Israel in modern Jewish identity: an internal debate

Evyatar Friesel*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Contemporary Jewry is burdened by a fierce debate about Zionism and Israel. A sizeable sector of Jewish academics, where leftists and self-declared liberals are strongly represented, criticises the Jewish state to the point of casting doubts regarding its very existence. Although their argumentation is frequently similar to the utterances of non-Jewish antisemites, what moves these Jewish Israel-critics is not so much Jews and Judaism but rather the Zionist idea. Such anti-Israel Jews are influenced by modern ideological trends and pressures that affect also, strangely enough, certain Israeli Jewish intellectuals. These developments happen on the background of an increasing pattern of Jew-hatred in non-Jewish society, a transformation of past antisemitism now expressed as anti-Israelism.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)57-67
Number of pages11
JournalIsrael Affairs
Volume27
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

  • anti-Israelism
  • antisemitism
  • Israel-critics
  • Jew-hatred
  • Jews
  • Judaism

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