The New York City mayoral election exacerbated rifts in the Jewish community that have been developing for years, especially since October 7, including the difference between criticism of Israel and antisemitism and criticism of Zionism and antisemitism.

Many younger Americans, and many younger Jews, distinguish between antisemitism (hatred of Jews) and criticism of Israel and of Zionism. That’s why they don’t see a contradiction between vowing to fight antisemitism and delivering harsh, offensive, or unfair criticism of Israel.

Some of us, understandably, cannot make that distinction. We consider Israel part of our identity, and we take criticism of Israel or Zionism as attacks against us. 

As we learn more about Israel’s activities in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the violence committed by both sides in the armed conflicts leading to Israel’s independence, we do all we can to assign blame to the Palestinians and rationalize Israel’s actions–anything to avoid admitting that the state we love is imperfect, sometimes tragically imperfect.

We don’t want to feel guilty for loving Israel. Because we have never learned to love the real Israel, we invent an Israel that never existed except in the pages of Leon Uris’s Exodus to love, and we search for evidence to confirm the fable while discounting evidence that might break the myth.

The problem is that other people don’t see that Israel. They see the real Israel. If we are unwilling or unable to defend the real Israel, we become unwitting accomplices in the world’s malignment of Israel, which we then interpret as antisemitism.

These emotions and feelings are real, sincerely held, and cannot be dismissed lightly. To make matters more complicated, antisemitism does drive some criticism and hatred of Israel, and when it does, it must be condemned.

Ideas that some see as anti-Zionism are sometimes ideas enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, such as ensuring “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” If that’s the one state the founders of Israel envisioned, then why, some wonder, is it anti-Israel or antisemitic to hold Israel to that standard?

I am a Zionist. I recognize that sometimes anti-Zionism bleeds into antisemitism. Sometimes it doesn’t. The Nexus Project has a guide to help you recognize the difference.

Different generations view the world through different prisms, which influence how they frame current events. The Washington Post cited Dov Waxman’s explanation that “older generations, with a more visceral sense of the Holocaust, tend to see Israel as a vital refuge for the Jews, and see its story as one of a people returning to safety in their homeland after living for 2,000 years as a scattered diaspora facing persistent persecution.”

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)