Since Israel has begun relentless bombardment of Gaza, demolishing entire neighborhoods, deepening the misery of Palestinians who are struggling to find any safe area in the sealed-off Gaza Strip, you might have heard terms like “Zionism” a lot. So, what is the difference between a Jew and a Zionist? With such terms are often confused or misused, here is a guide to what each word means.
Zionism is derived from the word Zion, referring to the Biblical Land of Israel. In the late 19th century, Zionism emerged as a political movement to reestablish a Jewish state in Israel.
It had its first political expression in the 1896 pamphlet “The State of the Jews” by Austro-Hungarian journalist and writer Theodor Herzl. A year later, the first Zionist congress was held in Basel, Switzerland, where it was stated the aim of Zionism was to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine.
Jews had already begun moving there and establishing agricultural communities in the 19th century, their flow accelerated by the rise of pogroms and anti-Semitism.
After the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, when six million Jews were killed, Jewish people fled to Palestine in increasing numbers and the aspirations of Zionism became real with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Today, Zionism refers to support for the continued existence of Israel, in the face of regular calls for its destruction or dissolution.
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On the other hand, a Jew originally was an inhabitant of the ancient kingdom of Judah that existed in the Middle East, centred on Jerusalem, from around 940 to 586 BC.
The term Jew originates in the Biblical Hebrew word “yehudi”, which means “from the Kingdom of Judah”.
The word passed into Latin as “judaeus”; the “d” was dropped as it evolved into “giu” in Old French, later moving into early English in various forms from the year 1,000.
Its principle tenet is that there is only one God, who is the creator of the universe and with whom Jewish people have a special relationship.
Jews can be atheist, being Jewish by heritage but not believing in the God of the Bible.
Jewish law says the faith is transmitted through the mother, even if in the Bible people are identified by their paternal ascendants.
An anti-Zionist is someone who opposes the concept of the state of Israel as a Jewish state.
Some ultra-Orthodox Jews are also anti-Zionist, believing that only God can bring about Jewish sovereignty and refusing to recognise the authority of the man-made Israeli state.
Jews who advocate assimilation into the region can also be considered anti-Zionist.
