I have a BA in literature, and part of that was studying "modern" Jewish and Hebrew texts (aka Hashkala period until early 20's century).
one of the main subjects in the Hebrew literature in the period was the way we were asking "what should the ideal Jew look like?" and "how should the Jewish people exist in the world?" and other questions like that. all those things had dissertation after dissertation written about, but one of the subjects that came in was Zionism and the question of "can we even call Eretz Israel our native land anymore?" usually it came from the more... orientalist part of the debate.
all of that to say, the question of what is zionism, what it means, and what is the end goal of the movement is one that has been going on for centuries by this point.
And such often time I struggle with it, because when a fellow Jewish person say they are zionist/anti-zionist I always have to ask, what the fuck do they mean?
(a thing that makes it worse is that anti-zionist became a dog whistle for antisemitic Goyim, so for my own safety I have to assume it even though I KNOW it is not true)
all of this to ask, as a Holocaust scholar, what are some of the historical versions of the concept of zionism/antisionism you encounter?
I'm going to behave like a rabbi and answer you indirectly.
I was quite the passionate Zionist, with politics bordering on right of center, when I was younger. You know what made me unlearn that position? It wasn't being screamed at by random gentiles of Christian European descent online, it wasn't having other Jews online inform me that I'm a disgrace, it wasn't taking classes with ~radical dissident~ Columbia Faculty. It wasn't being called a "Jewish Nazi" on JuicyCampus.
It was learning Modern Jewish History on the graduate level. From seminars directed and monographs written by Jewish scholars. And from the vantage point of the field of Modern Jewish History, when someone who hasn't done that level of study asks me the Zionist question, I have the same response: what are you actually asking me?
But ultimately what you're asking about here (if I'm reading you correctly) are the modern iterations of the ancient debate: how do we DO judaism without access to a nation state in the southern levant? what does it mean to exist as a jew in those circumstances?
The answers to that question, in the context of 1930s European Jewry, will reflect a complex intersection of class, geography, education, religiosity, family assimilation levels, and choice of spoken language.
The same inter-Jewish abusive polemic behavior wrt Zionism existed then, just as much as it does now. We're not doing anything new; we're just doing it online, and perhaps with greater ignorance as to the diverse histories of modern Jewish politics than our forebears.
That older Jewish male lawyer dude on linkedin? You know, the one who spends his free time calling all Jews who have Very Serious Concerns with the behavior and comportment of the Israeli government and military "self-hating" and decrying the self-betrayal of Jewish youth? He was writing similar Op-Eds in Poland, probably in furious conversation with the Bund, and/or the Left Poalei Zion. He was probably decrying that youth's disregard for traditional authority centers.
Regardless of the future of global politics and the State of Israel, Jews will never not be having those kinds of conversations....and probably labeling each other as "disgraceful self-hating Jews" all the while.
l'chaim
