WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria, Nov. 23: Non-Zionist Jews, it's easy to say Israel. - About Jewish anti-Zionism. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

The recent events that are shaking the land of Palestine and in
particular the Gaza Strip force us once again to deal with the
Judenfrage, the Jewish question, which since the existence of the State
of Israel has cyclically returned to peep out in the cultural debate and
left-wing politician. Faced with the suffering of the Palestinians
confined to Gaza and the West Bank, one certainly cannot remain
indifferent and any attempt to minimize that tragedy, to diminish the
abyss that is consuming (and has been perpetuating for years) in those
cursed disputed lands is intolerable , occupied by the State of Israel
with the connivance of the European powers at the dawn of the 20th
century. However, this awareness serves us to keep the bar of history
straight, without slipping and being tempted by easy and simplistic
anti-Jewish regurgitations.

Anti-Semitic sentiments have been resurrecting in Europe for several
years and at times we witness, even on the left, anti-Zionist rhetoric
which - in tone and arguments - opens up to openly anti-Semitic
conclusions. It is therefore useful to refresh our memory and go back to
the origins of the Zionist movement, theorized by the Jew Theodor Herzl,
and above all to remember what the reaction of the Jewish communities
was when faced with the prospect of a return to the Holy Land:
surprisingly, it was the most orthodox Jews from the point of view from
a religious and doctrinal point of view to be opponents of Zionism, and
not for political reasons.

Since the foundation of political Zionism in the 1890s, the majority of
Haredim Jews, i.e. one of the most conservative and orthodox fringes,
immediately opposed a return to the Holy Land: it contradicted the
Scriptures themselves (in particular the Talmud of Babylon) as the State
promised to the Jews by their God could not be established through the
political intervention of men and nations, but had to coincide with the
return of the Messiah of the house of David: replacing the Most High and
politically exploiting the Scriptures constituted for the heredim a very
serious sacrilege. The issue became more complicated after the
establishment of the State of Israel when some ultra-Orthodox
collaborated in its establishment, however Jewish anti-Zionism continued
to survive under other acronyms and organizations. Among these we can
remember the group Neturei Karta (Aramaic name translatable as Guardians
of the city), founded in 1938, which considers the state of Israel to be
totally illegitimate, arguing that the Israelis must return the entire
state to the Palestinians. The group also demonstrated alongside the
Arabs waving the Palestinian flag, some members were consultants to
Yasser Arafat's government and had relations with Iran. The motivations
that drive the Neturei Karta are, once again, of a religious and
spiritual nature: Jewish belonging identifies a religious group, not a
political community. Breaking the promise with God by anticipating the
return to the Holy Land would therefore be an unforgivable sacrilege.

In less extreme forms, some Jewish communities not resident in Israel
have also harshly criticized his policies. Significant is the letter
that, in 1948, several Jewish intellectuals living in the United States
(including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt) sent to the New York Times
in which they harshly criticized the visit of Menachem Begin, prime
minister of Israel, in search of funds and contacts with the US Zionist
movement, defining the methods of his party as fascist.

Even today, organized anti-Zionist groups continue to exist, such as the
group True Torah Jews, whose stated mission "is to inform the world that
the State of Israel does NOT represent Jews or Judaism." The reasons
given are the same as the previous movements. On their official website
https://www.truetorahjews.org we can read: "we are in exile by divine
decree, and from it we can only re-emerge through divine redemption. All
human efforts to alter a metaphysical reality are doomed to fail and end
in bloodshed. (...) Zionism (...) has created a pseudo-Judaism that
places our essence in secular nationalism. (...) We are not supported by
political convictions, but by our interest in the peace and security of
all the peoples of the world (...)". Probably, for once, religion seems
to be more reasonable than politics.

Zoro Astra.

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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