On the complexities of modern Jewish identity: contemporary Jews against Israel

Abstract

The contention of the present essay is that many Jews who oppose the existence of the state of Israel express a problematic form of Jewish identity, which may reach the point of a new pattern of Judeophobia – certainly, a puzzling intellectual phenomenon. Excluded from this category are Jews who criticize certain Israeli policies; this is the accepted democratic and liberal norm. Meant are Jews who either demand structural changes that deny the Jewish character of Israel, or even support the so-called 'abolishment' of the Jewish state. Even if their number is small, the visibility and influence of such Jews are quite large. Although most of them indignantly reject the allegation of Judeophobic attitudes, they frequently find themselves on a common platform (at times literally so) with declared and active non-Jewish Jew-haters, who are never shy to use their Jewish companions for their own argumentation.