Noam: Hey everyone, welcome to Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam.
Mijal: I’m Mijal.
Noam: And I’m Noam and this podcast is our way of trying to unpack the biggest questions that are always asked by Jews and about the Jewish people. We don’t have it all figured out. We don’t, but we’re always trying to figure some things out together. That’s what we love doing together. Whether or not we figure it out, I don’t know. It’s really about the process ultimately though for us of wondering, wondering, wondering. Wondering together being curious with each other and learning something and leaving every episode feeling like we just gained something and we just found something out. We just studied with each other learned with each other engaged with each other.
Mijal: Noam, I’m so glad you’re the one who’s saying wondering because I still feel like I say it and it sounds like wondering with an A, but not wondering with an O. And our absolute favorite part of this show is not just hanging out with each other, but also wondering, you know, with an O, wondering with all of our listeners. So please continue to share your thoughts, your questions, your suggestions, your feedback, your disagreement, whatever’s on your mind by emailing us at WonderingJews@unpacked.media.
Noam: So, speaking of which, we are excited to be back after a long break. It was like, it almost was like one of these University of Maryland winter breaks. I feel like these universities are off for like six weeks. I don’t know why I just took a shot at University of Maryland. But we’ve been really overwhelmed by the emails that we’ve been receiving from you, from the people who listening to the show, and just engaged in our conversations with each other. We heard from you saying, wow, this really moved me. This really helped me engage. This really helped me think deeply about it. And we’ve been spending a lot of time away thinking about what we want to prep for this exciting season. And we got some exciting stuff going on.
Mijal: Noam, before we talk about this season and we do housekeeping and all of that, what have you been up to these last six weeks?
Noam: No, not too much. Just running away from hoodlums. No, that’s a line from Larry David. said that line in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode. What have I been doing? Just trying to be a decent father, trying to be an okay husband, you know, all of these things. Traveling a lot, speaking in different cities and talking about the Jewish people, telling the Jewish story to as many people that want to listen to the Jewish story, you know, and that don’t want to listen to it, but they have to find me.
Mijal: But you force them to listen.
Noam: Yeah, yeah, like you got to listen. You got to listen. What about you?
Mijal: Well, I would say yes, life as usual, a lot going on. So we went to Puerto Rico for a bit, which was a nice break until mosquitoes kind of ate us. Also I’m gearing up to publish a study that I’ve been working on for three years on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in America. So a lot of my last six weeks have just been finding hours here and there to edit and write and research and make sure a lot of things are correct. So that’s been a lot of my life right now.
Noam: When do you do your best work morning or night? And this kind of work.
Mijal: Great question. When I was younger, I could pull like all nighters and just work all night and could stay up very late. I’ve been waking up at 5 a.m. and just trying to get, you know, two, three good hours before my kids wake up. That’s been very productive. So so maybe I could do early morning work, which I never thought I could. But we should record this at like 5 a.m.
Noam: I’m down with that by the way.
Mijal: Are you?
Noam: Can we do 5:30? Because you know, because I moved to the East Coast and the NBA games on the West Coast, like you could watch them because they’re earlier, but on the East Coast, it’s a bad habit. It’s a very bad habit. Now that Luka joined the Lakers with LeBron, that was an alliteration, it’s gonna be hard for me to wake up very early in the morning when those games are on at 10, 1030. Mijal, what percentage of that just went over your head and what percentage are you like, that tracks.
Mijal: Okay, my 8 year old son is really into sports. So I know that you just mentioned a trade that people have been talking about and they’ve been saying it’s a bad trade. Is it a bad trade?
Noam: Yeah. That’s right. Do you know which way is the bad trade?
Mijal: One of them gets injured a lot and it should.
Noam: Well, no that’s good, Anthony Davis who was traded for Luka gets injured a lot. He just got injured in his first game on the Dallas Mavericks. He had like something like 25 points in 31 minutes. Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, wrong, okay, my bad. All right, let’s get to it, sorry. You got me going. You turned me. Okay.
Mijal: Right. OK, wrong podcast. No, but no, I was really proud of myself that I knew when the Super Bowl was this year.
Noam: Did you watch the Halftime Show?
Mijal: No, I have not. Anyways, but speaking of our show, one of the things that we decided is that we are going to actually just spend each month focused on a different theme.
So instead of choosing a different theme every single week, we’re gonna choose a month to kind of focus on. And the first topic that we are doing, so today and the next three episodes, it’s going to be around Israel, which is a topic that I think both of us have thought about a little bit. Yeah, Noam, do you have another podcast that you do like once in a while?
