Replacement theology, the idea that a religion has replaced another and thereby made it redundant, is most commonly associated with Christianity’s relationship to Judaism. Yet replacement theology operates as a deep structure, a common organizing principle between every cultural group or state that has sought to either destroy or subjugate Judaism or Jewish sovereignty. Domination and erasure or subjugation rather than mutual learning and respect is the structure.
Those witnessing the current swell of antizionism, that is the opposition to Jewish sovereignty, have pointed out the genealogies and structures of this ideology. Current antizionist tropes as Izabella Tabarovsky among others have shown are straight out of the Soviet antizionist playbook: Zionism as imperialism and racism. In many cases the same Soviet (or Soviet-aligned) antizionists spreading these libels are still around today, Angela Davis being a key figure in this regard. As an ideology contemporary left antizionism is a pathic projection onto the Jewish state of all of the ideas and behaviors this group considers evil. That is to say a projection which cannot be explained by a correspondence to Israeli behavior. As scholars of antisemitism like Lars Fischer have pointed out, the reason why projection theory makes more sense than correspondence theory to explain antisemitism, is that even if you can find one or even many bad Jews, or in the case of Israel, bad Israelis or Israeli policies, one still has to explain why the antisemite would arrive at such a negative generalization from some examples (the correspondence between antisemitism and Jewish behavior) and further why they would not change their mind when presented with counter-examples. Much of current progressive antizionism in the West, like antisemitism, is thus a projection onto the Jewish state of what contemporary progressives consider criminal, namely colonialism, white-supremacy, etc. a projection very close to that of the Soviets’s projection onto the Jewish state.
There are, however, other historical genealogies to antizionism that have been more or less explored. Current Islamist antizionism, a vibrant movement, considers Israel to be an illegitimate, heretical state on Muslim land that must be liberated. Israel, the “Zionist entity” in the teachings of Iranian and Muslim Brotherhood antizionists is a center of evil that must be eradicated. Many scholars and commentators have discussed this movement. Fewer have discussed Nazi antizionism, though it too has received attention. The Nazis opposed the creation of the state of Israel which they believed Jews were creating as a center of Jewish imperialism and world domination. Lars Fischer has argued that Nazi anti-imperialist antizionism influenced post-war Soviet antizionist discourses. Other scholars like Matthias Kuentzel and Jeffrey Herff have pointed out the influence of Nazi antisemitism on both Islamism and secular Arab nationalism, two movements that projected all possible evils onto the Jewish state. Christian antizionism on the other hand has received less attention. Scott Shay has for example pointed out that none of the right-wing Christian states (Spain, Portugal, Greece, among others) of the post-WWII period voted for the creation of the state of Israel in 1947. Christian antizionism was long-lasting. Indeed despite Vatican II, which went a long way to undoing antisemitic projections onto the Jews as Christ-killers, and ending the Church’s official doctrine of replacement theology, the Vatican did not recognize the state of Israel until 1993. The Greek Orthodox Church’s position cannot be qualified as full recognition.
Even less discussed today is Enlightenment/liberal antizionism, yet it is a critical part of the story of antizionism. Enlightenment antisemitism is well covered territory. Many of its thinkers believed and spread all kinds of libels about Judaism, and most saw little place for it in the enlightened world. Shmuel Trigano has added to this literature by showing the political dimension of this antisemitism. Enlightened Western European states, especially France and the German states, unlike their medieval predecessors, stopped recognizing the Jews as a political collective when they emancipated them. As occurred among many Muslim and Christian thinkers, Enlightenment thinkers also reduced Jews to a religious community, but going further to reduce their religion to a private practice. A substantial part of the nineteenth-century Jewish community, eager to participate in Western society at the apex of its power, accepted these terms. Such an approach denied the need for Jews to have their own collective political representation, let alone state. This Enlightenment/liberal antizionism was the basis of the widespread Jewish antizionism before the creation of the state of Israel in Europe and the Americas and remains an important vector today. Current Enlightenment/liberal antizionism is evident among liberals or progressives around the world, including in Israel, who oppose a Jewish state as being inherently undemocratic and accuse Israel of being fascist, projections of what liberals most despise. The link between German-Jewish enlightenment antizionism and Israeli-post Zionism is well documented by Yoram Hazony.
