Richard Sherman, Florida, wrote to the Cornell Sun, explaining Zionism, the core precept of Judaism, in response to a student of Near East Studies, who ignorantly abuses Zionism

Dear Letter to the Editor:

Hannia Arevalo may be a student who majors in Near East Studies , but she in fact does not understand that Zionism is THE fundamental pillar of Jewish identity. (" Slope Day and the the Politics of being ' Apolitical'").

It is quite simple to explain.  Judaism is based SOLELY on the  3500 year old Jewish Bible aka the Old Testament. That Jewish Bible has only ONE foundational narrative: the Jewish People's Return to Zion -- what today is Israel. It is not complicated. Zionism has been Judaism for 3500 years.

That is why Jerusalem is mentioned 659 times in the Jewish Bible. ( FYI- the word Jerusalem appears 0 times in the Koran). That is why for 2000 years at the conclusion of the Passover Sedar Jews stand and proudly and loudly pray the ultimate Zionist prayer: " Next Year in Jerusalem!"

Recently New York Times columnist Bret Stephens expressed a similar thought, albeit eloquently and succinctly:

"Whatever else it is, Jewish nationalism — that is, Zionism — is the oldest continuous anticolonial movement in history, starting well before the Romans sought to de-Judaize the area by calling their Levantine colony Palestina. Hanukkah, the festival of lights, is one such reminder, celebrating the recovery of Jerusalem from colonizing Greeks in the second century B.C.E."("Settler Colonialism: A Guide for the Sincere", Bret Stephens, NY Times, 2/6/24).

Finally Hannia Arevalo should study 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), to understand that "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).

As the Jewish Bible, Bret Stephens and Ben Freeman make abundantly clear, it is in effect a metaphysical impossibility to be an anti Zionist Jew. You can be an anti Zionist. You can be Jewish. You cannot be both.

Richard Sherman, Florida