Noam: A little bit, yeah. No, maybe, maybe, maybe every now and then, yes. I do like talking and thinking about the story of Israel, Israeli history, and Zionism.
Mijal: Yeah. And as we’re doing this, we definitely have some questions that we already have in mind, some guests. But if you have a particular question that you think is really important and that you want us to like really take it on, please send it our way. We’re actually really, really eager to not only speak to the two of us with each other, but but to expand our conversation. So now let me let me you know, let me tell you the question that I want us to focus on today.
Noam: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Mijal: Maybe like I’ll do it like zoom down and then we’ll go in. And I’ve been thinking about the label of Zionism. OK, Zionism. I’m going to give one example. I want to get some initial thoughts from you. And then I actually want to look at some data to guide our conversation.
So let’s say that I’m doing a program in Manhattan and I wanted to be around, you know, supporting Israel or the hostages right now? Do I describe this as a program that has to do with Zionism, something Zionist? Do I just describe it having to do with supporting Jews around the world, Jews in Israel? And what do I gain and what do I lose when I choose one over the other? OK. So what do you think about the question, first of all?
Noam: It’s a good question and I’m gonna drill down even more for us because this is something that, you know, let me say it in like the least wonky way possible.
Are we past Zionism? Did Zionism happen? It came, it went, it conquered. That’s probably not the right way to say this in this context, but okay, you know what I’m saying? Zionism happened, and it’s a term, it’s a term, by the way, that’s been utilized and viewed negatively by so many people who don’t identify as Zionists across the spectrum, meaning if you’re an ultra-orthodox Jew, the term Zionist has been a negative. In the late 19th, early 20th century, to be called a Zionist was in some ways to be called an insult, from religious Jewry. And now to be called a Zionist is in many contexts is viewed as a pejorative.
So the question of what, is the question, does Zionism and the concept of being a Zionist, is that something that we could just move on from?
And maybe we’re talking about something else. Maybe we’re talking about connection to Israel. Maybe we’re talking about, I don’t know, something else, Jewish self-confidence, whatever the term is. But is there something that we need to be holding onto the term Zionism? And for you and I, when we say we’re Zionists, does that mean something?
Mijal: Yeah, by the way, now I think if I remember correctly, one of our first podcasts together, you wanted us to do like an exercise, like to write down like 10 things that we identify, something like that. Did you know what I’m talking about?
Noam: Yes, yeah, yeah, I said an exercise of where if you write the following sentence, am, 10 times, what would the end of that sentence be? Like Mijal might say, I am an academic, I am a mother, I am a wife, I am a teacher, I am a Jewish educator, I am zero interested in the Super Bowl, and then one of those 10 would probably be, I’m guessing, I’m a Zionist, I think.
Mijal: Well, I remember actually that I didn’t think in those terms, but it was definitely one of like your first ones. But you said, for example, there are some parts of the Jewish people, let’s say like Haredi Jews who like have certain associations with the term. They wouldn’t identify with it. And the second thing you said is that in some places, the term Zionism actually has like a really, really bad, I would say like a PR or marketing problem that it’s just come to mean some like really, really bad things for different people.
Noam: Yeah. Yeah, one of my conversations that sticks out to me all the time is this Palestinian friend that I made in the past couple of years, who after I told my story about how I connected to Israel and Judaism, she said, oh, I never spoke to a Zionist before in my life, before speaking to you. And I said, what does that mean? Of course you have, you live in Israel. She’s like, no, Zionist, to be a Zionist means that you, this was her language, negates Palestinian identity. Meaning a Zionist doesn’t want Palestinians to exist. Now what conversation are we really having if one word means 55 different things to people, using that same word and it means something so different to somebody else, then there’s no value in the language itself. Because after I described the way I view the Jewish story and the story of Israel and the story of Zionism, she’s like, oh, yeah, whatever that is, that sounds good to me. So our terminology, it’s so fraught.
Mijal: Yeah, but I would say now I think the question here, you just said there’s no value. And I think the question I want to ask is, there value?
So I want to point out to you a research that’s actually really interesting. A friend of mine based at Brandeis at the Cohen Center. His name is Professor Matthew Boxer. I’m just going to call him Matt in our conversation. And I’m going to try to describe what Matt did and we’ll put it in the show notes for anyone who’s interested. Have you ever heard people say 95% of American Jews are Zionists?
Noam: Yes, well I’ve heard 95% of world Jewry is Zionist, specifically.
Mijal: interesting world Jewry.
