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Zionism is the Jewish people’s movement for self-determination in their ancestral homeland. A new video, “Zionism. Imagine Hating a Word People Can’t Even Define” confronts critics who reject the term without understanding what it means.
Eitan Chitayat, founder of the I’m That Jew movement, and Dr. Einat Wilf, a former Knesset member and a senior fellow at the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities, released the five-minute video in July.
Watch the video HERE:
The video opens with a declaration. “For most people, home is where they were born. For Jews, it’s where our story began. The Land of Israel.”
It traces that connection through millennia of history, prayer, and exile. The narration states, “Jerusalem was our capital. Twice.” Even while scattered across the world, the Jewish people maintained a continuous presence in the Land of Israel. Those living in exile prayed toward Jerusalem, broke glasses at weddings to mourn its destruction, and repeated “Next year in Jerusalem” for more than 2,000 years.
The video also highlights the Hebrew word Am, meaning “people,” to describe an identity that predates modern categories of nation, ethnicity, culture, and religion.
It credits Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl with recognizing that Jews would always be “the other,” no matter how successful they became or how fully they assimilated. Herzl flipped the question. Rather than keep asking for permission to belong, he called on Jews to return home, reminding them that they were one people with a shared past, a common future, and an ancestral home to which they had always longed to return.
The narration rejects attempts to brand Zionism as colonialism, racism, or apartheid, pointing to Jewish ancestral roots in the Land of Israel, the Jewish people’s diverse racial backgrounds, and the equal rights held by roughly two million Arab citizens of Israel.
The video also recalls that Jewish leaders accepted the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan, while Arab leaders rejected the proposal and chose war.
The video then asks, “So why is the existence of the only Jewish state still up for debate?” It answers that, for too many, “Jews can exist, sure, just not as equals. And certainly with no power.”
Despite living across the world, Jews were “never truly safe. Never fully free. Never fully home.” The video then addresses those who ask, “But why here? Why Israel?” Its answer is simple.
“For Am Israel, everywhere else is exile. Only one place has ever been home. And only one place ever will be.”
