A new (not-so-new) narrative seems to be going around lately.
"I am going to continue to view Jews as terrorists and say that they are terrorists until they defend their religion [from Zionism] like I defend my religion [from ISIS]."
AHED TAMIMI
Apparently discriminating against Jews is a-okay until Jews denounce Zionism.
But what happens when Jews do denounce Zionism? It’s still not enough.
HISTORIC PRECEDENT
"Until they denounce Jewish culture."
During the Seleucid Greek occupation of the Land of Israel (332-142 BCE), the rulers assured their Jewish subjects that they would be okay…so long as they renounced Jewish culture in favor of Hellenism, or Greek culture. In their quest for acceptance, some Jews went so far as to reverse their circumcisions in order to participate in Olympic tournaments, as the Greeks did. But it still was not enough. As the story of Hanukkah goes, the Greeks replaced the Hellenized Kohen Gadol (High Priest) Joshua (Jason) with even more Hellenized Kohen Gadol, Menelaus, who ultimately erased Judaism completely by installing a statue to Zeus in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
"Until they accept Jesus as the son of God."
During the Spanish Inquisition, the litmus test placed on the Jewish community was clear: either convert to Christianity, leave Spain, or die. It’s estimated that about half of Sephardic Jews chose to convert. But it was still not enough. The Spanish crown’s persecution of Conversos, or New Christians, is extensively well-documented, both in the Iberian Peninsula, and, later, in the Americas. The Spanish policy of “Limpieza de Sangre,” or purity of blood, introduced new antisemitic discrimination on a racial basis, meaning that Conversos were still subjected to property seizures, torture, burnings, and more.
"Until they assimilate."
During the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte agreed to emancipate the Jews so long as they agreed to abandon their identification as a national group and reduce their identity to that of a religious group. Or, in Napoleon’s words, until they “cease[d] to have Jewish interests and sentiments” and their interests and sentiments became French. As Jewish emancipations swept Western Europe, Jewish assimilation followed. But it was still not enough. Over the next century, events like the Dreyfus Affair and even the Holocaust illustrated a sad reality: no matter how successfully a Jewish community integrated into its host nation, they’d continue to be persecuted and othered.
"Until they renounce Zionism."
From the very beginning, the Soviet Union was hostile to nationalism, particularly nationalist movements from any of the thousands of ethnic minorities in the country, considering it “bourgeois” and “divisive.” Naturally this opposition to nationalism included opposition to Zionism as well. Though the Soviets professed equality for Jews, this so-called equality came under the condition that they renounce Zionism. The Soviets enlisted the help of the Yevsektsiya, the Jewish Section of the Communist Party, to persecute, imprison, and torture thousands of Jews over alleged “Zionist” ties (such as learning the Hebrew language). But it still was not enough. In the end, the Soviet Union executed the Yevsektsiya’s leaders.
THERE IS AN ENTITLEMENT IN THIS
Non-Jews are not entitled to define what should or shouldn’t be Jewish identity, what should or shouldn’t be a part of Jewish culture, and what should or shouldn’t matter to Jews.
Jews and Jews alone get to dictate Jewish values, or what makes one a “good” or “bad” Jew, because Jews and Jews alone can understand what exactly makes a Jew. And yet, since the days of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, non-Jews have been dividing Jews into groups, telling us what they think would make us “one of the good ones.”
This entitlement goes further. When antisemites such as Candace Owens demonize the Talmud, for example, they are telling us that they alone understand Jewish texts better than us Jews never could. When antizionists tell us that they alone know what Zionism is, and us Zionists don’t, they are doing the same thing: defining Jewish movements to fit their antisemitic worldview.
YOUR PROBLEM WAS NEVER JUST WITH ZIONISM
Perhaps someday those who place litmus tests on Jews – the latest being the rejection of Zionism – will come to realize that their problem was never just with Zionism, or with Jews’ refusal to adopt Christianity, or with anything else. If that were the case, then conceding and doing what non-Jews want would solve the problem. Instead, it’s never been enough. Some Jews do reject Zionism, and yet people like Ahed Tamimi still identify Jews as terrorists. Rather, antisemites formulate these litmus tests because they already have disdain for Jews to begin with.
For example, when antisemites demand that Jews renounce Zionism, more often than not, their idea of “Zionism” is entirely divorced from reality and instead is a reflection of recycled centuries’ old antisemitic tropes.
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