Noam: Yeah, and the reason for that is because of the fact that if 46 to 47%, whatever the number is, of Jews live in Israel, and if 80 to 85% of American Jewry, which represents the other 45 to 50%, 45%, whatever it is, of world Jewry, if they feel strongly connected to Israel and Zionist, Zionism, then that comes to around 90 to 95%. That’s where I’ve heard that number before.
Mijal: So a lot of people look at a Gallup poll that came out a few years ago that said that 95% of American Jews have favorable views of Israel. And based on that, they said 95% of American Jews are Zionists. So what Matt wanted to point out is that we actually need to be paying more attention as to how the questions have been asked.
Noam: Okay, got it.
Mijal: Let me try to explain this in a way, you said the word wonky before. I want us to try to stay away from like wonky or like jargon and stuff. If you look at different studies or things like that, even what you just quoted when you were trying to get to the number 95% of Jews around the world, most of the questions don’t actually ask, are you a Zionist? Most of the questions, let’s say in Gallup, in Pew, in all of these surveys that look at attitudes towards Israel, they ask questions like, do you have favorable views? Do you feel connected? Do you think it’s important to your Jewish identity? So for example, according to Pew, the one that came out in 2021, reflecting attitudes from 2020, eight out of 10, so roughly 80% of American Jews feel somewhat or very connected to Israel. But what we see from other studies is that, so I’m gonna just share fact number one, or at least data point number one, is that there’s often a gap between those who say they are connected to Israel and those who self-identify as Zionists.
Noam: What does that mean?
Mijal: Okay, so I’m just gonna actually give you an example, from a study that the Cohen Center ran in Los Angeles in 2021, only 42% of respondents described themselves as Zionist, okay?
Noam: Meaning 42% of American Jewry described themselves as Zionists–
Mijal: No, no, no, Los Angeles, Los Angeles study of Jews in Los Angeles.
Noam: 42% of Los Angeles jury described themselves as Zionist. Okay.
Mijal. Yes. Okay. All right. Guess how many guess how many would agree with the following statement. I consider it important for Israel to exist as a refuge for the Jewish people now and in the future.
Noam: Over 80.
Mijal: 88%. Okay.
Noam: Yeah. Right. then if it’s the case that Zionism is the movement that supports the Jewish people having a state in their ancestral homeland, Israel, that’s the definition of Zionism, then that would be confusing.
Mijal: Well, yeah, well, what you’re seeing here is that people don’t see this too as the same thing. So it’s less than half of the respondents that support Israel to exist as a refuge for the Jewish people. Now and in the future, less than half of them said that they are Zionists.
Noam: So what does that mean? Well, I mean, I I was gonna cite another study from our friends at Boundless, Rachel Fish and Aviva Klompas, who did a study of 18 to 40 year old Jews who were asked to define what Zionism is and I think 42% said they could not define Zionism. So when you said that number 42, that’s what I was thinking of but what do I make of this? What I make of this is that?
Mijal: What do you make of this, Noam? What do make of this?
Noam: The term Zionist has a little bit more to it. So it’s heavy. And for a lot of people, they feel this heaviness of it means something. I don’t know that they’re supporters. They’re supporters of some deeply nationalist movement that they are identifying it with like the far right, perhaps. It’s that it’s a slur, that it’s something that you don’t want to be associated with because, other, that’s, that was my like immediate reaction. What about you?
Mijal: Right, no, yeah, 100%. And you see this across the board in a lot of different studies that when you compare connection to Israel, even support for Israel, wanting Israel to exist as a refuge, all of these things that I think you and I would probably think, that’s what it means to be a Zionist kind of loosely. People differentiate between that and between saying I identify as a Zionist. The label Zionism has, I don’t have a better term for this, like a really bad marketing problem, I would say, in that it’s seen as–
Noam: Because why? Because what do people see it as?
Mijal: OK, so what Matt did, which is really interesting, he did something called, to do a cognitive test of questions. What does this mean? I’ll give you a different example just because my brain is there.
Let’s say that I were to see in a survey, do you identify as a Jew of color? So if I get this survey, I will then have options to say, yes, no, maybe, I don’t know. Or what Matt would do, what he wanted to do by testing the question is I would be given that question and I would be asked, what do you think this question means? What does Jew of color mean to you? What are the associations that come to you when you see this question? And that then informs the researchers as they’re trying to understand what these questions even mean.
So Matt decided to do a cognitive test of these questions. So he wanted to test four things. So the four questions that he tested was: (1) How emotionally attached are you to Israel? Then he wanted to test questions around (2) criticizing Israel’s government, (3) describing oneself as a Zionist, and (4) Israel as an apartheid state, okay?
