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Zionism is one of the world’s most successful revolutionary movements. From an idea that was considered borderline insane, Zionism was able to lay the foundation for the existence of an actual country – Israel – that is one of the world’s most vibrant democracies, prosperous economies and successful societies.

Yet, from its inception, Zionism faced not just diplomatic and physical obstacles to the implementation of its vision, but intellectual opposition to its very idea. Zionism has not existed for a single day without various forms of intellectual opposition to its goal, and once its goal was attained in the form of a state – to the state itself.

The episode will explore Zionist and anti-Zionist thought in tandem, demonstrating how every type of Zionism was opposed by a certain brand of anti-Zionism, and how those various debates about Zionism persist to this day. Dr. Wilf traces Zionism from its political beginnings and the opposition posed by those who favored the path of Jewish emancipation and assimilation, to Labor Zionism against the utopian appeal of Communism and the efforts of Bundism, to the theologies that underlie Zionism and anti-Zionism in both Jewish and Christian forms, to the ongoing intellectual conflict between Zionism in Israel and anti-Zionism in the Arab world, ending with the contemporary question of whether anti-Zionism has become a new form of antisemitism.

Dr. Einat Wilf was a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010-2013 on behalf of the Labor and Independence parties.

Read more about the course: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hpgw8n4bi33hnqh/Zionism%20and%20Anti-Zionism.pdf?dl=0