Diaspora Jews Are Fracturing Over What Zionism Itself Means

The question splitting diaspora Jewish communities is not what Israel does but what Zionism is. In June, Israel's Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli made the case explicit at a conference in Lisbon ^[1].

the delegitimization of Israel is inseparable from the delegitimization of the Jewish people. — Amichai Chikli

The formulation treats support for Israel as a component of Jewish identity: to question one is to attack the other. That same month, the Washington State Democratic Party adopted a 2026 platform taking the opposite position ^[2].

We reject racist political ideologies rooted in supremacy, including forms of Zionism, that perpetuate settler colonialism, occupation, apartheid, displacement and unequal treatment under the law. — Washington State Democratic Party

The party's Jewish caucus co-chair said the platform was drafted without consulting the Jewish community. A state-level Democratic Party now holds a position indistinguishable from the BDS movement's foundational analysis, adopted over the objections of its own Jewish members ^[2]. One camp says Zionism is who Jews are. The other says it is a politics Jews can reject.

what each position means for Jewish institutional life

Zionism is Jewish identity: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Synagogues, schools, and community events tied to Israel are expressions of peoplehood, and targeting them is an attack on Jews ^[1]

Zionism is a political ideology: Israel is a state like any other. Jewish institutions tied to it are political actors, and criticism aimed at Israel rather than Jews is legitimate protest ^[2]

The disagreement runs through what Zionism is, not what Israel does. A change in policy cannot settle an argument that is not about policy. This fracture runs through institutions across continents. In Australia, a Jewish journalist advising a royal commission on antisemitic violence offered the sharpest articulation of the other camp ^[3].

Conflating Israel and Judaism, pursued by the so-called mainstream Jewish groups in Australia, is both historically inaccurate and dangerous, tying Jews to the actions of a genocidal Jewish state. — Antony Loewenstein

Antony Loewenstein attacked mainstream Jewish organizations for the very conflation that Chikli treats as definitional. At UCLA, a student council condemned a hostage survivor's campus talk as one-sided and harmful to Palestinians, while Jewish student groups called the condemnation antisemitic ^[4]. In Milan, pro-Palestinian protesters blocked a commemoration of the Jewish Brigade, a World War II unit, because participants carried Israeli flags. Milan's mayor said the mistake was participating with Israeli flags ^[5]. The Star of David on a national flag at a ceremony honoring Jewish soldiers who fought the Nazis was treated as a provocation. All of this is happening alongside a sharp rise in antisemitic violence from outside Jewish communities.

57% of American Jews experienced antisemitism in the past year [sy_ecd287aa1e71] —

The more visibly Jewish you are, the more you are targeted: 46 percent of Orthodox Jews reported incidents, compared with 17 percent of those uninvolved in communal life ^[6]. In Australia, a gunman killed 15 Jews and injured 40 at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach. The royal commission's commissioner linked the sharp spike in antisemitism to events in the Middle East ^[7]. Jewish children in Melbourne cannot wear school uniforms in the central business district ^[3]. In London's Golders Green, stabbings have driven the highest UK Jewish emigration to Israel in 40 years ^[8]. The two pressures compound. Antisemitism makes visible Jewish identity costly. The Zionism debate determines what visible Jewish identity means politically. In New York, protesters with Hamas and Hezbollah flags gathered outside synagogues while an Israeli flag burned. The mayor condemned hatred of Jewish New Yorkers but maintained that a real estate expo promoting settlements at the synagogue was illegal ^[9]. Antisemitism is condemned; Jewish institutional life tied to Israel is treated as a legitimate target. Diaspora Jews are left without a political camp that reliably protects both. The question of what Zionism is has also become a single-issue force powerful enough to override all other political commitments. Alan Dershowitz, a lifelong liberal Democrat, switched to the Republican Party after 67 years while opposing every other Republican policy position ^[10]. Israel has become a litmus test that overrides everything else for a segment of pro-Israel diaspora Jews. A Pew survey across 36 countries found 67 percent unfavorable views of Israel, with American liberals at 83 percent and conservatives at 37 percent ^[11]. For Jews living in progressive communities, the social cost of visible pro-Israel identity has reached a threshold where communal belonging and Jewish peoplehood pull in opposite directions. This is the hard part for liberal Zionists, who hold that Zionism can be both intrinsic to Jewish identity and separable from the policies of any Israeli government. That position requires a policy fix to stay coherent: Palestinian statehood, a two-state framework, a path that lets them affirm Jewish peoplehood without endorsing the occupation. But the current Israeli government has rejected that framework. Israel boycotted a G7 conference on the two-state solution, dismissing it as having nothing to do with promoting peace ^[12]. The policy fix that liberal Zionists point to is, for now, institutionally blocked. Whether a future Israeli government could reopen that path is uncertain. Opposition leader Yair Lapid has promised equal rights within 100 days and told opponents at Jerusalem Pride that they have forgotten what it means to be Jewish ^[13]. But his speech exists alongside his government's boycott of the very framework he would need to deliver. Reactive consolidation confirms the pressure without reversing the pattern. In Toronto, the Walk with Israel drew 60,000 people, its largest turnout ever, with Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman saying that when your government does not stand with you, your voice gets louder ^[14]. The march was met with counter-protests and six arrests. Solidarity and fracture are two responses to the same threat. In the United States, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a progressive Democrat, broke with his party to support military action against Iran and warned that if a Democrat wins in 2028, the security of Israel will be seriously up in the air ^[15]. His isolation within his own party underscores that he is the exception, not the trend. The question of whether criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews is now being litigated. In Australia, Jewish academics are suing University of Sydney staff over social media posts about Gaza. The defendants say the posts target Israel, not Jews. The plaintiffs call them racial discrimination against Jewish Australians ^[16]. In the United States, the Justice Department is suing Harvard for alleged indifference to antisemitic and anti-Israeli harassment, seeking restitution of $1 billion in grants ^[17]. Courts are being asked to define what counts as antisemitism, and that definition will shape the terrain on which diaspora Jews negotiate the cost of being visible.