So like a lot of questions just trying to see what do people understand when they even get this question. So especially when it comes to Zionism, what’s really, really interesting is that you see huge, huge differences of opinion as to what Zionism and anti-Zionism meant. He ran these questions by about 1,800 respondents.
So can I give you a couple of examples?
Noam: Yeah, I love this stuff. I love this stuff.
Mijal: So these are people who basically, they had like an open ended responses and they could write there what they thought Zionism or anti-Zionism or non-Zionism means. And by the way, some of them identified with these categories and some of them didn’t, okay? Let me give you some examples because I think what I want to point out here is also like the diversity, like the way people think about Zionism.
OK, what does anti-Zionism mean? I’ll give you some responses that they got in the study. One response: Anti-Zionism means respect for Palestinian rights. 78 individuals said something along the lines of anti-Zionism entails respect for Palestinian rights.
Okay, like an example. All right, a different response. Anti-Zionists are self-hating Jews. Okay, so 54 individuals in the study like said something along these lines.
Okay, more things. For some people, non-Zionists oppose mistreatment of non-Jews, other minorities in Israel.
For me, by the way, I’m like, okay, again, according to your definition, I’m a non-Zionist. Like, you know what I mean, if I’m defining it this way?
Let’s see, what else? Anti-Zionism equals antisemitism. Zionism means caring about the safety and security of the Jewish people. Zionists are aware of the history and legacy of antisemitism. Zionism means believing Israel is a Jewish homeland, et cetera, et cetera. There’s also some stuff about colonialism.
Zionism means living in Israel or making aliyah to Israel. Zionism means like agreeing with the government of Israel, all kinds of different responses to what Zionism and anti-Zionism means.
Okay. So well, first of all, I’m just like, does this surprise you? Like the fact that there’s such not just different but competing and opposite descriptions of what Zionism and anti-Zionism means?
Noam: No, it doesn’t surprise me in the least bit. I’m zero shocked that people have different definitions of Zionist because I constantly do this question when I go to places. I’ll go to high school and ask, what does it mean to be a Zionist? Maybe I’ll just even give these examples.
This is the challenge, though, Mijal. This is it. This is because it’s a word that means so many different things to so many different people. Sorry. I just jumped the gun. But that’s my reaction. My reaction is when people ask the question, are you a Zionist or what does it mean to be a Zionist and do you identify as being a Zionist?
And the person that constantly speaks about being a Zionist the most in the last 10 years that I remember is Joe Biden. President Biden loves describing himself as a Zionist. He would always say, I’m a Zionist.
Mijal: What do you think he means by that?
Noam: I think he means that the Jewish people, in his kishkes, and Biden would use a term like that, in his kishkes, he would probably tell a story about his relationship to Golda Meir, and then he would say something about wanting to protect the Jewish people and part of protecting the–
Mijal: and the Holocaust.
Noam: Maybe the Holocaust, some of these Jewish people need this land of Israel. It’s connected to them and they need to be safe and he knows what it was like before they were safe and something like that. I don’t know. Something like that.
Mijal: Noam, have you ever chosen on purpose to not use Zionism to describe yourself or the work that you’re doing because you know of the connotations that it has?
Noam: I don’t think so. Maybe I warmed up the room first. Meaning like I got to being a Zionist towards the end of the conversation after we agreed, after the room agreed what it meant to be a Zionist. That if the room, if I got a sense that the room first thought that to be a Zionist means to you know, to restore the third temple or to be a Zionist means to negate the identity of Palestinians, to be a Zionist means that you believe in racism and apartheid. So first I had to make sure that we were on the same page, that that’s not what Zionism is, that’s not what it means to be a Zionist. And then I would, by the end of the conversation, be very clear that to out myself as a Zionist is not something that was precarious in any way. Like everyone was on the same page.
It’s okay. It’s okay to be a Zionist because maybe most of us are with that definition. But I feel like you’re onto something here. You’re onto something here.
Mijal: Right. Well, maybe I’ll tell you like the places where there’s some part of me that wants to use the term less. And there’s another part of me that wants to double down. And I kind of don’t know who to listen to at different times. So the part of me that wants to use the term less is that I often I think you mentioned before that the term feels like heavy. Right. And I think for many people, the term doesn’t just feel heavy, it feels political. Like I’m making a political declaration in a world that is really becoming very polarized and in a world that is also like there’s more and more independents, I think, that are trying to like not use political labels. So I’ve found really often that even like when I when I work with like just like young Jews in Manhattan or like other spaces, I found that I actually I’ve noticed that I don’t use the word Zionism.
