Zionism was not always a word uttered by so many people with such vitriol, scorn, and disgust. Perhaps because of that, those of us who identified as Zionists rarely had to give much thought to what that identity actually meant to us.

That has changed post-October 7, 2023. Zionism has moved to the forefront of conversations about Israel-Palestine, Palestinian liberation, Jewish nationhood and sovereignty.

The best of Broadview straight to your inbox.

Δ document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );

Simply put, Zionism is the political belief that Jews, like all nations, are entitled to self-determination and sovereignty. The return to Zion gave that belief a particular geography: that the land toward which Jews have prayed, yearned and oriented ourselves for millennia would also be the land in which Jews could exercise political agency, build a nation-state and shape our own collective destiny.

I am not blind to what many now understand Zionism to mean, or, more precisely, to the policies of an Israeli government whose leaders enact policies that fulfil their notion of Zionism. I understand why those watching from the outside and Palestinians themselves in Gaza and the West Bank see Zionism as a project of Jewish supremacy, ethnic cleansing or even genocide.

In my role as executive director of JSpaceCanada, a pro-peace, pro-Israel, pro-democracy Jewish organization that promotes a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine, I also see more of my fellow Jews shunning the Zionist identifier, or avoiding the term altogether. It is important to note that only one percent of Canadian Jews identify as anti-Zionist, while 94 percent believe Israel has the right to exist as a........

© Broadview Magazine