This is the first full-scale history of the only organized American Jewish opposition to Zionism during the 1940s. Despite extensive literature on the Zionist movement, the Jewish opposition to Zionism has received only marginal and usually negative attention. In this impartial study, Thomas A. Kolsky examines the neglected phenomenon of Jewish anti-Zionism, its roots, and its results.
In 1942, a number of dissident Reform rabbis founded the American Council for Judaism, the first and only Jewish organization created to fight against Zionism and the establishment of a Jewish state. Emphasizing the purely religious nature of Judaism and unequivocally rejecting Jewish nationalism, the Council supported free Jewish immigration and equal rights for Jews throughout the world. For Palestine, specifically, it advocated establishment of a democratic state wherein all citizens, regardless of their religion, would enjoy equal political rights.
Summarizing both the history of Zionism and the history of American Jews, Kolsky traces the effects of the Holocaust on the Zionist movement and the personalities that shaped the leadership of the Council. Its position toward Zionism has particular contemporary relevance in understanding the historical relationship between Israel and the Palestinians.
- Current and active
- American Council for Judaism in the United States
- Anarchists Against the Wall in Israel
- Edah HaChareidis in Israel
- Jerusalem Faction in Israel
- Jewdas in the United Kingdom
- IfNotNow in the United States
- Independent Jewish Voices in the United Kingdom and Canada
- International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network based in the United States
- Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States[1]
- Judaism On Our Own Terms[2]
- Malachim in the United States
- Mishkenos HoRoim in Israel
- Satmar in the United States
- Union des progressistes juifs de Belgique
- Shomer Emunim in Israel
- Neturei Karta in Canada, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom and United States
- Sikrikim in Israel
- Een Ander Joods Geluid in the Netherlands
- Europe
- Association of German National Jews in Germany
- General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland
- General Jewish Labour Bund in Romania
- General Jewish Labour Party in Poland
- Jewish Communist Labour Bund in Poland
- Jewish Communist Labour Bund (Ukraine)
- Jewish Communist Union in Ukraine
- Jewish Democratic Committee in Romania
- Jewish Social Democratic Workers Association “Zukunft” in Sweden
- Jewish Workers Bund in Poland
- Jutrzenka Kraków in Poland
- kollektiv doykait in Switzerland
- Komtsukunft in Poland
- Kultur Lige in Ukraine
- League of British Jews in the United Kingdom
- Morgnshtern in Poland
- Pink Peacock in the United Kingdom
- Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten in Germany
- Social Democratic Bund in Russia
- Yevsektsiya in Russia
- Middle East
- Anti-Zionist League in Iraq[3]
- Arbeter-ring in Yisroel – Brith Haavoda in Israel
- Black Panthers in Israel[4]
- Jewish Anti-Zionist League in Egypt
- North America
- American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism in the United States
- International Jewish Labor Bund in the United States
- Jewish People’s Fraternal Order in the United States
- Jewish Socialist Federation in the United States
- See also
- Anti-Zionism
- Bundism
- Haredim and Zionism
- Jewish left
- Jews Against Zionism
