Who is a Zionist?: Responding to journalist Kalman Liebskind - opinion

A stormy debate is currently raging in Israel after the publication of journalist Kalman Liebskind’s recent article in Maariv in which he made the assertion that ”whoever leaves Israel needs to know that he is driving down the Zionist road against the traffic.” Liebskind, an influential columnist affiliated with Religious Zionism, triggered an emotional reaction from both sides of the political spectrum.

He resuscitated Yitzhak Rabin’s famous phrase from 1976, “fall-outs of weaklings,” referring to cowardly dropouts, or yordim, who leave Israel during military or economic hardship. Does that term aptly describe my brother, who left Israel for the US following the Yom Kippur War after serving for three years in Sinai and witnessing his fellow soldiers fall in battle en masse? Nowadays we have a name for it – post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Liebskind is particularly critical of the media for “glorifying” those “escaping” Israel because of the war, the higher cost of living, and the perennial pressure to seek greener pastures. It troubles him to read about the “new pioneers” who relocate in groups to the blue beaches of Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, and Thailand. One emigrant was quoted as saying that the only thing he misses about Israel is the Bamba peanut-flavored snack. The real Zionist patriots, Liebskind argues, are those who leave their families at home [in order] to serve in the military for long periods, and many have shed their blood defending Israel.

Liebskind is surely right in criticizing the excess of articles in the press depicting attractive real estate in Cyprus or Florida. However, what he fails to see is that behind the liberal exodus of the past couple of years, it is not always personal comfort that is the primary motive. Many of those who depart Israel are genuinely reluctant to leave their relatives and their culture behind, and many have served in the IDF. They leave because they are frustrated about the inequality of sharing the military and economic burden. The few Zionist pioneers from Kibbutz Be’eri who left for the US still suffer from PTSD after being abandoned on October 7. The case of the Supernova music festival survivors who need a change of scenery to heal their deep wounds has been widely documented. Other families refuse to accept that there is no alternative strategy for Israel other than “living by the sword” in an eternal war.

One person I met in Spain, who works in hi-tech, was greatly embittered about the lack of mutual responsibility for the hostages who are still in the tunnels of Gaza more than a year after October 7. Another woman, whose son moved with his young family to Greece, cited existential angst as the reason for their departure from Israel. Her family in the North had spent more time in the shelter than at home. She asked me if it was normal that her three- and four-year-old granddaughters “play missiles” while distinguishing between “fall” and missile “interception,” and take turns role-playing “terrorists” and “victims.”

I know descendants of Holocaust survivors who had no qualms about moving to Berlin, of all places. People leave Israel for so many reasons. When asked why he chose to get a Portuguese passport, my hairdresser answered, ‘It’s always good to have an exit plan.” An extension of the Wandering Jew syndrome.

Who is a Zionist, then?

My uncle Shimon Moria, who left home at 16 to fight in Israel’s War of Independence and fell in battle? My parents, who gave up pursuing a meaningful mission in Dallas leading a community of Israelis to return home? When warned not to return to Israel during a period of bus bombings, my mother answered with the biblical phrase “I dwell among my people.”

Again, who is a Zionist? Undoubtedly, 21-year-old St.-Sgt. Yaakov Hillel and his generation of heroes fighting on so many fronts in Israel’s manifestly just war are. Yaakov, the grandson of world-renowned head of the Ahavat Shalom Yeshiva, Rabbi Yaakov Hillel, and son of Rabbi Chaim Hillel, head of the kollel (institute of advanced Torah study) in Jerusalem’s Neveh Ya’acov neighborhood, was a full-time student at the kollel, got an exemption from military service, and did not have to serve. But he chose active combat service in the Golani Reconnaissance Unit, fought bravely in Gaza, and fell in Lebanon on the eve of Sukkot. Yaakov inspired his fellow soldiers to both pray and fight. His father, who was fully supportive of his joining the army, told me that Yaakov was “a man of truth.” Yaakov’s Zionist ethos must have affected the room full of yeshiva students I saw while paying my condolences [at the shiva].

For my part, I left Israel to study in England and Germany and went on to work in Dallas, Washington, and Barcelona. The bond to my homeland grew even stronger after my mother was killed in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, and the wheel has now come full circle. I was the only woman on the flight back to Israel from Barcelona on October 11, 2023, after presenting Israel’s case on Spanish TV. All the other passengers were young Israeli men eager to return to join the war campaign. As with many of the other passengers on board, I may have left Israel but Israel never left me.■

Shoshana Tita is a journalist, scholar, and international teacher based in the US, Spain, and Israel.