4 | NOVEMBER 7 • 2024 J
N

opinion
No, We Shouldn’t Retire the Word ‘Zionism.’ 
We Should Take It Back.
I

n the face of campus attacks on 
“Zionists” and a global backlash 
against the very ideology 
of “Zionism,” there have been 
calls to retire the word Zionism. 
 The latest came from Case Western 
Reserve University professors Alanna 
Cooper and Sharona 
Hoffman, who argue 
that because Israel’s 
enemies use the word 
to avoid saying “Israel,” 
and distort the historical 
meaning of the word, 
the terms “Zionism 
and Zionist should be 
retired from our vocabulary.”
This would be a mistake of epic 
proportions. It won’t make our 
enemies love us. In fact, it will have 
the opposite effect and just embolden 
them to keep chipping away at our 
narrative, our heritage and our people. 
So, we must double down on that 
word, reclaim it and remind everyone 
what it really means.
And here’s what it means (the Anti-
Defamation League got it right): 
“Zionism is the movement for the 
self-determination and statehood for 
the Jewish people in their ancestral 
homeland, the land of Israel.” That’s it. 
Nothing more and nothing less.
Calling for retiring the word 
Zionism, even in the interest of 
defending Israel, is a short-sighted 
response that will only backfire. The 
word is not only still relevant today, 
but it also represents something vitally 
needed for world Jewry at this hour: 
Jewish pride. So instead of giving 
in, we must push back and reclaim 
the terminology. We must be proud 
and show them that we won’t bow 
to their pressure on this or any other 
antisemitic attack, and here’s why:
First, words matter. Our enemies 
have long used language to stoke 
Jew hatred. From passion plays 
that proclaimed Jews killed Jesus to 

blood libels that claimed Jews drink 
the blood of Christian children 
to Hamas lies that Israelis harvest 
Palestinian organs to anti-Israel 
protesters screaming that Israel 
commits genocide and apartheid — 
our enemies have always used words 
to inflame hatred against us, and it 
has often led to real violence. They’re 
doing the same thing today by turning 
the word Zionism into a bad word. 
But we cannot let them.
Second, we get to define our own 
lexicon, not our adversaries. Cooper 
and Hoffman write that Jewish Voice 
for Peace, the United Nations and 
others have chosen to give Zionism 
“pernicious meanings.” So what? 
We are already starting to lose the 
nomenclature fight when it comes 
to defining antisemitism because we 
are letting our enemies tell us what 
Jew hatred is and what it is not. Why 
do we think caving to our adversaries 
is ever the right strategy? Winston 
Churchill famously said, “
An appeaser 
is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it 
will eat him last.”
Third, it’s a slippery slope. What’s 
next? Jew haters will go back to the 
U.N. to attempt once again to define 
“Zionism as racism” — an argument 

the American Jewish community and 
government officials spent 16 years 
fighting to repeal — and then where 
will they then go from there? Will 
they try to turn the word “Israel” or 
“Jewish” into bad words, too? In 1975, 
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. 
ambassador to the U.N., called the 
effort to sully the word Zionism “a 
great evil has been loosed upon the 
world.” A half-century later, surely the 
Jewish people can say the same thing.
Fourth, the attack on the word 
Zionism is something more nefarious 
in disguise: It is our enemies’ attempt 
to erase the Jewish connection to Zion 
altogether. Hoffman and Cooper write 
that “Zionism should continue to be 
used to refer to the movement that 
predated the establishment of Israel in 
1948.” But if we allow our enemies to 
turn Zionism into a dirty word, then 
that will pave the way for them to 
turn the entire Zionist enterprise into 
a dirty movement, which will pave the 
way for them to discredit not just the 
word Zionism, but the whole Zionist 
project, meaning the State of Israel 
itself. If we retire “Zionism,” with all 
of its deep historical resonance, it will 
only embolden them to keep lying 
about the lack of Jewish connection to 

the land of our people.
Ultimately, we must stand up to our 
adversaries. We cannot bow to their 
pressure. We must show them we are 
proud of our heritage, our people and 
our language — including the word 
Zionism. For only pride will defeat 
antisemitism. By giving in to this self-
defeating, antisemitic attempt to steal 
our language from us, we are doing 
the opposite of having pride — we are 
going back to being the weak diaspora 
Jews that the founders of Zionism 
were pushing back against when they 
called for the creation of the modern 
Jewish State.
Today, a strong, defiant, self-
sufficient Judaism is needed more 
than ever — and that type of Judaism 
is best represented by Zionism. 
As I’ve written before, “Zionism is 
the belief that Jews hold the keys to 
our own destiny and determine our 
own future. We are no longer victims 
of history; we write our own history. 
Zionism is not just self-determination 
for Jews in our homeland but self-
actualization for Jews all over the 
world. That’s the Zionism of today, 
modern Zionism, Zionism 3.0.
In the end, not only must the 
word Zionism not be retired, but 
the word and the ideal it embodies 
must be resurrected, rejuvenated and 
rebooted. A strong, courageous, self-
determining Zionism both in Israel 
and in the diaspora is a Zionism 
with fighting for. That’s what Israeli 
soldiers are fighting for. That’s what 
proud Jewish kids on campus are 
fighting for. That’s what Jews around 
the world are fighting for.
It’s time to double down and take 
back the word Zionism. 

Zack Bodner is the author of the book “Why 

Do Jewish? A Manifesto for 21st-century 

Jewish Peoplehood.” He is the president and 

CEO of the OFJCC in Palo Alto, California, 

and the founder of the Z3 Project, an effort to 

reimagine diaspora-Israel relations.

Zack Bodner
JTA.org

Tel Avivians demonstrate against the U.N. decision declaring “Zionism is racism” in 
Kings of Israel Square, Nov. 13, 1975. The signs read, “I am a Zionist” and “Judaism 
is Zionism.”

MOSHE MILNER/ISRAEL GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE

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