Yaakov Shapiro - Has Zionism Hijacked Judaism? (2017)

On February 7 2017, Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, noted expert on Zionist ideology and history, conducted a lecture at the International Law Institute in Washington D.C., for members of the International Council for Middle East Studies, a think tank dedicated to issues pertaining to the middle east (ICMES.NET), titled "Has Zionism Hijacked Judaism?". The audience included a broad array of academics, scholars, and experts in middle eastern history,political science, international law and other related fields. 

Key takeaways: The purpose of Zionism was to "normalize" the Jews against the effects of Judaism, essentially to change a nation of scholars and priests with religious aspirations, to a nation of warriors with nationalist aspirations. Judaism was the disease; Zionism was the cure. The Zionist character is the diametrical opposite of, and overcompensation for, the Jewish character. Jewish are neither nationality, nor a race, ethnicity, tribe, or blood family. Their only common characteristic is their religion. The Zionists however, falsely presented themselves - and still do - as the representatives of the Jewish people. Thus: Zionism was not the national liberation movement of the Jewish people but the national liberation movement of the Zionists; Israel is not the nation state of the Jewish people as it claims to be but rather the state of its own citizens. Zionist nationalism is unique in that it claims to represent and demands loyalty of people outside of its national borders and citizenship, by virtue of their being born Jewish. The intellectual origins of Zionism was mostly organic nationalism and Christian Restorationism. Different Zionists also adopted Russian workers' movements, and German Romanticism, and other philosophies popular at the time. A veneer of Judaism was assumed in order to attract Jews to the movement and to present themselves to the Christian restorations as representative of the Jewish people. Zionists elevated to holocaust to the defining moment of Jewish history, and even a defining characteristic of Jewish identity. This instills within receptive Jewish people a binary world view where the choices for the Jewish people are either a Jewish state or annihilation. The Zionists to this day are consumed with the desire to "never again" be like the traditional Torah Jew. This drives much of their seemingly incomprehensible behavior. The most efficient and effective way to negate Zionism is to deny and refute Israel's claim to represent world Jewry and to be the nation-state of the Jewish people. Israel is the nation-state of its citizens and represents them as any other country does. There is no organic connection between world Jewry and the state of Israel, Israel's connection to world Jewry is only a claim it makes. Once that claim is opposed, Zionism is defeated without a single casualty.

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