“Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism: Exploring the Connection”

A sense of national identity lies at the heart of Jewish tradition. This sense of peoplehood culminated in the Zionist movement, resulting in the Jewish people returning to the land of Israel after nearly two-thousand years of exile. Alongside this pull of national self-determination, Zionism was driven by the push of anti-Semitism. Prescient Jews like Theodore Herzl saw that Jewish safety in the modern world would require Jews to break the cycle of dependency on protection from foreign powers. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism has persisted even after the formation of the Jewish state and, in some cases, has taken on the form of political action to demonize Israel and undermine its efforts to protect its citizens.

In this three session mini course, we will explore what some have called “the new anti-Semitism.” Is it correct to characterize activism against the modern state of Israel this way? We will begin by reading an essay by the Jewish hero Natan Sharansky on the legacy of Theodore Herzl and the continued relevance of his original vision. We will then look at the utopian error that can lead inexorably to a hatred of Jewish distinctiveness. Finally, we will turn directly to the question of anti-Zionism and read a careful analysis of the phenomenon through time.

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Einat Wilf

Einat Wilf served as a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010-2013 on behalf of the Labor and Independence parties. She was the Chair of the Education, Sports, and Culture Committee; Chair of the Knesset Sub-Committee for Israel and the Jewish People; and member of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the 18th Knesset. She has also served as the Baye Foundation Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Senior Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a strategic consultant with McKinsey & Company, and as an Intelligence Officer in the Israel Defense Forces. Dr. Wilf has a BA in Government and Fine Arts from Harvard University, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. She is the author of six books, including Telling Our Story, a collection of essays on Israel, Zionism, and the path to peace, and The War of Return on the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee issue.

Alan Rubenstein

Alan Rubenstein was educated in Liberal Arts at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, and also at Georgetown University. He was a senior consultant for the President’s Council on Bioethics and currently serves as Hanson Scholar of Ethics at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. At Carleton, he teaches ethical thought through close reading of great literature of the West—in particular, Plato, the Hebrew Bible, and Shakespeare. He is currently Director of University Programs for the Tikvah Fund. His published essays have focused on the philosopher Hans Jonas, the Hebrew Bible, and Judaism in middle America. He is married and a father of three children.

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