To the anti-Zionist Jews: 

The first thing I thought of on the morning of December 14th, 2025 was not the State of Israel. Although, minutes later, when I read headlines saying that innocent Jews celebrating Hanukkah were gunned down in Sydney, I was brutally reminded. In the past decade, Jews have been attacked in synagogues, grocery stores, beaches, and city streets across the Western world. Sometimes the attackers invoke Israel. Sometimes they invoke religion, race, or conspiracy. Often, they invoke nothing at all. What they have never done is ask their victims whether they support Zionism. This begs an interesting question–why are there individuals who deny the right for a Jewish state to exist when there is such a clear need for one? With this form of thought, the Jewish people are now more vulnerable to attack and division. Because while denying Jewish self-determination does not create anti-semitism, it lowers the moral barrier for those already looking for justification to commit violence against Jews. Which raises an unavoidable question: why is Jewish self-determination optional when our vulnerability is not?

It is with this question as a backdrop–vulnerability, not theory or politics, that I am addressing you. Yet despite this pattern, some Jews, which may or may not include you, will insist on treating Zionism as optional, abstract, or even disposable. I don’t think it’s a prerequisite for Zionists to support the Israeli government, or to believe that war in Gaza is justified. No, my issue is that you deny our self-determination that is rooted in our texts, prayers, and practices. And sure–in an ideal world, there wouldn’t be such a dire need for Israel to exist. But throughout history, we have seen how Jews are treated in the absence of a state dedicated to their protection. Even when anti-Zionism is framed as theoretical or moral, in practice it lowers the moral barrier that enables antisemitic violence—and history demonstrates that Jewish safety ultimately depends on Jewish self-determination.

This internal debate, however, does not exist in a vacuum, instead unfolding within a wider political and social climate.  The fact of the matter is that most non-Jewish anti-Zionists only care about Israel because of its status as a Jewish state; “no Jews, no news.” This is not a movement in the game of moral equivalence, but rather one driven by moral relevance. Advocacy flocks to the flashiest, emotionally charged, and most socially rewarding causes. You don’t see the anti-Zionist crowd decrying the Iranian government’s murder of hundreds, possibly thousands of protesters. So ask yourself; are you being swallowed into this movement? Is your opposition truly due to policy, or relevance? 

And when selective outrage becomes normalized, rhetoric invariably escalates, raising yet another unavoidable question: when rhetoric escalates to phrases like “globalize the intifada,” what purpose is actually being served? Is that really “Freeing Palestine?” What could possibly be the ulterior motive behind that rhetoric? At that point, it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Israel often becomes the mask through which older hatreds against Jews are repackaged and justified against Jewish life and ideals. 

The real world consequences of this rhetoric is far from theoretical. You can demonize the Jewish state all you want. I can’t stop you. But do you think the terrorists at Bondi Beach questioned each person individually about their stance on the Palestinian issue? Did the terrorist in Manchester? How about Pittsburgh? Maybe Berlin? D.C.? When you are staring down the barrel of a gun held by antisemitic extremist, who hates you not for your ideals but for your religion, do you think he will ask if you are anti-Israel? Will he care that you protested in the streets? Will he care if participated in the campus encampments in the name of “boycotting, divesting, and sanctions”? 

I’m sure you’ve said before that “anti-zionism isn’t anti-semitism.” But when the manifesto is released, when your family reads about you in a newspaper, Israel will be the mask they use. This past weekend, over two hundred protesters in front of a synagogue in Queens, New York, chanted “Say it loud, say it clear: We support Hamas here.” Now, consider that question again: are anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism still not the same thing? 

So strip away slogans, theory, and distance, and consider a simple reality. I want you to remove theory from the equation and ask yourself this: there's a mob walking in front of your house screaming “death to the Jews,” and they are about to confront and probably kill you. Option one: stay where you are, argue that you “aren’t like the rest of them” and “you don’t support Israel.” Option two: be transported to the Jewish state, where you can freely express your religion and ideas without hindrance. Where will you go then? Because you won’t be staying wherever you are. You’ll choose Israel every single day of the week. Because the survivor in you, the Jew who has survived thousands of years of persecution, says there is no point. You are backing a movement where the end goal is the destruction of a state harboring Jewish values, ones which you say you share. History has always told us that Jewish ideological indifference has just increased levels of anti-semetism, and done nothing but tear our religion from the inside. That has never been more true than it is now. That instinctive choice you made reveals the truth more clearly than any slogan ever could. It’s the reality Zionism was built to address.

To be completely honest with you, I hesitated before releasing this article. I had written it the week after the Bondi terrorist attack, and sat on it. It wasn’t until I read in an Instagram post that a historic synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, was the victim of an arson attack just this past weekend. Two Torah scrolls were destroyed, although, fortunately, nobody was killed. Now, I like to consider myself up to date on recent events. I consistently read the news every single day. I didn’t find this in the headlines. I found this on social media. What does that say to you about the normalization of antisemitism? Five years ago, this would be top of the headlines. Today, it hardly made the mainstream news. 

Doesn’t that give you chills? When a brazen attack of antisemitism in the United States goes unheard by most? Now, while the motive of the suspect hasn’t been released, I want you to guess what their justification was. It probably has something to do with the state of Israel. 

The only logical conclusion then, is that the safest place for Jews is Israel. While you may deny Zionism in theory, I ask you to consider whether the opposition of Jewish self-determination has actually made Jews safer, or increased our moral standing on the global stage. Because when attacks like these fly under the radar, it speaks to the normalization of hate against us. Time and time again, Jews have spoken out against moral injustice, yet antisemitism persists regardless. So, ask yourself: why should Jewish safety depend on proving moral worth to those who refuse to see it?