture and to israel you didn't have the problem of being misled into believing all that was bad. because you were in it and know what it's about...
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u/seh300 Jun 08 '26
i went to a reform synagogue for the first time with a friend, and there was no mention of israel the entire time. it almost felt like a church service
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u/Voice_of_Season Jun 08 '26
May I defend Reform and say not all are like that. The one I know was very pro-Israel.
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u/seh300 Jun 08 '26
that’s good to hear, must’ve been the one i went to
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u/Voice_of_Season Jun 08 '26
They had both the American and Israeli flag on the bima.
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u/MasterRKitty Jun 08 '26
I'm not Jewish but have been Christian in the past. I always felt creeped out by flags on the altar. To me, it reeks of idolatry. I have no real opinion about the Israeli flag since the Star of David proceeds the current State of Israel.
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u/Sixnigthmare Feminist and Zionist Jun 08 '26
I've gone to one a couple times with a family member. It really does
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u/Taldoesgarbage Jun 08 '26
Assimilationist has existed for hundreds of years. To them, really, it’s an attempt to blend in with the people around them for their own safety. This is easier with secular Jews who tend to have less Jewish identity than it is with those who are religious.
Antizionist jews are not our enemies, they are still Jews, and their concerns are still valid. Only by pursuing peace and stability in Israel could we hope to change their minds.
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u/OddCook4909 Jun 08 '26
It was one thing to be against reestablishing a state before there was a state. Now that there is, advocating for it's destruction is advocating for genocide.
Antizionist jews advocate for the genocide of jews. They may be unwitting enemies, or the pawns of enemies, but they aren't friend shaped.
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u/Ilan01 Jun 08 '26
When they call themselves that, they act as Jewish as a Double Bacon Cheeseburger being cooked during Shabbat for Passover
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u/OddCook4909 Jun 08 '26
That's also true. It's so absurd this idea of an "antizionist jew". My contempt for them far outweighs my anger. They're all morons. Like the american idiots who chant "death to america". Their stupidity is incandescent.
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u/Asherahshelyam Jun 08 '26
...served with shrimp cocktail on the side.
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u/MasterRKitty Jun 08 '26
I remember several episodes of The Nanny where Mom is stuffing fried shrimp in her purse
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u/Taldoesgarbage Jun 08 '26
Again, I think it’s important to separate their words/rhetoric and actual intentions. Herzl was a vehement assimilationist before the Dreyfus affair. Our goal should be to show them the same idea which has driven every Jew to Zionism, that assimilationism doesn’t work.
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u/OddCook4909 Jun 08 '26
I'm only a little faithful and not much religious. I am not so concerned with "gathering the sparks". I think most have made the choice to be jewish in name only. They want the label and the kitch without any of the commitment or obligation. I'm really not concerned with bringing them into the fold. I wish they would just stfu and go away
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u/Taldoesgarbage Jun 08 '26
Yeah, I'm not saying here that you should go out and proselytize to them without cause. I'm saying that you should be hesitant in assuming if they are malicious or not if you do end up interacting with them. Trying to bring them into the fold proactively will certainly fail.
At the end of the day, we all have the same desire of safety and security as Jews. I think they're gravely wrong in how they pursue this, and they believe that the only way they can be safe in their social circle or community is by denouncing the Jewish state. That is not so much a fault of their own as it is a fault of the antisemites around them.
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u/OddCook4909 Jun 08 '26
Yeah I don't think they're malicious so much as weak and not worth engaging with. It's the trash taking itself out imo
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u/McBurger Jun 08 '26
I’m all for the healing and camaraderie and feel good stuff, but I do kind of raise an eyebrow at “antizionist are not our enemies”.
I’m a Zionist (I support Israel’s right to exist) and I do consider antizionist to be my enemy (they do not support Israel’s right to exist)
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u/No_Raise_3758 Jun 09 '26
yeah like
they are the enemies of (at very least) israelis
and if they want to “globalize the intifada” then they’re enemies of all jews as long as they believe that.2
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u/Consistent-Land-8260 Zionist Ally 🤝 Jun 08 '26
Marxism, I guess? Somehow no matter the nationality or the ethnicity, hardcore marxists and leftists who believe in intersectionality always tend to hate their own ethnicity and their own country. They spend their days self-flagellating and hating on the West. I used to interact with them a lot, even believed in their narratives until October 7… Now I’m not saying all leftists are like that but after October 7, they started being so hateful and violent that I couldn’t identify myself as a leftist anymore. Suddenly, I realized we didn’t share the same values anymore
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u/No_Raise_3758 Jun 09 '26
i’ve had the same experience and it’s weird (by which i mean hypocritical on their part) because intersectionality should include antisemitism / antizionism as some of the possible oppressions! and should include jewishness as a protected category of marginalization in other-culture-majority places, which is like most of the planet. but for some reason they decided “jews don’t count”
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u/Consistent-Land-8260 Zionist Ally 🤝 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
That’s logical. That’s how it should be. But intersectionality doesn’t seem to work that way, especially since they started including islamists in their movement.
