By H. Applebaum
SAN DIEGO — The pushke in my grandma’s kitchen, blue and white, with Hebrew lettering, sat in the corner of the counter. It was not remarkable; I saw the same one or similar ones in the houses of most of my relatives. In those days, in the infancy of the State of Israel, it meant planting trees in the desert, setting up tents for the new olim, or buying books for a yeshiva in Jerusalem, whatever was needed for the reestablishment of the Jewish homeland. Whether you gave or not, every Jew supported Israel, and whether a socialist or not, supported Ben-Gurion’s Socialist Zionist government.
Today, with Israel a fact rather than a question, Jewish support is not as strong or as universal. Those who consider themselves Zionists often don’t agree about Israel. Some who claim they are Zionists, are anything but, and actually support Israel’s enemies. Today, instead of the pushke, it’s the check or credit card, so how do we know if our donation is really helping Israel?
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) the benchmark of American Zionism, founded in 1897, is the oldest Zionist organization in America. It always supports Israel whether the prime minister is Begin, Rabin, or Netanyahu, whether Israel is giving land for peace or refusing to, whether the American president is an Israel supporter or not. It doesn’t dictate to Israel, or interfere in its politics, as other Jewish organizations do. It simply supports and defends Israel, at the U.N., on college campuses, and wherever the Jewish state is demeaned and attacked.
ZOA understands civil rights laws and uses them to protect Jewish students on college campuses. Their lawsuit against Rutgers University, which has a long anti-Semitic history, was denied in 2011, but has now been re-opened by the Office of Civil Rights. This is a great victory going forward because it makes it official that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and it is illegal to discriminate based on ethnicity.
In the 21st century, with the BDS movement growing on college campuses, new organizations like Stand With Us and AMCHA Initiative arose to support campus Zionists and to counter lies about Israel. But another type of organization also arose which claims to speak for American Jews but actually refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Most have ‘Jewish’ or ‘Israel’ in their names, but they align themselves with Israel’s enemies. Like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and New Israel Fund(NIF,) not only do they constantly criticize Israel, they support BDS and many of their donors are from foreign countries hostile to Israel.
These so-called Zionists are really special interest groups with political agendas at odds with Israel’s interests. My grandma, and all those ladies with the pushkes would have seen right through them.
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Applebaum is a freelance writer based in San Diego.