Noam: What do you use?
Mijal: I speak about our connection to the Jewish people. Someone once asked me, like because in my shul in the downtown Minyan, we say prayers for Israel. So we say a prayer for the state of Israel. We say a prayer for hostages. We say a prayer for soldiers who are defending us.
And someone asked me because I’ve often spoken about how I don’t like doing politics from the pulpit. Like, why do you these prayers? Aren’t you being political when you do these prayers? And I said, to me, the way that I think about it is we’re part of a Jewish people and half or whatever of Jews live in Israel, roughly. And I’m right now literally praying for their protection and for them to be OK.
And and it doesn’t mean anything about the government. Doesn’t mean anything about partisan. I just want them to be OK. And what I realized after that conversation is that, is that that wasn’t only an answer that I gave on the spot, very often the language that I have found myself using almost instinctively is a language that is about Jewish peoplehood. It’s like, let me talk about what it means to be part of a people.
Let me talk about what it means to care for each other. And I found a lot of openness to that kind of language when using Zionist or some words that might feel a little bit more political might actually begin to make people feel like they are signing on to things that they don’t feel great about.
Noam: Yeah, I think for me it’s a little bit more than that. For me it’s actually a lot more than that. It’s not just the fact that there are 45 to 50% of world Jewry living in Israel. And it’s not just that we are a people, it’s something else. And I don’t think it’s political what you’re doing, having the prayers there. I think there are elements that could be political if you were, you know endorsing specific political positions or if you were speaking about the, you know, the judicial reforms, let’s say, and saying back to that conversation, that that 2023 conversation that, you know, and making and making a claim on that and staking out your position on that. But to me, the the reason those prayers are are necessary is because what you’re demonstrating is that it’s not just there are people there, it’s that to have a healthy identity as a people requires that the Jewish people are both a people and a religion, that we are a nation, we are a people, we are an Am, to quote Pharaoh, that’s what we are.
And being estranged from that for so long led to our dependence on other entities in order for us to figure out what we should do, what our future should look like, how we should behave. And so to be a Zionist, I know I sound flowery as I say this, but what it means is to say that I’m able to assert my own self and I’m able to connect deeply to people thousands of miles away and to root for them and to make sure that the collective identity of the Jewish people is safe and secure and that requires being in a land like any other people are in a land. And so it’s more than for me, it’s like it’s more than just that they live there and so therefore let’s take care of them. Let’s pray for them. It’s that in order for the Jewish people to have a healthy self-confident identity, Zionism needs to be strong, the future of the Jewish people needs to be strong. And part of that is having a land, having a language, having a history, having a present, having a future and cultivating that, driving that, shaping that, and ultimately informing what that is going to look like for the future.
Mijal: But Noam, I wanna try to figure out if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me, because I’m actually not sure. Because I was, we were talking about like the label Zionism, right? Do we double down on it? Are we a little bit like, I’m not sure if I need it, I’m actually just caring about some underlying values.
And I was giving an example in which I was saying, there’s a bunch of areas that I found myself actually not using the term. And I think I have a little of a different conception that you have. I have something maybe, I would say it like I’m thinking more about like Jewish people who are around the world and not only about like this turn in Jewish history towards like, you know, sovereignty. And you responded by saying yes to prayers, yes to people who but adding a layer. I guess I’m trying to figure out, are you saying that you. That you think we should double down the time that we shouldn’t like.
Noam: People get annoyed at me often because I actually care less about terms than I care about ideas. So people get upset at me. So to say I’m a Zionist and if that makes people’s heart race one way or the other, I’m just less interested in that part of the conversation. I’m much more interested in the idea, meaning the conception of what it means to be a Zionist.
And what I think has happened in the United States of America, certainly, and maybe many other countries, is that people get so wrapped up in whether or not they are this thing called Zionist or they’re not this thing called Zionist as opposed to actually being a Zionist. Which means to me means the things that I just said, which means these different topics, these different ways that you could express your identity as acting as a Zionist, which means acting with dignity, acting to try to, these aren’t flowery things. This is what Golda Meir was talking about. When she was talking about what it means to be a pioneer, her goal of the flourishing of the Jewish people in their homeland was not survivalism, but it was the whole concept that she was trying to do and build was to create a better society for other peoples and other people across the world.
So whether or not you use the term Zionist to mean that, that’s what I mean. When I say I’m a Zionist, that’s what I mean. When I say I’m a Zionist, I mean that I don’t want other peoples creating the history of the Jewish people. I want Jewish people to activate their history. That’s what it means to be a Zionist. And so that’s what I’m saying is like, you could hear and hear my language right now, in my emotion. That’s what I get excited about. And that’s what I, I want to activate that in Jewish people.
