A recent survey by the Jewish Federations of North America that found only 37% of American Jews identify as Zionists sent tremors through parts of the American Jewish community. The finding joined a growing chorus of data seemingly confirming that American Jews, and young American Jews in particular, are drifting away from Israel. 

As a committed Zionist, I should be alarmed — but I’m not. In fact, I see in these numbers not a crisis but an opportunity: a chance to rethink what Zionism means for American Jews and why Zionism must be chosen, not assumed.

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A young Jewish man holds up an Israeli flag as campus demonstrators face off at Columbia University in New York City on Oct. 12, 2023.

While just a third of American Jews label themselves Zionists, 71% say they feel emotionally connected to Israel. Among young adults aged 18 to 34, that figure drops to 57%, but so does their emotional connection to the United States, which barely clears 50%. We’re not witnessing a uniquely Jewish crisis of connection to Israel, but a generation grappling with the concept of national identity itself.

Look closer at the data, and deeper trends emerge. While anti-Zionist identification is significantly higher among younger Jews (11.3% of those aged 18 to 54, compared to less than 1% of those over 54), what’s even more revealing is the sharp rise of a distinct category: 18% of Jews aged 18-34 now identify as “non-Zionist,” more than five times the rate among older generations. 

Though this jump isn’t as dramatic as the anti-Zionist surge, that surge may be plateauing. A clear majority of young Jews (76%) still believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, a core tenet that anti-Zionism rejects. In contrast, the “non-Zionist” identity is newer, growing and unique to the youngest cohort. Non-Zionists aren’t necessarily rejecting Israel, since most young Jews still feel emotionally attached (if often conflicted). They’re rejecting the label. 

Often, they simply don’t know what it means. A Boundless Israel survey on the impact of the Oct. 7 attacks on young Jews aged 18 to 40 helps clarify the disconnect. 

When asked if they identify as Zionists, only 31% said yes, tracking almost perfectly with the JFNA data; but 42% said they either hadn’t heard of Zionism or didn’t know what it meant. When offered a simple definition, “a movement that supports the Jewish people having a state in their ancestral homeland, Israel,” support jumped to 53%. And when asked whether they have a responsibility to support Israel, 67% agreed.

Young American Jews are navigating conflicting tensions. According to the American Jewish Committee’s latest “State of Antisemitism in America” report, nearly half (47%) of young American Jews say they were the personal target of antisemitism in the last year, compared to 28% for those age 30 and over. At the same time, they’re growing more critical of Israeli policy, often mirroring their liberal American peers. When nearly half of all Americans aged 18 to 29 believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, young Jews who share those views are expressing their American identity as much as their Jewish one. They’re emotionally attached to Israel and support its right to exist. They also feel anguish over its government’s actions. Some lean in and become more fervently Zionist; others turn anti-Zionist. As Zionism has shifted from a civilizational movement for Jewish self-determination to a politicized label often treated as shorthand for contemporary Israeli policy, increasingly many younger Jews just opt out.

This context challenges a claim repeated in many pro-Israel circles: that 95% of Jews are Zionists. The math seems simple. Roughly half the world’s Jews live in Israel, and 85% of Israelis identify as Zionist. Most Diaspora Jews feel connected to Israel, so the vast majority of world Jewry must be Zionist.

But this logic is based on false and superficial assumptions. Yes, most Jews worldwide are connected to Israel, but connection — even deep emotional attachment — doesn’t automatically translate into Zionism; at least not as an intentional, chosen identity. 

We’ve created a false binary: You’re either a Zionist or an anti-Zionist. Part of why we’ve fallen into this trap is understandable. The most virulent antisemitism today cloaks itself in anti-Zionist rhetoric. The deadliest attacks on Jews in recent years — in Israel, Australia and the U.S. — were motivated by anti-Zionist ideology. When anti-Zionism denies Jews the right to self-determination, it is antisemitism.

But acknowledging that not all Jews are Zionists doesn’t diminish the threat of anti-Zionism. As scholar Adam Louis-Klein defines it, anti-Zionism functions as a hate movement in its own right, not merely criticizing Israeli policies but seeking to delegitimize the Jewish People’s right to self-determination. We must fight anti-Zionism not because all Jews are Zionists, but because those Jews who do choose Zionism deserve to have that choice respected and protected.

