What is one of the most classical antisemitic descriptions of Jewish people developed by white European Christians?
Parasites.
From Martin Luther to Voltaire, European Christians have described Jews as “parasites” that feasted upon their “host” society. These celebrated thinkers believed that the diasporic conditions of Jews meant this community would unduly benefit from the hard labor of surrounding land-based communities. If you heard someone say something like “[Jews in the Diaspora] are parasites not only in an economic sense but in spirit, in thought, in poetry, in literature, and in our virtues, our ideals, our higher human aspirations,” you would likely see it as antisemitic.
What might surprise you is that these are the words of A. D. Gordon, an early Jewish Labor Zionist thinker. Stranger still, you can find this strain of thought in many towering Zionist figures. Theodre Herzl, the founder of the modern political Zionist movement, wrote that the new Jewish “homeland” should use German over Yiddish since the latter was a “miserable stunted jargon… [and] the stealthy tongue of prisoners.”1 David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel and the approver of what became the Nakba, once stated “Call me an antisemite, but I have to say it …We are choked with shame from what is going on in Germany, Poland, and America, that Jews do not dare fight back. Can we not be brave anywhere in the world?…We do not belong to that Jewish people. We do not want to be that sort of Jew.”2 You can even see it in modern figures, with the former official English-speaking Israeli Spokesperson Eylon Levy Stating “Not your grandparents’ Jews anymore”3 in response to the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Hanieyh at the end of July 2024.
Growing up, I was made to see myself in Israel and understand Israelis as being more “authentically” Jewish. Synagogues would offer lessons on Israeli culture and history but made little room for diaspora Jewish studies. Israeli national holidays would be celebrated like they were our own. Israelis were brought in to teach Hebrew school and lead Summer camps. The wider gentile world reinforced this notion of “Israeliness." Language videos would assign an Israeli flag when discussing Biblical Hebrew, despite the latter predating the former by millennia, and I would be told to “go back to Israel” in casual jokes by friends. After completing intense reading about the history of the Israeli state, I came to realize not only that the modern country is not “superior” in its Jewishness but also that it is not a part of my personal heritage. I wondered why I was made to uplift Israeliness over my authentic diasporic traditions.
I had to turn the clock back to the nineteenth century to understand. The concept of the nation-state, a country with defined borders that contains a singular essential cultural group, was taking root in Central and Eastern Europe. Ashkenazi Jews, strewn across borders with no contiguous territory where they were the majority, were a thorn in the side of nation statists. European Christians saw Jews as weak, effeminate, neurotic, depressed, and overly intellectual. They were denigrated as “rootless cosmopolitans” who mostly worked service jobs in urban environments. In contrast, the “real” Europeans came from the “uncorrupted” countryside and labored in physical production. Jews were viewed as a people unfit for a nation-state and therefore unfit for a peoplehood.
Alongside anti-Palestinian racism, a deep internalized condemnation of their own multigenerational Jewishness was built into the new Israeli nationalism.
Numerous early Zionist thinker internalized these antisemitic prejudices. They concluded that if Jews were to be seen as real Europeans, they must have their own nation-state, which would require the destruction of the old Jewish culture. The Negation of the Diaspora, or the rejection of Jewish life in Diaspora, became a central goal of the Zionist movement (along with the displacement of indigenous Palestinians). This mission required the cultivation of The New Jew in diametric opposition to “The Old Jew.” The “New Jew” would embrace a “muscular Judaism," a culture that forgoes the intellectual pursuits prized by Rabbinic diaspora Judaism in trade for athleticism, extraversion, and extreme self-confidence. The New Jew would be purified of traditional Jewish “jargon” languages like Yiddish and Ladino for the “pure” modern Hebrew.
This gave rise to the Sabra, the Palestine-born Jews raised under this new “Hebrew” culture. The first Sabras would be gifted with new “traditions." They would practice Israeli “folk” dance, whose moves were not only choreographed but also appropriated elements of Palestinian and Yemenite Jewish dances to seem more “oriental” and “native."4 The identity of the Sabra would be based on “working the land” like a good European, not in the esoteric study of scripture of their ancestors. The young Sabras would listen to nursery songs based on cultivating land in Palestine, without any reference to the origins of their immediate ancestors.5 This forced cultural shift unrooted Jews from their origins to fabricate new ones in Palestine. Working the land was fantasized as transforming the outdated weak Jew into the mighty new Hebrew. Alongside anti-Palestinian racism, a deep internalized condemnation of their own multigenerational Jewishness was built into the new Israeli nationalism. We can call this element Anti-Diasporism.
