David Wolpe in Commentary:
The subtitle of Benjamin Moser’s Anti-Zionism is a Jewish History. I have enough respect for Jewish history to believe that an inaccurate, tendentious, and self-contradictory book should not bear that subtitle, but publishing has fallen on hard times, and perhaps Doubleday thought oxymorons sell. Moser intends to set up a counter-history to the prevailing narrative of Zionism in Jewish history. His approach here is less to engage with ideas than to focus on personalities. He traces anti-Zionist ideas through 12 portraits: of Rabbi Aaron Tamares, Edwin Montagu, Jacob Israel de Haan, Ahmad Sadiq Saad, Hyman Schachtel, Avi Shlaim, Hannah Arendt, Maxime Rodinson, Felicia Langer, Helena Salem, Ronnie Kasrils, and Nan Goldin.
Now, there is a counter-history to be explored, largely relating to the views of Zionism before the creation of the State of Israel. On what some would now call the “right” within Judaism, many figures opposed Zionism because they viewed it as an effort to “force the end”—that is, empowering human beings to do that which was properly left to the promise and ultimate fulfillment by God. (Some, primarily those in the Satmar sect of Hasidism, still hold this view.) Among Jews who lived more mainstream lives in the Diaspora, there was an anti-Zionism made up of equal parts incredulity and fear. Many thought Theodor Herzl’s vision of a sovereign state was nothing less than crazy, while others feared that they would be seen as disloyal to their own country if they were known to be Zionists. Given the precarious position of Jews in the nations of their sojourn throughout history, accommodating the government and public opinion was a pretty reasonable strategy.
More here.
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