r/JewsOfConscience • u/Jche98 Jewish Anti-Zionist • 3d ago

Discussion - Flaired Users Only What book to give a Zionist?

My cousin is a Zionist. He made Aliyah and has served in the IDF in Gaza and Lebanon. He was in the brigade that responded to Oct 7 and lost one of his best friends to a Hamas bullet that day. I've spoken with him and he's open to learning more. I'm looking for a book to give him which is a very GENTLE introduction to an alternative viewpoint from Zionism, something that won't scare him. Can anyone recommend something.

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u/malachamavet Excessively Communist Jew 3d ago

On a serious note, if you can find a way to watch דה-האן: קול מחוץ לזמן it's supposed to be very good (just came out earlier this year) and talks about a really fascinating guy who was assassinated by Zionists despite being Jewish because he was for coexistence instead of Zionism.

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u/richards1052 Jewish Anti-Zionist 1d ago

DeHaan. Is an amazing historical figure. He was a gay secular radical Jew who became Orthodox and made aliya. Eventually became the spokesperson for the rabbi who led the Mizrahi Orthodox anti Zionist movement. Today they would be considered Harefi anti Zionist.

He negotiated without the British and. Drew the ire of the Avodah (statist) faction. Yitzhak Ben Zvi ordered him murdered. Ben Tzvi eventually became Israeli president.

The murder cemented the supremacy of the secular Zionist movement in.Yishuv politics https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2020/05/13/jacob-dehaan-zionism-murder-and-martyrdom/

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u/malachamavet Excessively Communist Jew 1d ago

Exactly. When I visited Amsterdam I swung by to see Jacob Israel de Haanstraat as a micro pilgrimage for my conscience.

I think it would be the earliest example of the Jordan royal family working against the Palestinians to ingratiate themselves to the West (As de Haan was trying to get Jordan to annex and confederate with Palestine to stop the Zionists).