Page 21 - Issue 14

comfortable simply to be seen as pro-Israel than
to acknowledge nuance, especially if doing so
might accidentally place you in agreement with
Corbynistas.

The great irony here is that when it comes to
Israel, two small but vocal minorities within the
community have polarised the issue. Some on the
British Jewish left criticise the community for being
pro-occupation, and in turn other, more
conservative elements within the community
worry that our children are not being brought up
to believe in Israel as an ideal, and thus double
down on what I call a ‘falafel and flag-waving’
Zionism, devoid of real intellectual engagement;
and the cycle continues.

The reality is that many young British Jews are not
brought up with an instinctive understanding of
what Zionism is to them. More of them than ever
go to Jewish schools, and (perhaps fortunately)
don’t have the visceral sense of Israel as a safe
refuge as previous generations did. If we are truly
honest with ourselves as a community, do we
think most of our children come out of Jewish
schools understanding Altneuland, Dreyfus, and
the twin currents of racial antisemitism and
modern nationalism that culminated in early
Zionism? Is Israel the wondrous new nation and
underdog it was 70 years ago to them? No, of
course not. Is it therefore any wonder that when