Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org)
“After thousands of years of being colonized or sent into [the] Diaspora or disempowered or persecuted or killed, Zionism allowed Jews self-determination in a land that had historically been theirs and to which they returned,” Sarna said." ...
"I was born in 1995, which means a lot of things. The Twin Towers toppled when I was only in kindergarten. I’m a digital native. In my lifetime, Israel has always existed. And most people have no idea what the word “Zionism” means.
"At lunch recently with a friend who is Jewish and deeply knowledgeable about politics, she illustrated just how serious the misunderstanding is. After two hours of talking about progressive activism, her eyes widened in horror when I noted that I am a Zionist.
“ 'Doesn’t that just mean you’re against Palestinian rights?” she asked.
“ 'Of course not,” I replied, and asked her if she knew what the term Zionist actually means.
"She didn’t.
"I explained to her that Zionists are simply people who believe in the right of Jewish people to have self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
"Rather than supporting a specific administration or everything Israel does, “Zionism is Jewish self-determination,” Sara Yael Hirschhorn, visiting assistant professor in Israel studies at Northwestern University’s Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies, told me recently. “It’s co-signing that Israel should exist, that Jews have a right to self-determination no more or no less than any other nationality, that Jews are not only a religion but they’re also a people and a nation, that they have the right to have control over their own affairs, that their existence is not only predicated on being a minority in some other country.” . . .
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