APOLOGIST FOR ANTI-ZIONISM IS TEACHING ABOUT ANTI-ZIONISM

By Moshe Phillips

A professor who says anti-Zionism is not necessarily antisemitic has been hired by a prominent New York City synagogue to teach a course on the question of whether or not anti-Zionism is antisemitic. Talk about getting the wrong guy for a job!

The biased lecturer in question is Dr. David E. Kaufman, who for many years taught at the Los Angeles branch of Reform Judaism’s Hebrew Union College.

His latest gig is teaching a course for Temple Emanu-El, in Manhattan. The six-part series started on October 29th and is called “Antisemitism, Zionism, and Anti-Zionism.” According to the official description, its focus is on “the question of whether anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic.”

But don’t be fooled by the fact that the Emanu-El catalog makes it sound as if the course will be an honest exploration of “whether” it’s antisemitic, because Dr. Kaufman has made it clear that he has already made up his mind.

Speaking on this very same subject for the online “Community Scholar Program” earlier this year, Kaufman said that it was “mistaken” to say “that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic, end of story.”

Dr. Kaufman happens to be the kind of person who has strong political views, and he wears them on his sleeve. On his Facebook page, he constantly reposts messages with which he obviously sympathizes. And they are very consistently at one far end of the political spectrum.

On September 25, for example, Kaufman reposted a demand for Israel to grant the Arabs of Gaza “real independence and sovereignty over their territorial waters, airspace, and border with neighboring Egypt.” Can you imagine what that would mean? Just one year after they massacred 1,200 Israelis, Gazans would have control of waters and airspace, so they could freely import whatever weapons they want, not to mention concrete to rebuild their terror tunnels.

On October 11, Kaufman reposted a colleague’s message referring to “the Israeli atrocities in Gaza.” On October 13, it was a homemade leaflet that read “Save Israel From Netanyahu.”

Ten days later, he reposted somebody’s assertion that “both Palestinians and Israelis can engage in the same kind of behavior.” Really? Do Israelis gang-rape and mutilate Gazans? Do Israelis kidnap hundreds of Gazans, and starve and torture them? Do Israelis have a law that mandates the death penalty for selling land to an Arab, like the Palestinian Arabs have for selling land to a Jew?

What do Kaufman’s provocative Facebook posts have to do with his Temple Emanu-El series of anti-Zionism? Plenty.

Critics of Israel are desperate to deny that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, in order to protect their political strategy.

Acknowledging that anti-Zionism is antisemitic makes anti-Zionism illegitimate, because the widely recognized standard in American society is that bigotry is illegitimate.

That’s not to say that Kaufman is an anti-Zionist; there’s no evidence of that. But his Facebook posts show a pattern of harsh criticism of Israel, and harsh critics of Israel are on the same side of the fence as the anti-Zionists. When anti-Zionists are discredited, it makes everybody on that side of the political fence look bad. That’s why Kaufman is so insistent that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic.

Kaufman’s perspective is very much at odds with the mainstream Jewish community as well as our elected leaders. The Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and many other prominent Jewish organizations all say anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism, which is used by the U.S. State Department and 33 countries around the world, states that “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” is antisemitic.

An extraordinary bipartisan majority in the U.S. House of Representatives— 311 to 14— voted in favor of a December 2023 resolution stating unequivocally that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

And they were right. To say that everybody in the world is entitled to their own state, except one particular ethnic group, is a blatant, bigoted double standard. If somebody said every group deserves a state except blacks, that would be racist. If they said every group should have a state except Muslims, that would be bigoted. And saying everyone is entitled to a state except Jews, is antisemitic.

Obviously, David E. Kaufman and other critics of Israel have every right to their viewpoint, no matter how extreme. But Temple Emanu-El has no right to present Kaufman’s course as an objective examination of the issue, given the fact that he reached his conclusions before even asking the question. For Emanu-El to pretend otherwise is simply false advertising.

Moshe Phillips is National Chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel [AFSI], a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education group.