The devotees of the ‘new anti-Semitism’, the previous chapter argued, now stigmatise Jews who embrace attitudes that have been associated with Jewishness for centuries. But why do Jews not leave traditional mainstream understandings of Jewish identity behind?

The Israeli state and the architects of the ‘new anti-Semitism’ may well agree that the values and worldview of the ‘bad Jews’ are consistent with a long-standing way of being Jewish, which is not the only expression of Jewish identity but the one that dominated for centuries. But, they would add, this traditional way of being Jewish deserves to be left in the past. The ‘bad Jews’ have failed to realise that the world has changed, and they remain museum pieces and obstacles to the new ‘good Jews’ who have created a superior present and a more promising future. They would be bound to say this because it is a central principle underpinning political Zionism and its understanding of Jewish identity.

This belief is based on an interpretation of Jewish history that justifies the creation of a Jewish state but is also, interestingly, adopted by some of the state’s critics. According to this view, the Jews had a state 2 000 years ago but lost it in the year 70 CE. Thereafter, Jews were stateless and, therefore, powerless. Because they lacked a state, they had no control over their lives and no way to protect themselves from those who wished them harm. Their plight reached its peak in the mid-twentieth century when Jews could do nothing to stop the Nazis slaughtering six million of their number.

This view was summed up by David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of the Israeli state. In 1944, he told a gathering of youth groups in Haifa that Zionism and the state it was fighting for was a unique ‘revolution’. ‘All other revolts, both past and future, were uprisings against a system, against a political, economic, or social structure. Our revolution is directed not only against a system, but against destiny, against the unique destiny of a unique people.’ For Ben-Gurion and the Zionist movement, Jews were ‘a unique people’ because they had lacked a state for centuries.