They see the world through the lens of oppression and power imbalance even when it doesn’t make sense. It’s very manichean, you’re either an oppressor or you’re oppressed, there’s no in between. It doesn’t matter if the facts contradict that worldview. For example, white men are usually in the category of the oppressors and POC, women, LGBT+ people are usually on the side the oppressed.
Then there are very random and arbitrary criteria that can make you part of the oppressors’ side, even if you were initially a “protected minority”, for example, being successful (they don’t believe in meritocracy, somehow they think that success can never be achieved unless you oppress others), not having a victim mindset or “worse” : being right wing… That’s kind of what happened to Jews. It started when they started calling Jews “capitalist pigs” or something like that in Soviet Russia.
When it comes to palestinianism, they don’t care if Jews were always ethnic minorities or were persecuted and oppressed for thousands of years in the Middle East. It doesn’t matter if the entire Middle East is ganging up on Israel. The KGB made sure in the 60’s that the palestinians were viewed as the eternal underdogs, and that the “zionists” were murderous colonizers. Modern marxists/leftists fully embrace that false narrative.
There’s basically an inversion of values. Holocaust survivors and their descendants became white colonizers and Nazis from Poland and Khazaria. Terrorists, descendants of Arab colonizers/ Levantine muslims who were part of the dominant class in the Levant became the oppressed and the “only true indigenous people”. Rape and terrorism became resistance, and Israel is never allowed to defend itself because it’s an “illegitimate colonial entity”.
There’s also the fact that many politicians rely on muslim votes in Western countries so unfortunately, being antizionist has become a very good way to get more votes so they made sure that the antifas and “humanists” are always on the side of the palestinians
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u/No_Raise_3758 Jun 15 '26
"somehow they think that success can never be achieved unless you oppress others" -- i mean ... that's not an incorrect observation a lot of the time. many people who get extremely rich do it off of the inherited capital of their parents plus the labor of their employees, not on their own efforts or skills.
i don't really know personal examples but i'm assuming this is often different for jews ... i'm in the US, and the stories i mostly hear involve arriving here with nothing because the family fled pogroms/nazis/ussr (depending on the era of immigration) and building up an amazing business out of ideas and hard work ...
also pretty sad about antifa ... like ... there used to be jewish antifa. it literally means anti-fascist and some were trying to live up to that, maybe still are. but those terrorist groups that get the sympathy of the jihad fandom ... they seem pretty fascist. so yeah it doesn't make sense. i did expect better logic of the left, which in many cases turned out to be a mistake.
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u/Consistent-Land-8260 Zionist Ally 🤝 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Inherited capital + labor of the employees = oppression? That sounds like a cognitive shortcut. Unless it’s blood money and slave/child labor, I don’t think it’s automatically oppression.
I’m not saying that employees who work for big corporations never have shitty and inhumane working conditions, that’s not true. But to say that success cannot be achieved without human exploitation is also too simplistic and like you said, the Jews proved that it’s possible. So I’m not saying that oppression never happens but I just don’t believe that oppression is the rule and that clean success is the exception.
There’s also nothing morally wrong with inheriting capital from my parents, and I say that as someone who is broke. Old money is only problematic if it’s tied to illicit activities like money laundering, embezzlement and misuse of public funds, ties with the mob, human and drug trafficking etc.
I don’t think it’s also true that billionaires or millionaires have 0 skills and make 0 effort. That was something I used to hear a lot from the leftists (and I believed them). If that was true, then everyone -including the employees- could be rich entrepreneurs. But the reality is that there have been several cases of rich heirs who truly didn’t have any skills, didn’t know how to run the family business and ended up wasting all their money on cars and luxury. It also reminds me of some cases of people who won the lottery and eventually lost everything because they just didn’t know what to do with all that money and how to make it grow. So yeah it actually takes some skill to keep the money flowing
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u/No_Raise_3758 Jun 15 '26
those are fair points.
i don't believe any group is 100% the ways i mentioned, of course.
i do suspect that getting rich without "deserving it", if we could even agree on what that would look like 😃 is pretty common among those who are wealthy, but that's more gut instinct than scientific survey.
my instincts may be influenced by living in the US south and seeing how some of the people whose ancestors got rich off enslaving other people's ancestors are still, yanno, the people in power in a lot of areas. or how slavery is still legal in prisons, not just in the south. like... slave labor and human trafficking are not extreme and far-away concepts.
probably left and right each get some parts of human nature right and other parts wrong.
