Progressive movement to hold antizionism symposiums

A series of symposiums recasting contemporary antisemitism as a phenomenon that increasingly hides inside political language will open in Melbourne next month, before travelling on to Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide.

Titled Examining Antizionism: Expert Discourse Unmasking New Antisemitism, the series is organised by the Australian Reform Zionist Association (ARZA), with support from Keren Kayemet LeYisrael, the Jewish National Fund, and ARZENU, the political voice of Reform, Progressive and Liberal religious Zionists within the World Zionist Organisation.

Melbourne opens proceedings on Wednesday, August 12, at 6.30pm, bringing together linguist Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann, human rights lawyer Melinda Jones and historian Dr Ran Porat.

Sydney follows on Monday, August 17, where Zuckermann will be joined by Joshua Dabelstein, Executive Director at the Movement Against Antizionism Australia. ARZA president Ayal Marek will moderate both.

Marek argues the scrutiny is overdue. “The antisemitism of today often does not announce itself as hatred of Jews,” he said. “It arrives dressed as antizionism, a political stance that claims moral legitimacy while often reproducing the oldest tropes in new clothing.” He pointed to a difficult two years, citing synagogue arsons, a foiled mass-casualty plot, campus encampments where Jewish students reported being singled out for their perceived support of Israel’s existence, and the Bondi Beach Chanukah attack.

Zuckermann developed the series with Marek as a way of equipping Jews to answer such arguments with both scholarship and practical tips.

He offers a model of three overlapping rings of the extreme right, the extreme left and extreme Islamism.

The right and Islamism, he says, share a hatred of gay men and lesbians. The left and Islamism share a hatred of the West.

The right and left share a hatred of the establishment. Where all three overlap sits hatred of Jews. He is emphatic that he is not describing left-wingers, right-wingers or Muslims in general, and says he wants people from all three to attend.

In the United States, Reform’s relationship with Israel has grown visibly strained. Its institutions remain officially Zionist, yet a widening generational rift has opened, with more than a thousand movement members once warning of a “grave risk of genocide” in Gaza, and seminaries trying to ensure a commitment to Zionism from future rabbis.

Australia’s Progressive movement, by contrast, is presenting a more united front, with ARZA placing the fight against antizionism at the centre of its agenda.

Zuckermann stresses the events are open to all, Jews and non-Jews alike, and by no means only those from the Progressive movement.

Melbourne event bookings: tinyurl.com/mpark4yr

Melbourne event bookings: https://events.humanitix.com/arza-syd