The Deeply Jewish Roots of the so-called Self-Hating Jew

Abstract

This paper examines the Israeli narrative that anti- Zionism is antisemitism, where Jewish groups who oppose the Israeli state and its policies (both written and unwritten) concerning Palestinians are labeled as self-hating Jews. This narrative does not stand up to historical scrutiny. Judaism is far from the single unified tradition that the epithet "self-hating Jew" seems to imply. There are Jewish groups who oppose the Zionist endeavor based on their traditional theological interpretations of the Biblical and Rabbinic texts, such as the Tanakh, Talmud, and Mishnah. For example, the orthodox Jewish group, the Neturei Karta, claims that the exile and suffering of the Jewish people is part of God's plan that has not been finished yet nor truly realized in any Jewish state. Yet they remain faithful Jews with traditional and, indeed, possibly ancient roots.