In a lawsuit filed this month against Northwestern University in Illinois, pro-Palestinian activists sought to halt the school’s required antisemitism training.

The training requires students to watch a video that outlines historical Jewish connections to Israel, says that most forms of anti-Zionism are antisemitic, and states that those views are “representative of the majority of Jewish people.”

The pro-Palestinian activists allege the video is discriminatory, including against anti-Zionist Jews, who, the lawsuit states, “are also a cognizable ethnic group” covered by federal civil rights protections.

But are anti-Zionist Jews a significant bloc of the American Jewish community, or insignificant outliers?

There is no clear answer, largely due to differing understandings of Zionism, a lack of data, and difficulties surveying US Jews, although the proportion of anti-Zionist Jews is likely marginal, Jewish community pollsters said.

Zionism, in the US today, is generally defined as support for Jewish self-determination in Israel, but not necessarily support for Israel’s government.

“Today, if you’re anti-Zionist, to me, it would mean that you’re against the existence of a Jewish state somewhere in the Holy Land,” said Ira Sheskin, a geographer at the University of Miami and the director of the Jewish Demography Project. “The percentage of Jews who fall in that category is very tiny.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the leading anti-Zionist Jewish group in the US, said last year that it had 32,000 dues-paying members — a minuscule percentage of the more than 7.5 million American Jews. It’s also unclear how many JVP members identify as Jewish because the group says it does not ask.

Surveys of US Jews have not specifically asked about anti-Zionist identity. The Jewish People Policy Institute has posed the question on its

© The Times of Israel