Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Anti-Zionism is antisemitism

Last week, I sat down at my family’s Passover seder. At the end of the seder, my family and I said what our ancestors and Jews around the world say: “לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בִּירוּשָלָיִם” (L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim) meaning “next year in Jerusalem.” Next year, in our ancestral homeland, in our holy land.

Judaism and Israel are intimately connected. Zion – the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem – is mentioned in the Torah over 150 times. We pray facing Jerusalem. Our holiest site, the Western Wall, lies in Jerusalem. We have holidays based around Israel’s agricultural cycle.

The Jewish people pray and yearn for their safe return to the land of Israel. One is considered “spiritually raised,” by returning to the holy land. The list goes on and on.

Zionism, at its core, is the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. To deny the connection between the Jewish people and Israel is to deny a fundamental aspect of Judaism.

Since the beginning of the diaspora – the dispersion of Jewish people outside of Israel – endless persecution and massacres have littered Jewish history. Whether it’s the Babylonians, the Roman Empire, across Europe, Morocco, Iran, Libya, Syria or Nazi Germany, antisemitism is one of the oldest forms of hatred.

Watching Jewish families endlessly flee has painstakingly and repeatedly proven that the Jewish people are not safe in the diaspora. The state of Israel acts as the single place on Earth with a guarantee that this government, these systems and these people will not turn on us — a safety all people deserve. To deny the Jewish need for Israel is to deny centuries of persecution and minimize the endless atrocities committed against the Jewish people.

Today, antisemitism has run rampant across universities in America. In support of Columbia University’s encampment, protestors at the University’s gates proclaimed outward support of Hamas, chanting “Hamas, we love you. We support your rockets too,” and “Hamas you make us proud.” Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization whose founding documents outline its goal to kill all Jews. They perpetrated the butchering, sexual assaults and massacre of Oct. 7.

On campus at Columbia University, an individual pointed a sign toward Jewish students reading “Al-Qassam’s next targets.” Al-Qassam is Hamas’s military wing. A Jewish student was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag and went to the hospital. A sign reading “Oh Qassam, oh beloved, we want to burn Tel........

© The Daily Orange