Fighting anti-Zionism with indigeneity: Reclaiming Jewish identity in Israel - opinion

The Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel. Although this language wasn’t always used, the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel was historically acknowledged. Even in exile, we maintained our bond with our homeland, which contributed to our othering, particularly in Europe, where we were treated as foreign outsiders.

The concept of “Ahm” – a people – was rooted in the idea that we were inherently connected to one another and the Land of Israel. Throughout history, Jewish indigeneity wasn’t political; it was simply a fact.

This began to change in the 19th century when Jews, influenced by the Enlightenment and the desire for acceptance, started to shed our sense of peoplehood. The American Reform Movement’s 1896 Pittsburgh Platform rejected Jewish nationhood and our desire to return home, instead adopting a purely religious identity – modeled after the Christian concept of religion.

Jewish indigeneity, however, became especially controversial following the Soviet Union and Arab world’s creation and dissemination of post-Holocaust anti-Zionism. They propagated the lie that Israel was an imperialist, colonizing, and illegitimate state, implying that Jews are not indigenous and, by definition, that Palestinians are. The rest, as they say, is history. The Soviets successfully exported their specific form of post-Shoah Jew-hate worldwide.

This ideology spread globally, particularly infecting the Left. As a result, anti-Zionism became a standard leftist position, even affecting certain civil rights campaigners in the United States. While Jews in the Soviet Union faced oppression and cultural genocide, Angela Davis, the infamous American civil rights campaigner, not only failed to speak out on their behalf, but she also collaborated with the USSR. In 1979, she received the Lenin Peace Prize, yet regarding Jewish refuseniks, she is reported to have said, “They are all Zionist fascists and opponents of socialism.”

THIS IS the context of the world we currently inhabit. The Jewish connection to our homeland has been delegitimized and erased in the Left – just as the Soviet Union intended and worked so hard to ensure. 

Israel framed as the epicenter and source of all evil

Israel itself is framed as the epicenter and source of all evil. It is accused of genocide, despite being the victim of Palestinian genocide on October 7. It is charged with deliberately murdering civilians, when it was Hamas – often aided by Palestinian civilians – that kidnapped Israelis and executed them in cold blood. In short, the truth has been denied. Not just our truth, but the truth. And it is this truth that we must fight to reclaim. This fight must include the concept of Jewish indigeneity.

We must understand the concept of indigeneity and how it applies to Jews. The United Nations has outlined seven criteria for determining indigeneity – criteria likely intended to exclude Jews, but which, ironically, affirm our indigenous status in Eretz Yisrael.

One of these criteria – the sixth – is rooted in a post-colonial context, suggesting that indigenous people are inherently oppressed. This criterion should be discarded. However, the other six criteria clearly apply to the Jewish people. These include having a strong connection to land and natural resources, as well as distinct language, culture, and beliefs.

The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is profound. Even in the Diaspora, Jews often choose to be buried with bags of soil from Israel, and for centuries, those returning to the land would kiss the ground upon arrival. Our language (Hebrew), culture (rooted in the Torah, our legal code), and beliefs (our monotheistic belief in YHWH, the national God of the Jews) all originated in this land. 

These elements were developed in Israel and remain central to Jewish identity today, thousands of years later. Indigeneity does not replace biblical perspectives on the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel; rather, it uncovers layers of meaning that have always existed.

ULTIMATELY, indigeneity must be taught and discussed as part of the broader Jewish Pride movement. A key tenet of Jewish Pride is that Jews – and Jews alone – get to define Jewish identity, and non-Jewish definitions are illegitimate. 

But for Jews to define our own identities, we must have the knowledge to do so. This is the only way we can reclaim our identities and combat the vicious lies told about the Jewish people. Anti-Zionism seeks to delegitimize the Jewish state, Medinat Yisrael. 

But part of Israel’s legitimacy is precisely because it is the Jewish state. It sits on the same land as our ancient Jewish kingdoms and is ruled by Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Judah (and according to the Torah, the United Kingdom of Israel). 

As journalist Charles Krauthammer reflected in 1998: “Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil, and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store.”

This is the truth – and we must tell it.

The writer is the founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement, an educator, and the author of Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People and Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride. His new book, The Jews: An Indigenous People, will be released in February 2025.