As opposed to, are you this thing, are you not this thing? I would rather ask, do you wanna activate your future? Is that what you’re interested in doing? Do you wanna do that? Or do you want someone else to write that for you?
Mijal: I, it’s funny. I think I think a while ago when we spoke about this, I disagree with your definition of it, because I would say plenty of self-identified anti-Zionists of the kind who don’t want Israel to exist would say they want to activate the Jewish future. Butthat’s a different point.
But wait, Noam, one second. Can I give a counter argument for a second? So, even as I agree with you that often I will want to prioritize like a certain like value, like caring for Jews around the world or caring for Israel as opposed to a label Zionist. There’s another part of me that feels bad about it and that actually wants to double down and say, why are we giving up on like a term that belongs to us? And I will say it in the following way.
I identify as a feminist, even though a lot of people would disagree with me on what that means and would assume things about me for saying that that are not true.
Noam: Like what? What might people assume about you that’s not true?
Mijal: I mean, there’s people who think that if you’re a feminist, like, oh, so you hate all men?
Noam:Right. Like, did you just call yourself a feminist? That kind of thing, right.
Mijal: Yes, yes. And come on, I am part of like very socially conservative Middle Eastern communities. But by the way, I’m also friends with people who are feminists who I disagree with very strongly who are significantly to my left. And I have a different definition of what feminism means. And something similar happens with, I’ll take it to a different place. God, like I’ll often speak with people about God and they will say like, I don’t believe in God. And I’m like, OK, one second, what do you mean by that? Then they’ll tell me that they don’t believe in this like what I call the Little Mermaid King Triton kind of God. And you know, and I’m like, yeah, you guess what?
Noam: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that’s not good.
Mijal: Noam. And I’m like, I don’t believe in that either. And if that’s the case, but I don’t give up on the term God. And I don’t I don’t stop saying, I’m not a believer because most people would think something else. So why is it that here I am ceding the ground to, I would say, a lot of antisemites who have taken Zionism and kind of made it into like something so ugly and that I’ve given it such a bad name.
So I am nervous that if we give up on the you know, say differently, I think I have a good faith case to be made, that if there’s bad marketing around a term, we shouldn’t care about the term and instead we should push the values underneath it.
And at the same time, I think there’s a good faith case to be made that we should stand strong in terms that mean something to us and hold onto them and not sit the ground to those who hate us.
So I’m between those two kind of impulses when it comes to the label Zionist. I don’t mean to self-identify. I identify as one, I would never say I’m not one, but I mean like in terms of how much I’m like pushing down on it and like speaking, in trying to emphasize what it means to be a Zionist.
Noam: And what happens when Zionists, when the concept of Zionism gets hijacked by a certain movement? Meaning, what happens when, I’ll just use names that like when people hear Zionists, think of Bibi Netanyahu, they think of Itamar Ben-Gur, they think of Betzalel Smotrich, they think of these people in the news. That’s what they see. And I’m not weighing in on their political positions or anything like that. I’m just saying that’s what they see. They see Zionists and then they see that. But do people want to cede the meaning of this word to people who hold the positions that they hold?
And Ben Gavir and Smotrich aren’t the same, there are nuances within the nuances within the nuances, yes.
Mijal: Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But but but let’s say let’s say that that’s the case and the people identify Zionism with like, Kehanist far right racist positions or people. You could make both cases. One case could be OK, bad marketing, bad PR, like bad association. Let’s push for the values and not, you know, make the term something that we you know, we what’s the the hill, the sword? What’s that expression in English? Yes, there we go.
Noam: the hill to die on. Where’s the sword? That’s not a sword I’ll fall on.
Mijal: there’s no, there’s no sword in there. Is there, I will follow my sword. Yes. Okay. I mixed both of them up. but you could make the same case and say, well, actually because of that, I’m going to like double down on this and I’m going to fight even more because I will not let that term be like hijacked–
Noam: Hijacked. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Mijal: by those, you know, you know, by those people and then like subvert its, its meaning and everything it stands for. So, so I, I kind of hear both ways of thinking.
Noam: Yeah, I’ve said to my wife that there’s certain behaviors that I’ve seen from the Israeli government in the last however many years, 10, 15 years, that I’ve literally said to my wife, if that’s what it means to be a Zionist, I’m out. Right? Like that’s not what it means to be a Zionist to me.
Mijal: I actually want specifics now.
