The Resha’im, the Assault on Zionism, and the Dangerous Fantasy of Jewish Powerlessness
Michel Benchimol
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There is something astonishing, almost incomprehensible, about the spectacle unfolding before us.
After centuries of exile, expulsions, pogroms, persecution, and the systematic murder of six million Jews, the Jewish people finally recovered their national sovereignty.
They built a state, created institutions, established an army, revived an ancient language, and developed the capacity to defend themselves.
And now, from the comfort of Western universities, publishing houses, political organizations, and television studios, prominent Jewish intellectuals are among those questioning whether that sovereignty should continue.
They call it moral courage.
I call it a position that demands an extraordinarily convincing explanation.
Because it is one thing to condemn the decisions of an Israeli government. It is quite another to argue that the Jewish people should surrender the national institutions that generations struggled to establish.
Criticize Netanyahu. Condemn settlements. Demand accountability for military conduct. Defend Palestinian (If there is such a thing as Palestinians) rights. But do not pretend that abolishing Jewish national sovereignty is simply another ordinary policy disagreement.
It is a proposal with potentially irreversible consequences for millions of people.
And those proposing it have an obligation to explain precisely what would follow.
THE RESHA’IM: THOSE WHO REJECTED LIBERATION
There is a disturbing passage in Jewish rabbinic tradition that deserves renewed attention.
We celebrate Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. We remember the plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the extraordinary journey toward freedom.
But according to the tradition reflected in Rashi’s commentary on Exodus 13:18, not every Israelite wanted to leave.
One interpretation holds that only one-fifth departed. The others died during the plague of darkness.
These unwilling Israelites are described in the rabbinic tradition as Resha’im—the wicked ones.
This is a midrashic account, not a verified historical statistic, and the Torah itself does not identify a named surviving group of Israelites who remained in Egypt.
But the moral image is unforgettable.
Here were people whose ancestors had suffered under Pharaoh, yet who could not imagine abandoning Egypt.
They preferred the familiar world to the uncertain future.
They were prepared to remain dependent rather than undertake the risks of liberation.
They had grown so accustomed to Egypt that they could no longer recognize the value of leaving it.
The comparison with modern Jewish anti-Zionism is not literal. Opposing Zionism does not make someone a biblical Rasha, nor does it establish hatred of one’s Jewish identity.
But the analogy exposes a question that contemporary intellectuals cannot escape.
After centuries in which Jewish security depended upon the tolerance of others, why should Jews regard the recovery of national sovereignty as a historical embarrassment?
Why should Jewish independence be considered uniquely illegitimate?
And why should those who propose replacing Israel’s national framework expect applause before they have demonstrated that their alternative would be safer?
THE INTELLECTUALS WHO MUST ANSWER
Benjamin Moser, Peter Beinart, Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé, and Norman Finkelstein have challenged different aspects of Zionism, Israel’s history, and Israeli policy.
Their positions are not identical, and some support political arrangements that would preserve Israel’s existence.
But their arguments deserve relentless examination.
Benjamin Moser: If Zionism was fundamentally illegitimate from its inception, explain the legitimate alternatives available to persecuted European Jews, Holocaust survivors, and Jews fleeing upheaval in Arab countries. Explain why their desire for national self-determination should be judged differently from that of other peoples.
Peter Beinart: If a shared democratic state is the answer, provide the constitutional arrangements, security institutions, and enforceable guarantees that would protect Jews and Palestinians. Do not ask millions of people to stake their future on the hope that historical hostility will dissolve after a constitutional transformation.
Naomi Klein: If Zionism is a false idol, explain why Jewish national independence must be discarded rather than held to the same moral and legal standards as every other national project. Religious imagery may electrify an audience. It does not resolve a territorial conflict.
Judith Butler: Equality is a principle. Security is an obligation. A philosophical vision of coexistence must confront the practical requirements of preventing violence, protecting minorities, and preserving collective rights.
Norman Finkelstein: Apply the same merciless standards of evidence to your own interpretations that you demand from your opponents. Jewish persecution, Jewish displacement, and Jewish national aspirations cannot be treated as incidental details in the history of Israel.
Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé: Historical revisionism is not inherently historical truth. Every interpretation must survive examination of the complete evidence, including the experiences of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East.
Avi Lewis: Criticize Israeli government policy as fiercely as you wish. But be exceptionally careful when suggesting that Jews collectively bear moral responsibility for a foreign government’s conduct. Jewish ancestry does not create collective political guilt.
Bernie Sanders: You support Israel’s right to exist while condemning its government’s conduct. Then explain the security arrangements and diplomatic strategy that would protect Israeli civilians while preventing further devastation in Gaza. Denunciation is not a substitute for a workable policy.
These questions are not demands for silence.
They are demands for accountability.
The prestige of an academic title does not make an argument correct. A Jewish surname does not make an argument morally authoritative. And applause from a sympathetic audience does not make a political proposal workable.
HEREM: WHEN JEWISH DISSENT BECOMES A DANGER TO THE COMMUNITY
Jewish history contains a powerful and controversial concept: Herem, the traditional practice of communal excommunication. It was among the most severe sanctions available to Jewish religious authorities, reserved in certain communities for conduct considered a grave violation of religious or communal obligations.
The question today is not whether Jews should be punished for disagreeing with Israel. They should not. The question is whether Jewish institutions have become dangerously reluctant to confront public rhetoric that can be weaponized against the very communities they exist to protect.
