To the Editor:
Re “The Question of Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism,” by Charles M. Blow (column, Nov. 16):
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, adopted by dozens of nations all over the world, certainly does outline anti-Zionism as antisemitism. It cites for example of antisemitism: “Denying the Jewish folks their proper to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
That the Jewish folks deserve the correct of self-determination, after the Holocaust and the persecution all through Arab lands for hundreds of years, was resolved in 1948. To debate Zionism is exactly the issue going through the Jews in the present day and most particularly Israelis who reside in an absurd world during which the character of their birthright known as into query, as each single Israeli is born of Zionism.
How ironic that nowadays in america, the place each minority is protected and phrases matter greater than ever, it’s one way or the other acceptable to outline oneself as anti-Zionist, even when Jewish. It’s offensive, absurd and deeply antisemitic.
As an American Israeli, I can’t stress sufficient how poisonous this idea is to Israelis and the way it does nothing to assist the reason for peace in the present day.
Rebecca Rose
Saugerties, N.Y.
The author is the director of North American affairs for the Fight Antisemitism Motion.
To the Editor:
Charles Blow quoted the chief government of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, as saying, “Zionism is key to Judaism.” Respectfully, I need to disagree.
Judaism’s core energy is its portability, which has allowed it to outlive, in opposition to punishing odds, for greater than 2,500 years. It’s tied to religion and peoplehood, not actual property.
That perception doesn’t make me an anti-Zionist, nevertheless it does make me a non-Zionist. My religion could have been created on land inside the borders of the state of Israel, nevertheless it has been formed by many forces and other people across the globe through the years. And my cultural roots as a Jew lie in Japanese Europe, the place all my great-grandparents have been born.
(Rabbi) Ellen Jaffe-Gill
Virginia Seashore
To the Editor:
Charles Blow mentions that Amnesty Worldwide calls Israel’s authorities an “apartheid regime.” Below South African apartheid, Black folks were not citizens of South Africa and, as such, couldn’t vote in elections or serve in its Parliament, couldn’t be handled in hospitals that have been reserved for white folks, and couldn’t attend the identical colleges and universities as white folks. These are only a few of the indignities suffered by Black folks in apartheid South Africa.
None of those harsh discriminatory practices apply to Palestinian Arabs in Israel, the place Palestinians make up about 20 p.c of Israel’s residents. They’ll vote within the nation’s elections and have representatives they’ve elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, can attend Israel’s positive universities, and might work in or be handled in Israel’s hospitals.
Mr. Blow owes it to his readers to appropriate Amnesty Worldwide’s false labeling of Israel as an apartheid state as a substitute of spreading its calumny.
Steven L. Weiss
Princeton, N.J.