Noam: Does it get me in trouble? No, okay, Huwara would be an example. A couple years ago when there was a certain Israeli far right people were attacked, certain people in Huwara for specific reasons and justified or not justified, all the qualifications, okay?
Mijal: Kill innocent people and to celebrate their death.
Noam: But I was just like, I don’t want to be associated with that. And if I go into a school and speak about me being a Zionist and the first thing that they’re thinking about right or wrong is, oh, to be a Zionist means to attack, to kill innocent people. And then I’m like, no, that’s not what I am. That’s not that I don’t believe that’s what the vast majority of American Jews are, the vast majority of Israelis are, the vast majority. But, know, speak, let’s just speak in idioms moving forward. Pictures speak a thousand words.
And, and videos speak even more words and so that, I think that’s the reason that I don’t want to see the territory to end this terminology to people on the far right or the far left or wherever they find themselves. I don’t want to. I really believe in the the ideas of Zionism and, and, we wouldn’t be the first people to say that Zionism has never been a specific monolithic movement. We would never be the first people to make the argument that to be a Zionist has always meant one thing and one thing only. You know, this has been true since the concept of Zionism has been created and people will even respond to that by saying, what does it mean Zionism is created? Zionism is built in the DNA of the Jewish people for the last 3,300 years and what it means to be Zionist is to have a deep connection to the land of Israel, to the people of Israel, to the future of Israel.
And that’s also true. So I don’t know, Mijal. I don’t know.
Mijal: You know, a couple of years ago, I gave a class at Hartman, which is an institute both here and in Israel of big Jewish ideas. And it was part of a series that was supposed to answer the question, why Israel? And it’s very funny, because I ended up coming up with a class and then I wrote this up, talking about Israel and a relationship to Israel in a way that was very distinct than speaking about anything political or any ideology or any label and really just focus on what it means to be obligated to, you know, to the Jewish people as a big family.
And there’s something there that it’s almost like trying to not focus on Zionism only as like a movement that emerged at a certain time, you know, in modernity in Europe and has a certain political elements, but that goes way back and that is, I would say, even like more expansive. And I was taken aback by how much that resonated. And so many people who I feel like they could breathe because they could say like, yes, I, I can join with this and I can feel good about this.
Noam: Yeah, and it, isn’t it the case that like, as you were saying that I was thinking, like, do people ask the question, why Ecuador?
Mijal: wait, but part of my thing was about the question itself, actually, how the question that I read, I read a quote a few years ago in a book by Avi Saghi, he’s a philosopher in Israel. But I just forgot if he said this or if he was quoting someone else. So forgive me. But maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was Jacob Yadgar. I forgot who said this. Yes, someone said.
Noam: I, whoever is gonna call you out on this, I’m not going out to dinner with them or grabbing a beer. I’m just not. Okay.
Mijal: Thank you. I appreciate this. But I think what they said there is at the second we ask why, we’ve considered that a rupture has happened. Right?
Noam: What does that mean? I think I, by the way, that’s the type of thing if I heard it in, if I heard that in a lecture, I’d write that down. I’d be like, very quick.
Mijal: That saying why Ecuador, why Ecuador would only be a question that we would ask if there was like a crisis of relationship with Ecuador. So why Israel is only a question that we ask when there’s a crisis of relationship around Israel.
Noam: Yeah. You wouldn’t ask the question why Israel if there was never a diaspora, if the Jewish people were never exiled. I mean, the Jewish people like to ask why and the Jewish people like to ask. So the why question will always exist. But part of me is like, like you just said, like the question itself tells us something.
Mijal: Well, where do we fall in this? So I will say in some cases, especially I think when I’m confronting those who oppose the term, it’s like a funny way of saying this, when confronting those who actively oppose the term Zionism, I will fight for it. And I wanna fight for this and not cede the ground and not let other people kind of determine the terms.
But again, and I’m making here a little bit of like a fake binary, but I think internally when just dealing with, with what it means to be in relationship and moments of exploration as opposed to like, I don’t know if I’m making sense right now when I’m trying to like define these two spaces. Help me out, Noam, does this make sense right now, what I’m trying to do? Okay, so I think, you know, in moments of like complexity and education and with people who are trying to figure out what it means to have a relationship, there I want to use actually more expansive terms. Expansive in the sense that they haven’t been embroiled in political battles and that more people can engage with them.
Noam: You’re making sense. You’re making sense.
Mijal: So that’s a little bit where I fall on this, which, yeah, I wonder where you fall.
Noam: I mean, I like that. I like that. What term would you use for those people?
