The official communications of the Jewish Community of Porto have just changed. The word antisemitism has been replaced by anti-Zionism.
The challenge accepted by the community was launched on JNS by the renowned professor of political science at Touro University, Daniel Friedman.
The professor wrote that he is tired of seeing anti-Jewish hatred grow while its promoters simply say: “I am not an antisemite. I am anti-Zionist.” It is repeated so often, with such confidence, that it has begun to function like a shield, like a way to redirect the charge without confronting the substance.
For years, the response has been to insist that the distinction is false and to argue that anti-Zionism is simply the latest form of antisemitism. Now, Friedman says “the debate has grown tired, circular and strangely disconnected from what is actually happening in the world,” so “let us adopt their language and call it anti-Zionism.”
After all, Zion is not merely the name of a modern state. The prophet Isaiah records God’s words: “And I say to Zion: You are My people.” Zion is not just a place. Zion is a people. And so, anti-Zionist, according to the Bible, means anti-Jewish.”
Tragically, it is almost unsurprising when Jews are attacked across the globe in the name of anti-Zionism. These are Jews living their lives thousands of miles from Israel. Synagogues in the Diaspora are not Israeli embassies; nevertheless, communities have to pay fortunes for the security of their prayer rooms or their members might die while praying.
Chanukah celebrations on Australian beaches don’t take place in military installations in the Negev, but Chabad rabbis are shot as if they were in war trenches. Museums are not government offices, but in the United States and Western Europe, peaceful visitors have been brutally machine-gunned. Because Israel is destroying the terrorist movements, they attack Jewish emergency vehicles in London that are created to save lives.
Many Israelis have asked for Portuguese nationality for a variety of reasons. Then, a “Palestinian issue” from the local political mainstream imposed the end of a law in favor of Jews and the country for which they could fight. Synagogues and museums full of life, history films and art galleries were treated by the media system with the word “opulence.” The salaries that the community paid for a decade and a half to its Israeli religious leader were stolen by the state, which was not satisfied with the decisions of the competent community bodies.
Jewish philanthropists like Patrick Drahi, a French-Israeli investor with interests in media and telecoms; Uzbek-born diamond magnate Lev Leviev; and the Sephardic Kadoorie family of Iraq were treated as mere beggars desperately in need of a passport. The granddaughter of the “Portuguese Dreyfus” and daughter of a Jewish mother was treated as “non-Jewish” by the police, and her house was searched because of alleged “suitcases of money” that never existed.
To complement all this anti-Zionist shame, the Jews of Porto were listed in newspapers, the synagogue was vandalized with “apartheid” inscriptions, and the Hamas embassy in Lisbon was inaugurated with a painting of the Middle East where the Jewish state does not appear.
If this is anti-Zionism, then it does not stay in Israel. Anti-Zionism does not confine itself to policy debates or territorial disputes. It follows Jews wherever they are, even in Portugal. It attaches itself to Jewish identity itself.
Friedman states that “if we are searching for a term that captures hostility toward Jews and anti-Zionists insist that their animus is directed at Zion, then let the word stand, let it carry the full weight of what is being done in its name, because once we do that, the clarity is devastating.”
If anti-Zionist, in practice, means anti-Jewish, then he suggests “let us stop arguing over whether anti-Zionism is or is not antisemitism. Let us simply call it what they call it: anti-Zionism. Let it include every Jew who has been targeted, harassed or attacked under the banner of opposition to Zion.”
