Twenty-five years ago, I was a happily tenured professor teaching American history at McGill University in Montreal. But my people were suffering. We were approaching Israel’s Independence Day 2001, after eight months of Palestinian suicide bombings and terrorist murders, which somehow made Israelis and Jews less popular than they had been – sound familiar?
Stunned by our topsy-turvy world, watching professors treat the “Z-word” as a curse, disappointed that Jews were either overly apologetic or embarrassingly apathetic, my Queens-boy contrary instincts kicked in. I published an 800-word essay in the Montreal Gazette on Israel’s Independence Day that changed my life, explaining “Why I am a Zionist.”
Admittedly, I was fuming. I felt betrayed by those Jews who were too distracted to care, and by Jews assuming that if Israel had been attacked so brutally, it must have behaved abominably to deserve it. I felt betrayed by fellow academics, who could make any issue complicated, yet mindlessly echoed the most simplistic Palestinian slogans regarding the complex Arab-Israeli conflict – about Zionism being racism, and Israel being an apartheid state – the trendy libels then.
I felt betrayed by Canadians, who so worshiped the UN that they couldn’t acknowledge that it violated its founding values in leading the charge against the Jewish state. And I felt betrayed by Americans, who were so busy anticipating Monica and Chandler’s wedding on Friends that they ignored all this injustice.
Nevertheless, I was tired of Jews being so defensive. I never wanted to be an anti-antisemite or an anti-anti-Zionist. Learning from my black, gay, and feminist friends, I wanted to take back the night, reclaiming the word “Zionism,” even if it didn’t poll well.
So I didn’t waste my 800 words bemoaning Jew-hatred, or demonization, or delegitimization. Nor did I attack Palestinians; I saw how pathetic it is when they build their national identity by trying to knock us down rather than building themselves up.
Suddenly, I remembered a 1928 text from the French writer Edmond Fleg collected in Arthur Hertzberg’s classic Zionist anthology The Zionist Idea. Fleg wrote 12 statements celebrating his Jewishness, using the phrase “I am a Jew” as a refrain: “I am a Jew because in every age, when the cry of despair is heard, the Jew hopes. I am a Jew because the message of Israel is the most ancient and the most modern,” etc., etc.
On a certain level, I regret being right
I wrote: “I am a Zionist because I am a Jew – and without recognizing Judaism’s national component, I cannot explain its unique character… I am a Zionist because I share the past, present, and future of my people, the Jewish people. Our nerve endings are uniquely intertwined… I am a Zionist because I know my history…”
My introduction said: “No nationalism is pure, no movement is perfect, no state ideal. But today, Zionism remains legitimate, inspiring, and relevant to most Jews and me. Zionism offers an identity anchor in a world of dizzying choices – and a roadmap toward national renewal and personal meaning.”
Then, perhaps the essay’s most important line: “A century ago, Zionism revived pride in the label ‘Jew’; today, Jews must revive pride in the label ‘Zionist.’”
I KNEW I would be attacked – and I was. No longer hiding behind my clean name, “Gil Troy,” I was targeted as a racist, imperialist, Zionist, Jew. Quoting President Franklin Roosevelt, I said, “Judge me by the enemies I have made.”
What I didn’t expect was the many people throughout the Jewish world thanking me, grateful that, finally, someone was celebrating Israel, Zionism, the Jewish people – without being defensive. I expanded my essay to become Why I am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity, and the Challenges of Today. Although I had no network and had barely written anything about Jewish topics, the book sold over 30,000 copies.
Since then, I keep singing this old-new song of Zion, loud and proud. In 2021, the creative geniuses at OpenDorMedia turned the essay into a video, available here: opendormedia.org/newsroom/why-i-am-a-zionist-revisited-and-brought-to-life-for-israel-independence-day.
Along the way, my family and I moved to Jerusalem. I was given the honor of this weekly Jerusalem Post column. I was asked to update the Hertzberg anthology, publishing it in 2018 as The Zionist Ideas, among other books.
Meanwhile, antisemitism and anti-Zionism went mainstream. The academic world that I once revered started imposing thought control rather than cultivating critical thinking.
We Jews have endured much since 2001. But having seen us emerge from the paralyzing fear and despair of the 2000-2004 terrorism epidemic, having witnessed Israel and the Jewish world mobilize after October 7, I remain optimistic. My faith in Israel, Zionism, Judaism, and the Jewish people keeps growing. We remain on the right side of history.
Moreover, having watched so many academics spread heinous, idiotic, anti-Zionist, antisemitic, anti-American lies, aided by legions of spineless, swivel-headed, professorial cowards – it’s the Silence of the Tenured Lambs! – I feel lucky I saw it then.
On a certain level, I regret being right. I miss the academic world I was lucky to encounter at Harvard and McGill universities, back when most professors preferred dynamic, catalytic inquiry to dreary, heavy-handed indoctrination.
Still, by launching my mission to spread a positive, inspiring, mind-sharpening, soul-expanding, spine-strengthening “Identity Zionism,” I made new friends, learned from extraordinary colleagues, and bonded with thousands of students, Jews and non-Jews, in Israel and worldwide.
These young adults, the best of the next generation, resist today’s politically correct, suffocatingly orthodox, cancel culture. Instead, they’re embracing Zionism, engaging with Judaism, celebrating Israel – and, ultimately, helping to save liberalism, democracy, and the West.
The writer is an American presidential historian and Zionist activist born in Queens, living in Jerusalem. Last year, he published To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to October 7th and Its Aftermath.
His latest e-book, The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-hatred, was published recently; it can be downloaded from the Jewish People Policy Institute’s website.
