In 2011 or thereabouts, I was chatting with some people from various countries about, for some reason, the actress Natalie Portman. Someone said something positive about her (I think it was that she looks like Natalie Portman, not her only strength but not not among her finer qualities), and someone else, a British woman, marginalized on a couple different axes (but no, not Arab or Muslim) and definitively of the left, countered that Portman is “a Zionist.”

At the time, I was unnerved (I was a doctoral student researching French antisemitism, not a random American Jew without context for this) but also caught off-guard. Wasn’t Portman just… Israeli? Since when was a nationality an -ism?

What did “Zionist” mean in this woman’s mind, such that this was a counterpoint to her being an alluring individual?

Well it’s 2024 now, and sniffing out Zionists is no longer some niche European hobby, but rather a delightful new way to channel the energies that sniffed out racists in 2020 and sexists in 2017 and transphobes I guess whenever the sexism or racism news cycles wane and allow for a side plot. It’s all about “Zionists” now. And not just where Eurovision’s concerned.

It’s very now to call out pro-Israel individuals who claim to support free speech and ask them why they don’t think the encampment protesters should have infinite carte blanche. But if you took from this that the........

© Canadian Jewish News