Benjamin Moser's Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History Traces Dissent

Benjamin Moser's new book profiles 12 Jewish figures who opposed Zionism, from Rabbi Aaron Samuel Tamares to the photographer Nan Goldin. The Pulitzer-winning biographer of Susan Sontag published Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History this autumn.

Moser opens with a personal admission. "Everyone in America – at least as far as I knew – was a Zionist," he recalls, "especially but not only if you were Jewish." He was raised to believe the consensus was total.

That certainty broke in his 20s. A friend described Israel as "a bunch of foreigners who had no business in the Middle East" and Zionism as a "terrible mistake". Moser, who recently turned 50, admits: "I was not even aware that Zionism was controversial."

A 2016 visit to the occupied territories hardened the shift. He found "the reality of the occupation of Palestine … deranging".

What does the book argue?

Moser frames his 12 portraits as a corrective. Anti-Zionist Jews today face accusations of betrayal, but debates about Zionism were once mainstream in Jewish communal life. He wants contemporary Jewish activists to "feel less alone".

Zionism emerged in the late 19th century to advocate for the creation of a homeland for Jewish people in Palestine. The numbers show how attitudes have moved. Around 90% of American Jews now support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, though fewer identify as Zionists. In 1914, fewer than 1% belonged to the largest American Zionist organisation.

The takeaway: Jewish opposition to Zionism is not a recent rupture but a documented strand of Jewish history.

Who appears in the portraits?

The first study is of Rabbi Aaron Samuel Tamares, who believed Judaism offered a vision of a world beyond the devastating nationalism of the first world war. The final chapter turns to the photographer Nan Goldin, who spoke out — at considerable personal cost — as the assault on Gaza began in 2023, following the October 7th attacks.

Moser's Pulitzer-winning biography of Susan Sontag established his method: lives placed in full historical context. Here he applies it to a century and more of internal Jewish argument.

The book lands amid intense controversy over anti-Zionism's place in Jewish communities and its conflation with antisemitism. By documenting that the debate once ran through the mainstream, Moser gives today's dissenters a lineage — and hands the wider argument new historical ballast.