In addition to a projection onto the Jewish state of what each ideological communities dislikes, replacement theology is an organizing principle in each case. The structure of a replacement theology is clear for Christianity and Islam. Both draw from Judaism only to negate its value by claiming it has erred and no longer has a function since Christianity or Islam have replaced it. Antizionism is indeed a logical outcome of Christian and Muslim replacement theology. If Christians or Muslims have replaced the Jews then there is no need for or meaning in a Jewish state, which certainly cannot have a meaningful relationship to the biblical Israel. It is less evident in the Enlightenment and communist/Soviet case, but it is there as well, why would one need to know about Judaism if Englithenment rationality or Marxism has replaced it. The structure is that one ideology/culture ought to replace and erase another. Indeed one of the features of Muslim and Christian replacement theology common to enlightenment and communist replacement theology is deliberate ignorance about Judaism and or Israel other than through negative projections. Despite adopting ideas from Judaism, throughout Christian and Muslim history few of their scholars had a firm grasp of Jewish ideas and texts and how their religions actually drew from them or departed from them. A similar process is at work for the Enlightenment. Scholars like Eric Nelson have demonstrated the influence of the Hebrew Bible on European modernity, yet the enlightenment European or Western’s story about themselves says little about this influence after the seventeenth century. Likewise many of the most vociferous Enlightenment critics of Judaism had little knowledge of Jewish texts. There were of course those who did know the texts as theologians increasingly became scientific scholars of the Bible or Judaism, but they gave the most negative interpretation of these texts and of Jews as Anders Gerdmar has shown. Most soviet antizionists, whether Jewish or not, similarly had little knowledge or chose the most negative interpretations of what they knew. This lack of knowledge or such unfair interpretations of what they did know make sense in a context of the belief that another ideology has replaced Judaism. There is no need to understand Judaism or Jews on their own terms if they have been replaced. This dismissal of the value of a culture or a people, in this case one that in fact influenced the cultures that came after it also shows up in many, though not all, European Christian/ Enlightenment/communist and Muslim approaches to other cultures. The isolated position and curiosity of Christian and Muslim missionaries and travelers who described these other cultures did not reflect the general thrust of these religions/ideologies to impose their views.
The characteristic of people who respect Judaism and Jewish self-determination is their willingness to learn from others and accept their difference. Over the course of the past two years many people of different walks of life and backgrounds have come out against antizionism. Their backgrounds are often very different. They can be found among secular Europeans, Christians, Muslims, people of other faiths or backgrounds across continents, those on the right and those on the left on a number of political matters whether labor or the economy. The common feature among such people that they values learning about Jews and Judaism, often times from categories or ways of thinking from within their own cultures ore perspectives. Indeed those Christians and Muslims who have abandoned replacement theology and antizionism have done so from within their own religious traditions. This is also true of secular (Englightenment) philosophers or socialists who appreciate Judaism or Jewish texts. In other words it is not simply that they have become cultural relativists who are now open to learning about and accepting any culture or ideology, but rather they have looked into their own cultures’ relationship to Judaism with a willingness to learn about it and accept where Judaism or Jews differ in their perspectives. Often this process also includes a recognition of similarities as well. And so for example Native Americans who appreciate Jews or Judaism see them with indigenous eyes, notice the ways in which Judaism is a land- and season-based “way,” a term they often prefer to religion. Seeing similarities while also recognizing differences is therefore also another way of relating to Judaism and Jews without replacement theology.
Exposing replacement theology is as important as exposing antisemitic and antizionst projections. As the studies from the Frankfurt School have demonstrated most antisemites do not change their mind when presented with rational arguments, for if they were rational about Jews they would not be antisemites, i.e. believe demonstrably false lies. Antisemitism and antizionism, is as Adam Louis-Klein among others continue to emphasize, a series of libels. These must be exposed and many journalists and academics are doing just that on a daily basis. The structure of replacement theology ought to likewise be exposed. Whether in schools or in the university, teaching about world religions, world history, and or philosophy must include a mention of instances of replacement theology. Does a given religion or ideology have a place for others, does it seek to dominate others, does it spread false information about other religions or ideologies. Exposing replacement theology does not mean negating the value of a religion or teaching. One can appreciate Christianity, Islam, the Enlightenment etc. without being silent on their history of replacement theology.
Exposing replacement theology does not require relativism, but it does demand a commitment to learning and an openness that others might have something to teach us. Both are necessary since there are clearly many antizionists who are committed to “learning” all of the crimes of Zionism, when in fact they are just collecting and listing their own projections. It is obvious but deserves some clarification that one does not have to be a moral relativist to approach other cultures, religions, philosophical systems in a spirit of openness and inquiry. One may, after having learned about the culture in question, come to the conclusion that one opposes its values or considers it to be wanting in its approach to the many facets of life. What replacement theology and pathic projections have in common is an unwillingness to relate to the reality of something outside of preconceived and negative notions and the ego comfort these might give. A critical practice to this commitment to learning and openness is an acknowledgement of not knowing if we really don’t have the background or information.
While Christians and Muslims have significant strands in their communities that are addressing their history of replacement theology, specifically its rejection of Zionism, the same cannot be said of for progressives in the West, where antizioinsm is reaching a crecendo. The current contradictions among progressives between their support for their own values and their support for other cultures that do not support these values, for example Islamists, is a result not only of a strategic alliances, but of this unreflective and projective approach to others. One way to approach, outside of a general pedagogy about learning about others rather than projecting on to them, is to teach about Jews and Judaism as a world culture which has something to say about all manner of issues like the nature of reality or a just society, the same topics covered in Western secular philosophy as well as to present a history of the Jewish people. Antizionism is of course supremely dangerous to all Israeli citizens as well as damaging to supporters of Zionism beyond its borders. But it is also the sign of a terrible breakdown in a society’s ability to think.