Teaching Zionism: Revelations from a Skeptical Classroom

In the fall of 2021, Einat Wilf introduced early Zionist thought to a group of students at Georgetown University. The goal was to explore the arguments for and against a Jewish state by studying writers from the past century across identities, such as Jewish, Christian, Arab, and Soviet. The results were surprising: Students found that these old texts resonated powerfully in their own lives—especially the critique of Jewish life in exile, the nature of opposition to Zionism, and the hope fo...