This distinction matters because it shows what we’ve lost. For millennia, Jews longed for Zion, sustaining emotional, religious and historical ties to the Land of Israel. But identifying with Israel is not the same as choosing Zionism. For generations, Jews proclaimed “next year in Jerusalem” without translating it into action. That’s precisely why David Ben-Gurion called Zionism the Jewish people’s decision to “return to history”. Not just to feel something, but to do something.

The challenge in America today is partly linguistic and partly moral. In Hebrew, Zionism (Tzionut) carries connotations of civic engagement, patriotic duty and inspiration, roughly analogous to American patriotism. In Israel, identifying as Zionist often simply means, I care about my country. In English, “Zionist” has become an abstract ideological category, increasingly associated with negative connotations in progressive and academic spaces. It’s discussed in seminar rooms and in think pieces (like this one, ironically), often detached from lived experience.

We have turned Zionism from action into identity, from something you do into something you’re expected to be. Must all Jews be Zionists? Perhaps that would be desirable, but it’s hardly realistic if we understand Zionism as what it has always been: demanding active realization, not just sentiment. The Zionist-socialist youth movements even coined a unique term for it: hagshama, the manifestation of values and actions in one’s life. Zionism cannot be inherited. It must be chosen.

The Book of Proverbs (29:18) teaches, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, one of the Israeli Labor movement’s great thinkers, added centuries later: “Where there is no realization, the vision perishes.” 

So, what does the realization of Zionism look like for American Jews?

First, it means reclaiming Zionism as an active pursuit, not just of a Jewish state’s existence, but of the kind of society that state should be. Herzl envisioned not only a homeland, but a hevrat mofet, a model society. He called Zionism an “infinite ideal” — not merely the quest for territory, but an aspiration toward moral and spiritual renewal. Zionism was not meant to end with sovereignty, but to begin there.

But how can we ask American Jews to commit to that vision when 69% say they sometimes struggle to support Israel’s actions or its government?

Israeli journalist and Holocaust survivor Ruth Bondy captured this tension in 1975 when she wrote: 

“The Jewish state was meant to be a bridgehead of Europe in Asia, a wedge of Western culture against what was then viewed, during an era of unquestioning faith in the blessings of science and technology, as barbarism. A model society for all humanity. In this sense, we remain faithful to Herzl’s Altneuland: all the disappointments, frustrations, demands for change, and critiques of its flaws are proof of a continued devotion to the vision of a splendid state, a light unto the nations.” 

Frustration from the fact that Israel is flawed is not a reason to abandon Zionism, but a result of our expectations. This energy should be harnessed to deepen our commitment to Zionism. Not the other way around. To achieve this, we need to create moments of deliberate choice. Just as a bar or bat mitzvah marks the moment when a Jewish child assumes adult responsibilities of Jewish Peoplehood, we should offer similar moments for choosing Zionism. Some won’t. But I believe more will than currently do, if we make that choice meaningful.

Choosing Zionism doesn’t only mean making aliyah, though I believe every Jew should seriously consider it. It also doesn’t mean blind defense of Israeli policy. It means action: supporting Israeli civil society, investing in institutions that strengthen the Jewish people, marking life’s milestones in Israel and participating in the ongoing work of building a just Israeli society alongside a thriving Diaspora.

In an era of rising antisemitism, Zionism can offer something else to young Jews: agency. Herzl grasped this from the beginning, when he described the Jewish state not as the Holy Land but as the “Chosen Land.” On June 16, 1895, he wrote: 

“No one thought to look for the chosen land where it actually exists, and yet it is so close. Here it is: within us! … Everyone takes with them and within them a part of the chosen land when they go there. One in their head, another in their hands, a third in their savings. The chosen land is where we carry it.”

Not all Jews are Zionists. But all Jews can be. What we should offer is not a loyalty test but a choice, one that demands something and offers something in return: connection, purpose and participation in the next chapter of Jewish history.

That choice must be rooted in deliberate action and genuine relationships between Americans (not only Jews) and Israelis (also not only Jews) who share a commitment to the core mission of Zionism: the right of Jews to secure self-determination in the land of Israel and the need for that homeland to be a just society.

That’s a Zionism worth choosing. And I believe far more than a third of American Jews would choose it if we offered it to them and didn’t just expect it of them.

Barak Sella is a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Middle East Initiative and an Elson Israel Fellow at the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Okla.