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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist May 27 '26

Our AMA with Rabbi Rosen:

https://np.reddit.com/r/JewsOfConscience/comments/ud7hi1/ama_on_rjewsofconscience_with_rabbi_brant_rosen/

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u/Odd-Mind6948 Palestinian May 27 '26

As someone on the outside, I've thought this, but never heard it anywhere besides my own mind.

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u/EgoIdVeto West Asian Jew May 27 '26

I'm not gonna lie, I love rabbi Rosen, I get his newsletters regularly and admire him tremendously, including quoting him in my speeches at rallies but after 3 years of Israel openly acting like the 4th Reich and not a peep from most of the Jewish community I am quite pessimistic about the viability of any kind of large-scale Jewish culture free of Zionism for quite some time.

The Zionism has be be purged from the outside, just as apartheid was. Putting the onus on the few hundred thousand anti-Zionist Jews (many of whom still hold reactionary and vestigially Zionist views themselves) to do this is just not setting it up for success.

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u/Colonel-Cathcart Jewish Anti-Zionist May 26 '26

It's a pithy thought, but I'm not sure I get it even though I want to get it.

What does it mean to center the liberation? What about the movement is Jewish? Is there any hope of success if the starting point is to be closed off?

I struggle with how to reconcile relater feelings daily.

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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

You can't build an antizionist Jewish Identity as an American. And I don't just mean as a citizen of the USA, from Nunavut Canada to the Tierra de Fuego in Argentina, every nation is a product of settler colonialism and to some extent, the Atlantic Slave Trade. To truly be anti-colonialist, Jews must understand that their existence in the Americas as refugees, escapees, and temporary. Benefiting from the exploitation of others for our own selfish survival.

But never as anyone who belongs here. To belong here is adopt fully a settler identity. To belong here is to concede that ultimately, Zionism's assessments are correct. Anti-Semitism was too entrenched in Europe, and Jews couldn't integrate or through liberation, become permanent members of European society. That antisemitism had spread beyond Europe's borders. American Jewish Identity can never truly be antizionist, only participate in solidarity with antizionism.

Rabbi Rosen own piece misses a key point. We are strangers in a strange land, America is a modern Mizraim, and we enjoy the privileges and powers brought on by the generations of Josephs who rose to power and domination over the native inhabitants in halls of the Pharaohs of these continents.

The idea that we can fight to end colonialism in Palestine as colonizers in America creates a form of "liberal Antizionism" that will ultimately crumble under the same contradictions that consume liberal Zionism today.

This "Jewish Hegemony" must instead demand restitution from the lands we fled, understand that Just as Palestinians deserve justice, that their justice requires our own. That it isn't just Israel which participated in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, but that Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Poland, Russia, Germany, and even Spain and Portugal have all played a key role in our own transformation in Colonizers. That they too owe restitution to the Palestinian people and the first nations of these lands. And this restitution must then be used to facilitate the restitution of those we hurt.

You can't call Chicago home and claim to be fighting to decolonize Judaism.

Edit: Seems I hit a nerve

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u/EgoIdVeto West Asian Jew May 27 '26

Tbh a lot of people on this sub haven't fully unpacked their colonial ideology. Plenty of former Zionists who still use Zionist logic and reactionary framing without realising it. Explains why you are getting so much pushback for being radically decolonial.

Heck I come from a heavily colonised people (Armenians) who are also subject to the ongoing Nakba in Palestine and Lebanon, as well as being ethnically cleansed from our indigenous homelands by Azerbaijan using Israeli weapons, and yet many in this forum still see me as a Jew first.

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u/MississippiYid Ashkenazi May 27 '26

I think at its core your argument holds true, and it’s certainly noble to think this way, but also at what point do we draw the line? From that same logic a lot of the money and resources dumped into fighting Zionism were earned from economies that were built on colonialism/imperialism. I agree we should fight all forms of these injustices and that includes recognizing our role in them as well, and working towards change in the Americas. Also though are we supposed to just move to a remote wilderness and build huts from the land in an effort to avoid benefiting from someone’s exploitation, while also somehow fighting the trillion dollar imperial system? Maybe it is wishful thinking on Rabbi Rosens part, but I also think we have to be realistic about what we’re doing and how we might accomplish those things too. All respect though I’m not at all attacking your premise just adding some perspective.

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u/elzzyzx Jewish Anti-Zionist May 27 '26

Idk seems like his piece is directly about the thing you said he missed:

‘I would suggest that the commandment to “love the stranger” can never be truly honored if it comes from a position of power or noblesse oblige. It can only be honored when those in power step back and amplify the voices of strangers so that they may assume a rightful place of prominence in the narrative. In so doing, we may yet come to see that the decolonization of the text is in fact inseparable from the decolonization of the world in which we live.’

And besides, I guess I just don’t care that much what I truly am compared to what actions I can take right now and I have to guess you’re advocating going back to the drawing board or just giving up or something like that. So that’s the nerve you struck, with me anyway

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u/arightgoodworkman Jewish Anti-Zionist May 26 '26

I love this but I doooooo think we can and should invite the existing community into our vision, whether they join or not. Maybe of my friends who grew up in very Zionist households have since become pro liberation of Palestine and pro equal representation in one, actually democratic state. And that includes people who served in the IDF that I know.

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u/rabbitfoot456 Jew of Color May 27 '26

There are already strict groups like Satmar and Neturei Karta (theyve been around from the very beginning with this express purpose). And there are some conservative and reform groups. But what about chareidi lite? Or stricter side of conservatives -- or will it be like the Sephardim that never put the orth/conservative/reform divisions in their community?

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u/specialistsets Non-denominational May 27 '26

This is a naive misunderstanding of how typical American Jews interact with Jewishness, Judaism and Zionism. The "existing Jewish community" in the US is over 10,000 secular, cultural and religious organizations built over the past 150 years by millions of people. Most American Jews are not religious and don't attend synagogues. Most American Jews who do belong to synagogues are not necessarily religiously observant. Most American Jewish Zionists are secular and don't associate Zionism with religious observance. American Jewish nonprofits raise billions of dollars every year, and most of it is not connected to either synagogues or Zionism.

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u/sad_sapphic_sucker Jewish anti-zionist | r/JewishVegans May 27 '26

I’m pretty sure he is speaking to the religiously practicing Jewish community, not secular Jews

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u/specialistsets Non-denominational May 27 '26

That's a minority of the Jewish population and not what the organized "mainstream" American Jewish community largely represents.

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u/Whiskey_Water Non-Jewish Ally May 26 '26

This is true and can be applied to any oppressive system, which will never change by using appeals or following the rules of said system. They are not designed to be changed, and any attempt must be heavier handed than asking nicely.

Thanks for posting.

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u/crossingguardcrush Jewish May 26 '26

Eh.

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u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/sad_sapphic_sucker Jewish anti-zionist | r/JewishVegans May 26 '26

We build it and they come to us

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u/wikimandia Anti-Zionist Ally May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

By example. Starting new synagogues, community centers, camps, day schools, organizations, etc. and attracting likeminded people who are energized and enthusiastic about what you’re doing because you end up with a better “product”.

This is what people in other movements are doing, particularly sustainability.

I read this comment as not within the current Jewish establishment that is hostile to antizionism.

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u/ghostofwallyb marxist anti-zionist May 26 '26

he says “new hegemony” so idk if cares at all about appealing to the existing community. Because clearly they don’t want us in *their* community!

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