Decolonisation of the Jewish mind
As Jews we must decolonise our own identity, reclaiming who we are at the deepest level.
The language of decolonisation has become central to contemporary debates about identity and power. In social activist and academic circles, it is invoked to dismantle colonial narratives and restore indigenous voices. Yet it is often applied through a binary lens of oppressor versus oppressed which is a problematic framework when applied to the Jewish people. The Jewish return to our ancestral homeland is frequently mischaracterised as colonial, rather than recognised as the restoration of a people to their historic home.
To address this distortion, as Jews we must decolonise our own identity, reclaiming who we are at the deepest level. For centuries, Diaspora Jews have been described through compound or national identifiers: Australian Jews, Polish Jews, Moroccan Jews, American Jews. These descriptors tell the story of migration, but they also reinforce the idea that Jewish identity is disconnected from Israel.
Our truest identity is not Polish, Russian or Moroccan. It is Israelite. We are the descendants of those who spoke Hebrew in Judea, built the Temple in Jerusalem, and carried the covenant across millennia of exile. Every dispersion since has been displacement, often caused by external forces or colonial conquest.
While the term “Israelite” captures our historical and ancestral roots, the modern term “Israeli” is commonly understood as a citizen of the modern State of Israel. We propose that Diaspora Jews can also adopt it culturally in order to assert continuity with our ancestors, even if we do not hold citizenship. This distinction allows for a dual recognition: Indigenous Israeli as heritage, Israeli citizen as a legal status.
To understand how this term resonates, we conducted a survey among members of the Jewish community selected to reflect a range of ages and backgrounds. When asked whether they would feel comfortable identifying as “Israeli” regardless of where they or their families have lived, responses were almost evenly divided:
• 34 per cent of respondents said they would embrace “Israeli” as their core identity
• 23 per cent said they would embrace it alongside their existing diasporic identity (Australian, Polish, Moroccan, Russian, etc)
• 39 per cent rejected the label, identifying as Jewish but not Israeli
• 4 per cent were unsure and wanted to explore the idea further
In other words, whilst 57 per cent of respondents accepted “Israeli” in some form, a substantial bloc resisted it, preferring a Jewish identity disconnected from the term. This division highlights a deeper challenge for Diaspora Jews of how to situate Israel within our sense of self and Jewish peoplehood.
The revival and expansion of Hebrew in its modern form serves as a successful example of how generations of Jews can reconnect with their ancestral roots. For centuries, Hebrew existed only in liturgy and sacred texts, until deliberate revival transformed it into a language for everyday use connecting old and new. In a similar way, Jews in the Diaspora can reclaim “Israeli” as a cultural and historical identity linking Jews today to the same ancestral continuity.
Of course, the complication remains that “Israeli” already has a precise meaning, yet, cultural identification does not require citizenship. Even without living in Israel, a Diaspora Jew can acknowledge Israel as the origin and anchor of Jewish continuity. Moreover, the addition of “Israeli” as a cultural identifier is not meant to diminish or oversimplify the term Jewish. Jewish identity itself encompasses multiple dimensions including a people, a nation, an ethnoreligious group with shared ancestry and culture, as well as a faith with distinct religious practices.
This brings us to the term “Zionism”, long relied on as shorthand for support of the Jewish State of Israel. Today, however, it has become increasingly problematic, provoking misunderstanding, vilification, harassment, and in some cases even physical attacks as anti-Israel sentiment intensifies. The term frames support for Israel primarily as an ideology rather than a recognition of the Jewish people’s historical and ancestral connection to their homeland, leaving Diaspora Jews exposed to social, political and personal risk.
Taken together, the terms – Jewish, Israeli, Zionist – highlight the tensions within our identity: one is often understood as faith alone, another citizenship, and the third ideology. The question then becomes: what language can unify us, connect us to our ancestral roots, whilst also expressing our modern continuation?
The answer lies in how we perceive ourselves. Our movement of self-determination is too often misread through a colonial lens, rather than recognised as an expression of indigenous continuity. Indigeneity and identity are not only matters of law or history but are also matters of self-perception and language.
Language provides the corrective. Saying “I am Israeli” reclaims continuity and recentres the Jewish story in the place where it began. Jews may never agree on religious practice or political affiliation, and that diversity is healthy. But on questions of identity and history, we must undertake the mental and cultural work to decolonise our own minds. Speaking of ourselves not primarily in hyphenated terms like Polish-Jewish or Australian-Jewish, and not only as Zionists, but as Israelis, we rebut colonial narratives and celebrate the enduring truth of our ancestral continuity.
Hava Mendelle is co-founder of Minority Impact: a minority and refugee led organisation working together to strengthen tolerance and prevent racial, cultural and faith-based harm.
Simonne Whine is founder of J-United: a Jewish grassroots activism network, and contributor to Ruptured: Jewish women reflect on life post October 7 in Australia.