If I am not for Myself, Who am I For?

If I am not for Myself

It’s okay to be anti-Zionist and Jewish. But will it ever really catch on, asks Ben du Preez, FirstPost.co.uk

In a week in which the writer Mike Marqusee released his much anticipated memoir, If I am Not for Myself, in time for the 60th anniversary, a spate of media commentary has brought Jewish anti-Zionism out of the shadows and onto blogs, feature articles and the radio.

Marqusee's assertion that it is 'okay' to be Jewish and anti-Zionist in 2008 has been liberating: there have been calls for the formation of an officially recognised mouthpiece to represent this section of Anglo-Jewry, and fight the atrocities being carried out in Palestine in their name.

Sadly, history suggests that such an organisation is doomed to fail. On February 5, 2007, the IJV (Independent Jewish Voices), a group of 150 prominent British Jews, including the likes of Harold Pinter and Eric Hobsbawm, announced their arrival in Jewish discourse with a much-trumpeted media inauguration.

Keen to refute "the widespread misconception that British Jews speak with one voice", they sought to create a media impression of Jewish dissidence and Jewish liberal pluralism. As a political entity they folded soon after; their latest online newsletter is embarrassingly dated February 19, 2007.

It is easy to see why such a group failed. Journalist Seth Freedman has criticised the IJV's approach as "vague and indistinct" while in November 2007 one of its leading members, Rabbi David Goldberg, resigned from the group, citing its "lack of direction".

Adding to the problem is the fact that anti-Zionism - attacking a Jewish state whose crimes are committed in the name of the Jewish people - forces the Jewish anti-Zionist to ask, 'What is Judaism? What is Jewishness?' The answers are very different depending on whether people see themselves as cultural Jews, biological Jews, religious Jews or ethnical Jews. There is, and will be, no homogenous response.

Zionism in comparison has been gloriously consistent. Like a bullet from a gun, it has one straight and dynamic aim. It is just unfortunate that in the process it has hit quite a few others in the leg.