Why I am a Zionist
Gil Troy, (see his website for more info)
Reviewed by Allan Gould
DECENT, BUT THERE ARE BETTER BOOKS ON THE SUBJECT
These are hard times for Jews around the world, as anyone who opens a daily newspaper knows only too well. Verbal attacks by world politicians on our religion and its sovereign state in the Middle East nearly every day; physical attacks on our co-religionists on the streets of France and Jerusalem nearly every week. And when the State of Israel is voted (this month) in a large European poll “the greatest threat to world peace today”—ahead of North Korea and Iran (!), a lot of us are starting to think, with horror, that we are now experiencing The 1930s: THE SEQUEL. (Personally, I never liked the original.)
So we get books like WHY I AM A ZIONIST—Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today, by a New-York-born Professor of History at McGill named Gil Troy.
It is certainly welcome, and, alas, more needed than ever, especially by Jews who are not very knowledgeable about Jewish and Zionist history, which obviously means a great number of our people, as we edge into the new millennium. The fact that this very cheap (and cheap-looking, and amateurishly-illustrated) paperback (a mere $14.95) was published by the “Bronfman Jewish Education Centre” of Montreal suggests that it is really a vanity book. This fact may sadden us—they couldn’t land a real, quality Canadian publisher?—but this does not deny its inherent value. (Indeed, the note in its opening pages that “all of the author’s royalties. . .will be donated to the Israeli MIA families’ individual efforts to free their children,” with all other profits donated to the Birthright Israel program is both touching and meaningful.)
The Prologue of this slim (under-200 page) volume has several little sections which make the author’s point very clearly. They are headed “I am a Zionist: A Twenty-First Century Manifesto”; “I am an Anti-Anti-Zionist”; “Anti-Zionism: Ugly Rhetoric with Lethal Consequences”; and, finally, “The Aims of this Book: Zionist and Jewish Renewal.”
In this short opening section, Professor Troy writes movingly and well about where he stands, and what he stands for: “During these challenging times, Jews should reaffirm their faith and pride in Zionism, while the world should marvel in its achievements. Zionists must not allow their enemies to define and slander the movement. No nationalism is pure, no movement is perfect, no state ideal, but today Zionism remains legitimate, inspiring, and relevant, to me and to most Jews. A century ago, Zionism revived pride in the label ‘Jew’; today, Jews must revive pride in the label ‘Zionist.” That’s very well put.
This book is most valuable when it talks of the past century and some of its ironies. My favourite: that a hundred years ago, religious Jews were overwhelmingly non- or anti-Zionist; its leaders were firmly secular. “By contrast, today, the religious community—except for the most extreme—is overwhelmingly Zionist, and it is secular Jews who are increasingly agnostic about Israel.” Touche.
There is certainly no question that many people of good will—even Jews—are shaken by the events of the past decade, certainly since Oslo: we more likely remember body parts flying and badly-reported news stories about the “massacre” in Jenin, rather than the grotesquely-generous land-and-peace offerings of Prime Minister Barak, and others, to the Palestinian Authority. And when the author reports that “parents at one day school in Brooklyn, New York, voted to send the school’s seniors to Disney World instead of Israel,” one wants to gag.
And even if you are not lucky enough (or wise enough) to get the regular emails of www.honestreporting.com, you will still not be surprised to read that recent polls have shown “nearly half of American Jews believed that ‘The Palestinians had their land taken away from them unfairly when Israel was created’ and more than a third—thirty-seven percent—believed that ‘Israel is overreacting by shooting live bullets at Palestinian demonstrators who are throwing stones.”
Whether you are sickened, or horrified, by the above, author Troy knows he has the answer: we must “teach our students about the multidimensional nature of the Jewish people’s relationship with the land of Israel, and the State of Israel. Israel should not be thought of simply as the central headache of the Jewish people, but as the historical, ideological, intellectural, and emotional epicenter of our people. We must teach ahavat yisrael (love of Israel), not simply the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Here here. And good luck.
Much of this book, sadly, is either preaching to the converted—I sense it would convert few to his love of Zionism, who don’t already have a deep understanding of the centrality of the land to our religion, our culture, our history, our people. Indeed, much of WHY I AM A ZIONIST reads like a simplified study guide for counselors at a Jewish camp. He describes the beauty and power of experiencing Shabbat at a summer camp; he tries to teach us “how to fall in love with Israel”; he notes that “living in Israel leads to a Jewish connection”; and he gives us an extremely superficial history of the Jews and their relationship with the Promised Land, going back to before 70 of the Common Era, right to modern times. (I do appreciate the often extremely witty chapter headings, such as the one about the “crisis of emancipation and the rise of Zionism,” entitled “MUGGED BY MODERNITY.” How true that is.
So, we get the Arab view of the establishment of Israel (the “naqba”—the catastrophe); the “six day miracle” of the ’67 war; what Oslo offered and what was rejected by the other side; “the blessings and the curse” of power (good point, that). But his easy mocking of “exile Jews” such as Spielberg and Woody Allen doesn’t strengthen my Zionistic feelings at all; who looks to Hollywood for leadership or understanding of our people and our land?
Is there much of worth in this very low-priced volume? Maybe to a not-very-well-read 12-16 year old Jewish kid who has never been to Israel, and might be considering the Birthright programme; after all, the price is right. But I’m being a bit unfair: the appendix called “ADVOCACY 101: How to Talk About Israel on Campus and Elsewhere Without Apologizing, Cringing, Crying or Yelling” is certainly worth the price of the book, alone.
WHY I AM A ZIONIST is not a bad book; I just wish it were better. If you really want to strengthen and deepen your knowledge and understanding of the history of Zionism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict today, I think you’d do better with another very low-cost paperback (this one also low-cost, since it was sponsored by the late, great Israel Asper of Winnipeg): It’s called MYTHS AND FACTS: A GUIDE TO THE ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT, by Mitchell G. Bard. Every decent Jewish book store carries it. Heavily footnoted, with over a hundred pages of maps and historic documents, it’s got some of the most powerful, often shocking, proofs of just how right (and occasionally righteous) the Jewish/Zionist side is. Does Israel make mistakes? Of course. Personally, I still refuse to forgive Sharon for the disastrous invasion of Lebanon. But when 19- and 20-year-old Israeli soldiers went door-to-door through Jenin, searching carefully for terrorists (yes, CNN, they are terrorists, not militants), losing over a dozen young lives as they did so, rather than simply blasting the buildings and probably killing hundreds of innocent Arab men, women and children—and most of the world believes to this day that there was a horrific, Jew-caused massacre there, then, boy, do we need facts, and lots of them.
You’ll get a broader selection of those facts, and a deeper understanding of the many myths and how they arose—more easily codified and explained, in Bard’s little paperback, than in Professor Troy’s.
