“Israelism” opens with a crowd of young, white Jews cheering as they wave Israeli flags. On a stage in front of them, images are projected: a tank, a helicopter, the silhouette of a soldier, gun in hand. Singers burst on stage, smiles wide, dressed in Israeli Defense Forces uniforms. This event, the Taglit-Birthright Israel Mega Event in Jerusalem, is a celebration for those in the audience, their love for the state of Israel palpable through the joy on their faces. When the speaker asks, “Is anyone here from the United States?” a whole section of the crowd stands, uproarious. But why are these Americans there in the first place, cheering for a military that is not even theirs?
“Israelism,” a documentary directed by Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, seeks to understand the unique relationship between the American Jewish population and the state of Israel. But more than that, they challenge it, giving voice to a rising number of American Jews who have questioned their pro-Israel upbringing due to its biased view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Axelman and Eilertsen’s film follows two young American Jews with distinct relationships to Israel: Simone, who went to Jewish day school and lived in Israel on an exchange program, and Eitan, who joined the IDF when he graduated high school. Both of them shared a similar upbringing, educated by institutions that conflated Judaism with the state of Israel.
“Israel was just treated like a core part of being a Jew,” Simone says. “You did prayers and you did Israel.”
The documentary succeeds in outlining the methods that Jewish institutions use to indoctrinate young Jews. By declaring that support for Israel is inextricable from Judaism, these institutions – such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Association of Reform Zionists of America – blind young Jews to the true conditions of Palestinians. When those conditions are forced into the light, they are shrugged off or framed as necessary in the long term. This theme is thoroughly examined, as Simone and Eitan explain that they knew little about the Palestinian cause before college or even what words such as “settlement” or “occupation” meant. Such blindness makes it all too easy for American Jews to ignore the basic humanity of the Palestinian people. “Israelism” counters this by exploring the lives of Palestinian activists living in the Occupied West Bank. But in pro-Israel spaces, such as a discussion group at the University of Connecticut’s Hillel shown in the film, the rights and dreams of the Palestinian people are never discussed. Thus, these Jews fight a “battle” on campuses and into their adult lives without any real idea of who they are fighting against, only that the public relations war needs to be won.
One might see this as an exclusively foreign issue, but Axelman and Eilertsen, in the most thought-provoking and challenging chapter of the film, show that American Jews’ support for Israel has dangerous domestic effects. Jewish institutions, such as the ADL, conflate valid criticism of Israel with antisemitism. So when politicians are tasked with confronting antisemitism, they can respond by touting support for Israel rather than denouncing the very real rise of antisemitism here in the United States. In declaring that the only way for Jews to be safe is for Israel to be safe, the safety of Jews everywhere else has effectively been compromised.
Despite this excellent framing, the film poses a few questions which are left unanswered.
“Does the average congregant understand that I’m teaching them to become Zionist? Probably not. But it is part of my madness, so to speak,” says Rabbi Bennett Miller, National Chair of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, at the start of the film. But “Israelism” does not unpack this dangerous confession or even explore what, precisely, Zionism is. This makes it more difficult for the film to answer one of its central questions: how do we define Judaism independently of the state of Israel and the institutions that uphold it?
“We don’t really know what Zionism means in the current sense,” director Erin Axelman told New Voices. “Historically, the different definitions of what Zionism was/what it could have been are so myriad, [so] we don’t actually think it’s necessarily the most helpful term to use.”
While it’s true that Zionism has been recontextualized by pro-Israel organizations in the last few decades, its implicit meaning is well-established. As “Zionism and Imperialism: The Historical Origins” explains, Zionism was created as a political, nationalist movement founded on the ideals of “superiority, exploitation, and domination.” Forged in the 1890s in conversation with other Western nationalist movements, Zionism is based on an “us vs. them” logic. It is not just a “yearning to return to Zion” or a dream of “self-determination” or “statehood for the Jewish people” as the ADL defines it; Zionism relies on the exclusion of other ethnicities or religious groups to maintain Jewish political and cultural supremacy.
So, while it’s true that even some pro-Palestinian activists identify as Zionists – muddling what it means to be one – the ideology itself is no less defined. “Israelism” may believe that Zionism is not a helpful term to use, but pro-Israeli organizations and rabbis clearly do, consolidating it with ancient Jewish values to excuse contemporary violence. The film missed an opportunity by not addressing this terminology, making it harder for young Jews to unlearn their blindly pro-Israel and explicitly Zionist education.
This unlearning is essential in creating the change “Israelism” advocates for, since the film argues that American Jews can play a big part in disrupting the status quo.
“If anybody has an influence on Israeli policy, and I say this with a big if, it is the American Jewish community,” says Sami Awad, a Palestinian activist and Executive Director of the Holy Land Trust.
But the film could have done more to prove that, such as focusing on how the American government directly funds the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Presenting this dynamic would demonstrate the power American Jews have in joining the fight against Israeli supremacy. Additionally, drawing attention to the ways in which Israel funds the education of American Jews – such as how 27% of Taglit-Birthright funding comes from the Israeli government – would have emphasized Israel’s need to maintain American Jewish support and the subsequent power American Jews have in rejecting it.
Furthermore, the film does not seek to paint a thorough picture of how exactly the conflict developed, only that what is going on today is wrong. For those that already agree with this framework, the film will surely strike a deep emotional chord–as it did in me. But I can imagine that for those still working through the hows and whys of the current crisis, a more in-depth examination of the history of the Israeli colonial project would have been illuminating.
Despite these shortcomings, “Israelism” functions as an effective conversation starter, drawing attention to the methodologies of pro-Israel indoctrination that we all must confront. Untangling the American Jewish population from the state of Israel continues to be a long and contentious process, one that leaves Jews who are critical of Israel feeling isolated. But this documentary demonstrates that those Jews are not alone. There is, in fact, a growing community of progressive Jews against Israel – one that holds the potential to enact great change.
“[Palestinians] are real human beings that just want to survive and live like all other people in this world,” says Sami Awad. “The moment [American Jews] see this and experience this for themselves… It shifts something in them. What they do with it, when they go back [home], it becomes their responsibility.”
“Israelism” certainly does not take this responsibility lightly. And quite frankly, neither should we.
