Upside of Jewish prof’s Zionism slam

American Jewish historian Hasia Diner is facing widespread criticism over her public renunciation of Israel and Zionism. 

I say: Thanks, Hasia, for your honesty.

Diner is the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg professor of American Jewish history at New York University and director of NYU’s Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History. In an Aug. 1 op-ed in Haaretz, she described how she was raised in the Labor Zionist youth movement Habonim, but by 2010 no longer considered herself a Zionist. She wrote that she now “abhors” visiting Israel, “will not buy” Israeli-made products, and feels “a sense of repulsion” when entering a synagogue that publicly affirms its support of Israel. Zionism itself is a “naive delusion,” she asserted.

If Diner acts on her principles, the consequences will not be insignificant. For example, she will no longer be able to accept speaking engagements at the vast majority of synagogues in the United States, since these are vocally pro-Israel.

Ironically, among the synagogues she would not visit is Chicago’s North Suburban Synagogue Beth El (its mission statement declares: “We are committed to supporting Israel”), where there is a children’s school named after the same Paul S. and Sylva Steinberg who underwrite Diner’s own position at NYU.

I do not know exactly how the Steinbergs feel about Israel, although their decision to sponsor a school that is part of a pro-Israel synagogue may provide some indication. But there’s no doubt how the sponsors of Diner’s Goldstein-Goren Center feel about Israel: the Cukier, Goldstein-Goren Foundation was established by three European Jews whose lives were saved by the very same Zionism that Hasia Diner abhors, and who made their fortune — the fortune that supports that center at NYU — in the State of Israel that Prof. Diner now boycotts.