‘Once the students read the texts, they forgot all the things you hear about Israel — colonialism, racism, imperialism, apartheid,’ Wilf told NR.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and Israel launched its retaliatory military operation in Gaza, college campuses have been aflame with an anti-Zionism that, more often than not, veers into antisemitism.
One recent college graduate, alongside her former professor, has created a documentary series aimed at educating people past the flashy signs and catchy slogans one might see and hear at an anti-Israel rally, toward a full understanding of what Zionism and anti-Zionism really mean. That series, “Zionism and Anti-Zionism: The History of Two Opposing Ideas” by Zoé Tara Zeigherman, had its Washington, D.C., premiere Thursday night.
The series, a five-episode look at the varieties of both its titular subjects, covers Jewish history and the development of Zionism, the intra-Jewish debates that occurred before Israel’s founding in 1948, and various strains of anti-Zionism from post-1948 Arab opposition to Israel to Soviet propaganda.
Zeigherman, alongside her former Georgetown University professor (and former member of Israel’s Knesset) Einat Wilf, began formulating the idea for the series in 2022, well before anti-Zionism and antisemitism shot to the fore of public debate following the October 7 Hamas attack. Zeigherman thinks the problem was always there, but now that college campuses are under a microscope, the documentary series is even more relevant.
“I think that what a lot of Jews have experienced since October 7 is kind of waking up to this feeling that something is seriously wrong; seeing protests on October 8, they’ve been feeling that something is mobilizing against Jews, and they don’t really understand what’s happening.” Zeigherman told National Review. “I had that feeling in the Black Lives Matter protest era when antisemitism was erupting online and I couldn’t understand where it was coming from.”
“If it can just help one young Jew the way Einat’s course helped me, that’s enough,” she told NR. “But I would really like to see it be part of something bigger, where Jews aren’t afraid to be Jews anymore — where we stand taller and prouder and go on offense as opposed to constantly defending ourselves and apologizing.”
Zeigherman initially came up with the idea for the series during her time as a Beren Summer Fellow with the Tikvah Fund, a nonprofit organization that promotes Jewish leaders and ideas, in 2022. While a fellow, she worked with individuals both inside and outside the Tikvah Fund to determine how to bring her vision to life.
Alan Rubenstein, director of university programs at the Tikvah Fund, told NR that his organization will promote the series as part of its library of educational courses and will host it on its YouTube channel.
“As part of this,” Rubenstein said, “Tikvah is sponsoring the screening of the film on campuses all over the country this spring, and will also share it with camps, schools, and clubs that want to understand Israel’s story.”
He told NR that the Tikvah Fund is pleased with the final product, which addresses a problem he believes must be treated with urgency.
“We are proud of Zoé’s entrepreneurial and creative energy to answer a very pressing need for educational content that is both content-rich and engaging for an audience,” Rubenstein said. “From the set to the costumes to the animations to the narration, Zoé had a clear aesthetic vision and did a marvelous job reaching it.”
Wilf, for her part, told NR she has seen how education can disabuse college students of their prior misconceptions about Israel and, in turn, steer them away from the most vicious forms of anti-Zionism predicated on a veiled antisemitism.
“This is something people talk about but very few people actually know anything about, so the first step is to educate,” she said. “Once you engage with the material, once you really understand it, you understand [Zionism] emerged as a normal movement of liberation and self-determination.”
Through her class, Wilf said, she saw students come to that understanding and move away from a unique hatred of Israel and harassment of their Jewish classmates.
“Once the students read the texts, they forgot all the things you hear about Israel — colonialism, racism, imperialism, apartheid — all of that just melts away,” Wilf told NR, “because what you’re seeing are Jews struggling to figure out how to deal with the challenge of modernity, how to deal with the historical changes that are taking place, and that they’re really trying to figure something out.”
Wilf also pointed to a popular subject of anti-Zionist arguments, the Satmar Jews, a subset of Hasidism with theological arguments against a state of Israel. Satmars believe the establishment of the state was contrary to divine providence; that humans themselves could not “force the end” before the arrival of the Messiah. Because of their strident opposition to Israel’s existence, many pro-Palestinian activist groups use them in their messaging activities.
“When we got to Jewish theological anti-Zionism in the course, two Muslim students said, ‘we don’t get it. We were raised to look at these Jewish groups as being concerned with Palestinian rights, but we now see that it’s all theology — that they don’t want Zionism now, but they want Zionism later,” Wilf told NR. “There are a lot of moments when, as students begin to study, a lot of things like that become nonsensical.”
In addition to Wilf’s contention that education can help dispel anti-Zionist myths that breed antisemitism on campus, Zeigherman told NR that the video series provides Jewish students ammunition — grounded in historical fact — when faced with hatred of Israel and Jews in their day-to-day lives.
“One of the most important ways to be able to navigate these difficulties is to know who you are, and who your people are, so you can stay proud and confident,” she said. “It’s not about claiming the Jews or Israel are perfect; it’s about understanding our incredible history, how we have survived similar moments over and over again, and also understanding the genealogy behind the attacks we are facing.”