Consider what happens when a prominent Jewish intellectual declares Zionism inherently evil, describes Jewish institutions as complicit in atrocities, or suggests that the Jewish state has no legitimate future.
Those statements do not remain confined to academic conferences or intellectual debates. They circulate through social media, political demonstrations, university campuses, and extremist propaganda. They can be stripped of context, exaggerated, and presented as proof that hostility toward Israel—or even toward Jews themselves—has received a Jewish seal of approval.
“Even Jews admit it,” becomes the convenient refrain.
That is the danger.
An antisemite does not become less antisemitic because he quotes a Jew. A conspiracy theory does not become true because a Jewish academic repeats a similar accusation. And hostility toward Jewish students, synagogues, or communal institutions does not become legitimate because its perpetrators invoke the words of a Jewish critic of Israel.
We must distinguish between what a public figure actually says and how others misuse those words. Jewish critics are not automatically responsible for every hateful act committed by someone who quotes them. But public influence carries responsibility, particularly when accusations are sweeping, inflammatory, or directed at Jewish institutions rather than specific government policies.
When legitimate criticism is transformed into collective condemnation, ordinary Jews may pay the price. Jewish students can face exclusion. Synagogues may require additional security. Community organizations may become targets of intimidation. The political argument ceases to concern only the actions of a foreign government and begins to affect Jews who had no role in making those decisions.
The Jewish community should not have to accept the targeting of its institutions as the inevitable price of someone else’s political rhetoric.
This is where the historical concept of Herem becomes relevant—not as an automatic punishment for anti-Zionism, but as a reminder that Jewish communities have always wrestled with the boundaries of collective responsibility.
There must be a difference between disagreement and incitement, between criticism and collective blame, between demanding justice and providing excuses for violence.
Jewish organizations have every right to refuse institutional endorsement to speakers who promote antisemitic conspiracy theories, justify attacks on civilians, or encourage discrimination against Jews. They have every right to expose misleading historical claims and challenge the use of Jewish identity as a substitute for evidence.
But they must also avoid a dangerous error of their own: declaring someone a threat merely because an extremist has misused that person’s words. The evidence must concern the individual’s actual statements, actions, and foreseeable consequences.
The lesson of Herem is therefore not that Jewish identity should be revoked from political dissenters. No organization has the authority to erase someone’s Jewish ancestry or identity.
The lesson is that communal institutions need the courage to establish and defend principled boundaries.
Freedom of expression gives people the right to speak. It does not give them the right to lie, deliberately distort historical facts, spread false accusations, or present misinformation as truth. Nor does it entitle their arguments to immunity from criticism or oblige Jewish institutions to endorse them. Freedom of expression is not freedom from accountability.
When rhetoric contributes to collective blame or excuses intimidation, Jewish leaders should say so publicly, unequivocally, and without fear of controversy.
They should demand accountability.
They should defend those being threatened.
They should expose those who turn political criticism into hatred of Jews.
And they should make one principle unmistakably clear:
No political argument, no academic reputation, and no appeal to Jewish identity can justify placing innocent Jewish communities in danger.
Jewish history has taught us the consequences of remaining silent in the face of hatred. It should also teach us the importance of distinguishing genuine dissent from rhetoric that legitimizes discrimination or violence.
The Jewish community does not need to excommunicate every dissenter.
It needs to stop treating every statement made in the name of Jewish conscience as though it were beyond moral and historical scrutiny.
THE FINAL VERDICT: WE ARE NOT GOING BACK TO EGYPT
The Israelites who longed for Egypt offer a lesson that has survived thousands of years. Freedom is difficult. It requires responsibility, exposes people to danger, and demands judgment, sacrifice, and sometimes painful compromise.
But difficulty does not make dependence preferable. For centuries, Jews experienced what it meant to live without national power.
They learned how quickly tolerance could turn into persecution, how citizenship and assimilation could fail to guarantee their safety, and how devastating the consequences could be when governments that promised protection abandoned them.
The establishment of Israel in 1948 did not eliminate those dangers, nor did it give Israel permission to disregard the rights of Palestinians. But it fundamentally changed the Jewish people’s ability to determine their own future.
Those who now advocate dismantling Jewish national sovereignty must offer something more convincing than outrage, accusations, and ideological declarations.
They must present a credible political alternative, explain how Jewish rights would be protected, confront the full historical record, and recognize that millions of people whose lives would be affected have every right to demand convincing answers.
The failures of an Israeli government do not erase Jewish history, and the legitimacy of Jewish national self-determination cannot be decided by the applause of an academic audience. The Resha’im of rabbinic tradition remain a powerful warning, not a label to attach indiscriminately to political opponents, but a reminder of what happens when people lose sight of the value of their own freedom.
Moses did not lead the Israelites out of Egypt because the wilderness promised comfort or security. He led them toward freedom because dependence was not their destiny. That distinction remains as important today as it was in the ancient story.
Israel must be held accountable for its actions, and every government that abuses its power must be challenged. But reforming a nation is not the same as abolishing its national existence.
The Jewish people have every right to defend their future, to remember why sovereignty mattered, and to demand that anyone proposing its disappearance explain precisely what would replace it and who would guarantee their security.
We are not going back to Egypt. Not because freedom is perfect, but because history has taught us the terrible price of living without it.
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