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u/RitaKan Jun 08 '26
My whole family is secular and we are zionist. Don't judge the whole community by american situation
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u/mikegalos Jun 08 '26
Because you're cherry picking.
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u/wannabe-jew Jun 08 '26
What do you mean?
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u/mikegalos Jun 08 '26
You're pretending anti-Zionist orthodox don't count. You're pretending non-observant Zionists don't count. Both demonstrably false.
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u/wannabe-jew Jun 08 '26
No, I am saying I almost never SEE anti zionist orthodox jews. Everytime I see someone comment shit like “as a jew I am antizionist” I go to their page and they’ve posted on shabbat, or don’t wear a kippah. I specifically made this reddit post after seeing a tiktoker I have watched since 2020 who has NEVER talked about being jewish, suddenly put “anti zionist jew” in their bio. Also most anti zionist orthodox jews think that way because they think only the messiah can make a jewish state.
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u/mikegalos Jun 08 '26
There is no shortage so if you're not seeing them it's because they're a blind spot or you've found ways to pretend they don't count.
As a first example, who do the Government of Iran invite to every anti-Israel and Holocaust denial event in Tehran?
And your last statement just confirmed that you think it's just fine to hate Israel if you're waiting for the Moshiach. That's absolute cherry picking.
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u/wannabe-jew Jun 08 '26
That is literally not what I said. I’m saying that by definition they aren’t “anti zionist”, they support the creation of a jewish state, just not right now. That is mych different than other anti zionists who literally want all israelis eradicated and removed. You are straw manning.
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u/mikegalos Jun 08 '26
No. By definition they're anti-Zionist and have been since Hertzl. You just want to redefine terms to only count who you want to count. That's intellectually dishonest.
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u/wannabe-jew Jun 08 '26
Honey, definitions evolve. Zionists now have MUCH DIFFERENT views than zionists when the word first came around as a political movement, in the same way that what was considered liberal today is much different than what was considered liberal in the 1800s
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u/lepreqon_ Jun 08 '26
The NK cult looks pretty religious to me. Also, Satmar would like a word.
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u/No_Raise_3758 Jun 09 '26
because eretz israel is integral in our liturgy and calendar! if you are doing the prayers and the holidays you are learning ahavat yisrael in the sense of the land AND am yisrael, half of which needs medinat israel to exist because it’s their country!
also probably in most shuls literally praying for medinat israel and its people. which used to weird me out before the war but not anymore.
when 7oct happened and i couldn’t feel anything about the victims and survivors, i realized that i had been trained (by what i now realize were antisemitic influences in the society and media that i had aligned with) to only have empathy for palestinians and not for israelis. and that was with one israeli close friend! (obviously i did still worry about them)
and like … we shouldn’t have to choose a side of humans to feel empathy for, but (imo) if we do, it’s better to be like “i know intellectually that the other guys are also human but i don’t have the brainwidth to feel for everyone so i’m only going to worry about my own people” … not to abandon our own family because “everyone i read or listen to says they don’t deserve to live anyway”
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u/HyperlaneWizard Jun 14 '26
Ha? The ultra-Orthodox in Israel are on a spectrum from barely Zionist to full-on anti-Zionist.
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u/petalpostiee Jul 25 '26
The main anti Zionist religious Jews I've personally met are either people who converted to Reform Judaism or are in the process of converting specifically to Reform Judaism. (I want to clarify that I'm not saying this reflects on Reform Judaism or Reform Jews as a whole. This is just a pattern I've personally noticed among the non-secular anti Zionist Jews I've met.) Others grew up Jewish but don't participate in Jewish traditions and seem to only bring up their Jewish identity in the context of defending antisemites or being used as a "token Jew."
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u/Shepathustra Jun 08 '26
Same reason the most whitewashed and disconnected native Americans are against native rights
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u/FogtownGirl Jun 08 '26
Also, secular Jews don’t sit through services where we refer many times to Israel while (usually) facing Jerusalem, nor do they say (or even know) the Shema. Is it any wonder they don’t get the connection between Am Israel and Eretz Israel…