Letter from Richard Sherman, Member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Antizionism, to the Editor, Globe & Mail and Op Ed regarding that Avi Lewis, the newly elected NDP leader is a Zinophobe

...,and that Zionism is as old as Judaism itself, April 3, 2026.

Dear Letter to the Editor/Op Ed:

Avi Lewis, the new leader of the Canadian NDP, -- with due respect to the totally different " antizionism" of 1897 when Israel did not exist- is a Zionophobe* who by proudly calling himself an AntiZionist Jew REJECTS  the SOLE  foundational narrative of Judaism as expressed in the sole source of Judaism, the 3500 year old  Jewish Bible aka the Old Testament aka the Torah: the Jewish people's RETURN  TO ZION -- what since 1948 is Israel.

(The NDP Has An Antisemitism Problem", Konrad Yakabuski)

It is not complicated: Zionism has been Judaism for 3500 years. The Jewish people have NO other foundational narrative.

 Avi Lewis has emerged as the Canadian reincarnation of Max Naumann, the President of Verband Nationaldentscher Juden(Association for German National Jews) who attacked Zionism and embraced  Hitler and Nazism. Antizionist Jews like Avi Lewis who have internalized jew hatred reject Jewish self defense which the Torah enthusiastically encourages by having no commandment against killing, only against murder. To not support Jewish self defense today is to support Hamas which is totally appropriate for an antizionist jew like Avi Lewis.

Avi Lewis rejects the teachings of Nobel Peace Prize winner The Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr who said at Cambridge, Massachusetts in October 1967: "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews; you're talking antisemitism".

See: "The Socialism of Fools - The Left, the Jews and Israel", Seymour Martin Lipset, "Encounter", December 1969, page 24; see also: " The Words of Martin Luther King", Harvard website 2016, Professor Martin Kramer.

Avi Lewis also is oblivious to the words of Theordor Herzl who said: " The idea that I have developed in this pamphlet is an ANCIENT ( emphasis supplied) One: It is the RESTORATION( emphasis supplied)of the Jewish state"( 1896).

Herzl's words make clear that nothing that was done in the 19th century changed the 3500 year old Zionist foundation of Judaism.

Herzl understood that  Zionism is the 3500 year old fundamental pillar of Jewish identity.

Avi Lewis as a self described Anti Zionist Jew as been eloquently portrayed by historian Ben M. Freeman who has recognized that all antiZionist  Jews have internalized jew hatred.

The extensive writings of Ben M. Freeman: Jewish Pride. Rebuilding A People(2021), Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride(2022), and the recent The Jews. An Indigenous People (2025), makes clear that Avi Lewis's  "Antizionism is antithetical to Jewishness. As I examined in  Reclaiming Our Story , and the second part of the Jewish Pride trilogy, Jews have internalized Jew- hate for thousands of years. Antizionism exemplifies this process in action in our times. It is perhaps the ultimate example of internalized jew-hate. It also illustrates one of the key manifestations of internalized anti- Jewishness: deployment. In the 15th and 16th centuries, some Jews converted to Christianity and then spent their lives demonizing Jews. Today antiZionist Jews aren't content to simply reject Israel. Today, they deploy their Jewishness as a weapon to provide a sheen of respectability and legitimacy to Jew- hate focused on Israel. In other words, they kosher antizionism. Antizionism is an illogical position for Jews to take. After all, who are Jews without Israel? Who are ANY indigenous people without their native lands? It is impossible to separate Jews from Israel. We must be clear to those Jews who are so warped by Jew-hate that they shed this connection. They have strayed too far, and unless they make amends they have no place among us. We may be diverse in our practices and beliefs, but anti Zionism is simply not a legitimate expression of Jewish identity.

"Understanding Zionism as the indigenous rights movement is crucial -- both for ourselves and the wider world...The United Nations' position on the right to self-determination is rooted in the notion that an indigenous people have the right to define their own destiny and to create a society in their image. To be masters of their own destiny. This is what the Jewish people have done in Israel since 1948. It is an act of decolonization unprecedented in world history. Never had an indigenous people been colonized and exiled from their land and then able to reclaim their sovereignty 2,000 years later".  (The Jews. An Indigenous People, Ben Freeman, 2023, pp 243-244).

Just as Gertrude Stein internalized her jew hatred and embraced the murder of thousands of  French Jews by Vichy and Rudolph Kastner internalized his Jew hatred and embraced the murder of thousands of Hungarian Jews by the Nazis, Avi Lewis has internalized his jew hatred and embraced the murder of  thousands of Jews from all over the world by Hamas.

By cutting his connection with the Return to Zion -- the only foundational narrative that Jews have -- , Avi Lewis has guaranteed that he  will soon be meeting Gertrude Stein and Rudolf Kastner in a very very very warm place.

*Zionophobia, a condition described  by Professor Judea Pearl,  the Chancellor's Professor of Computer Science and Statistics and the Director of the UCLA Cognitive Systems Laboratory and Daniel Pearl's father,  as " the absolute denial of Israel's right to exist". See: " Coexistence and Other Fighting Words", Selected Writings of Judea Pearl, 2002-2025, Epilogue. The Crater of October 7, page 144, (2025).

FYI EIC: Zionophobia is now in general usage in The New York Daily News and The New York Post and the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation Bulletin. No asterisks required.

Richard Sherman, Florida