Early Zionists had to take active measures to repress authentic traditional Jewish identity. Zionist groups in the British Mandate of Palestine and the early Israeli governments used public policies and actions to abolish traditional Jewish life. In 1930, a nationalist mob stormed a cinema in Tel Aviv displaying a Yiddish movie and threw stink bombs at the screen.6 In the 1950s, the Israeli nation-state banned Yiddish theater and periodicals, denigrating it as a “foreign language."7 Sephardic/Middle Eastern Jews, or Mizrahim (Easterners) represented a double threat because they represented not just diaspora Jewish identity but also the Arab culture that Israel was defining itself against.
Israel’s Foreign Minister said himself in 1957 that “The goal [for Mizrahi Jewish refugees/immigrants] must be to instill in them a Western spirit, and not let them drag us into an unnatural Orient. One of the biggest fears… is the danger that a large amount of immigrants of Mizrahi origin will force Israel to compare how cultured we are to our neighbors.”8 Needless to say, Mizrahim faced unbelievable racism when they were thrust into the state. They were forced to live in Ma’aborot refugee camps and later peripheral slum-like “development towns.” Mizrahi music was suppressed on Israeli radio and speaking Hebrew with a “Mizrahi” accent was looked down upon.9 One could argue that these actions amount to a genocide of Jewish culture by the so-called “Jewish State.”
Israel’s cultural erasure of its own people is not unique. Nation-states homogenize their population and craft a new identity to suit their ideologies. Pakistan under the dictator Zia ul-Haq banned public officials from wearing the traditional sari in 1985 for its association with India and Hinduism.10 Maoist China’s “cultural revolution” destroyed priceless pieces of China’s history in the quest to decimate “old customs, habits, cultures, and ideas."11 Early Republican Turkey prohibited Ottoman art music from being played on its radio waves in favor of the “more advanced” Western classical music.12
Culture does not organically fit into nation-states. Nation-states fabricate identities to maintain the illusion of a uniform population united under one flag. Diasporic Jewishness poses a threat to the limitations that these nation-states create (including and especially Israel) by maintaining distinct traditions as a minority group connected not by land but by peoplehood. By centering Jewish culture in Diasporism instead of Zionism, we can resist the nation-statist attempt to wed peoplehood to borders. Why should Diasporist, anti-Zionist Jews like myself be called “self-hating” when we’re the ones cherishing who we truly are? If anything, we’re the ones reclaiming Jewish self-love. As a thought experiment, try reframing "anti-Zionist" as "Diasporist." It can make a clear difference in how you see Jews and Jewishness.
Notes
1. Leon Rosselson, “Theodor Herzl — Visionary Or Antisemite?” Medium. 2019.
2. Jake Romm, “Elements Of Anti-Semitism.” Parapraxis. N.D.
3. Ussbriefs On Twitter. 2024.
4. Svetlana Kitto, “Catastrophic Love.” Jewish Currents. 2019.
5. Nathan Shahar, “Hebrew Song, 1880-2020.” Jewish Women’s Archive. 2021.
6. Tamar Fox, “The Anti-Yiddish Riots In Palestinian Tel Aviv.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency. N.D.
7. Zach Golden, “How Yiddish Became A ‘Foreign Language’ In Israel Despite Being Spoken There Since The 1400s.” The Jewish Daily Forward. 2023.
8. Edo Konrad, “The Roots Of Anti-Mizrahi Racism In Israel.” +972 Magazine. 2015.
9. Cafe Gibraltar, “Sex, Drugs And The ‘Mizrahi Sound’.” +972 Magazine. 2013.
10. Samia Qaiyum, “Pakistan's Gen Z Is Bringing Back The Sari. Here's Why It Matters.” Fair Planet. 2023.
11. Stefanie Lamb, “Introduction To The Cultural Revolution.” Stanford Program on International And Cross-Cultural Education. 2005.
12. Adnan Adigüzel, “Westernization Of Turkish (Classic) Music From Ottoman Empire To Turkish Republic And Prohibited Years Of Turkish Music.” The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies. 2012.