Mijal: Jewish people, the Jewish people. To me, it’s the most simple unit that explains why we care about this country so far away, why we want there to be a refuge, why.
Noam: We’re always making up words also, like peoplehood, made up word. Zionism, slightly made up idea, when really these are just…
Mijal: There’s a history to the made up people who turn by the way.
Noam: from Mordechai Kaplan.
Mijal: Yeah, he was one of the… can do this. Yeah, yeah. When we do American Judaism, we’ll go there. It’s a very American Jewish term.
Noam: Yeah, okay.
Noam: Yeah, yeah, no, it really is. And I think if it’s still Microsoft Word still has an issue with it, I think they still put the squigglies under it. They’re like, that’s not a word. I’m like, if you go to Jewish conferences, it is.
For me, I want to do my best, whether or not I use the term Zionist or not. I want to do my best to utilize the ideas that Zionism and I do think brought to the world to the certainly to the Jewish world in a different way. I want to make sure the Jewish people have a mission. That’s number one. I want to make sure the Jewish people feel like they have a mission and that the partners of the Jewish people to help cultivate that mission. I want them to be part of this as well and feel like, okay, you have to actively activate Jewish identity, which to your criticism of my point earlier, I’m going to stick with what I’m saying here because what I’m saying is not that you get to just have any idea that you want and say, I’m activating my identity. I believe to have your own identity requires being as a people attached to a land. It’s hard for me to think of a people that does not have a land and a language and a past and a present and a future. If people want to activate a future within that, then I like that.
The second thing is producing culture. If people are able to cultivate and construct a culture, and that’s what we can be bringing to the world, then that’s a great thing. I call that Zionism. I believe that that’s Zionism. I think that Zionism has activated not just a future, but it’s produced a culture. And then the third thing is just agency. I think that it’s just the people who do not have a good grasp, don’t have a good grasp of the history of the Jewish people. And an awareness of this, and a lack of awareness of this American exceptionalism, of this unique experience in world history where the Jewish people have fared so well. If you look at what’s going on in Australia, it’s really horrific, the antisemitism that’s ramped up in a different way than the United States of America, in a different sort of way.
And if you look at what’s going on in different parts of the world, where you don’t want to wear your kippah, you don’t want to wear your chai necklace, you don’t want to wear at this point what’s replaced the chai necklace, the hostage necklace. If you don’t want to wear these things, you are a Zionist if you want to have agency. And that’s what it means. That’s what it means. And for hundreds of years, thousands of years, Jewish people didn’t have that. So it’s the production of culture.
It’s the feeling like you have a mission and it’s agency. If people want those things, then I think that you’re a Zionist. And if you’re Jewish and want those things, then you’re a Zionist.
Mijal: So I think, Noam, what you’re coming up with is that we should all use Noam’s definition of Zionism and just we should all be Zionists.
Noam: But they’re not mine. They’re not even close to mine. They’re all the great thinkers. Just we wanna put them together.
Mijal: All the great thinkers agree with those definitions.
Noam: That’s not my definition! I got it from them! It’s theirs!
Mijal: Okay, okay, okay. Okay, maybe I’ll say something I’m walking away with. I’m thinking about what it means to define our terms. So the way you just did, but like when I speak, just say this is what I mean, and just set the terms of the conversation. And then I just think that we need to do a lot of work in not creating unnecessary divisions where they don’t exist. So when someone calls themselves something, to actually try to have curiosity and figure out, what do they mean by this.
And we might actually have a lot of shared values and shared principles and being a pretty similar place. And we might be able to build community better together if we recognize that we might be using labels in different ways. So that to me is pretty important to try and figure out. And lastly, just to whenever we are confronting hostile forces that are trying to take away the, you know, the right of just to define ourselves. That’s when I think we need to to fight and to not care so much about what the PR dynamics are.
Noam: Yeah, sorry for going totally sounding random in the earlier part of conversation. I was just imagining another conversation I had withsomebody, they said, I’m not a Zionist. I don’t think Israel should be fighting this war anymore. I’m like, that’s not, what? That’s what?
Mijal: Yeah, I’ve got an, I’m not a Zionist. I think you should be able to criticize the government of Israel. I’m like, what? I’m like, that’s what Zionists do all day long.
Noam: Correct. All right. So Mijal, that was awesome. Really love talking this through with you. So interesting. And I cannot wait for the next three conversations about Israel.
Mijal: Yes. Yes. We still have some flexibility though. So if you have a big question that comes up, feel free to send it along.
Noam: Alright, thanks, Mijal.
Mijal: Thanks, Noam.