Zionism and its Critics

3 units

Zionism’s advocates hail it as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Today, its critics deride it as racist and settler colonialist. Among Zionism’s primary goals, from its inception, was to solve the problem of antisemitism. Today, many consider anti-Zionism to be the newest incarnation of Judeophobia. This course will ask what Zionism has been according to both the thinkers and political leaders who drew up its practical and theoretical blueprints, as well as Zionism’s detractors—both Jewish and not Jewish—who have opposed it on political, ethical, and theological grounds. Included among the major questions we will ask will be: Was Zionism only or always in favor of the creation of a Jewish state? Was it a secular movement, a religious one, or something else altogether? What have been the most resonant critiques of Zionism? To what extent does Zionism play a role in the modern state of Israel?