“In December 2023, I found myself in the basement of a Yale dorm, watching a new documentary about young American Jews. Israelism follows Simone Zimmerman and a young man identified only as “Eitan” as they narrate their journey from being passionate advocates for Israel and, in Eitan’s case, an IDF soldier, to outspoken critics of the country. The film had already won awards at the Arizona, Brooklyn, and San Francisco film festivals and was just starting to make its way to college campuses.

I had been invited to discuss the film at Yale Hillel after it had been screened elsewhere, since the organization had decided not to allow it to be shown in its building. It was a little more than two months after October 7, and tensions were high on campus. Most students were reading for finals, but the event was still packed. After the movie, dozens of the attendees walked over to Hillel and stayed to talk long after the pizza had gone cold.

According to Israelism, the American Jewish community is committed to lying about the political plight and suffering of the Palestinians because if they told the truth, young Jews would reject Israel (and perhaps even their Judaism) in even larger numbers than they already do. The title reflects the film’s thesis, that American Jewish education has replaced Judaism with support for Israel as an intentionally dishonest anchor for Jewish identity. The film tells the story of Simone and Eitan (and, as the filmmakers have made clear, themselves) by deploying a rhetoric now widely embraced by the Jewish anti-Zionist left: “Even though Israel was a central part of everything we did in school . . . it was presented to us that Israel was an empty wasteland when the Jews arrived,” Eitan says. Later Simone says of her college self, “I’ve been through all the trainings, all the programs, and I don’t know what the occupation is, what the settlements are.” Set aside the implausibility of such statements by highly educated millennials and note the passive voice: young activists were the victims of an establishment conspiracy from which they have now awoken.”

Read the full article on Jewish Review of Books here.