Zionism and ‘Definition Creep’

By the rivers of Babylon
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion
(Psalm 137:1)

Twin boys were born in Foscani, Moldova (now Romania), on Dec. 7, 1847.
Their family name, Schechter, derived from the father’s profession as a schochet, one who slaughtered animals and poultry according to Jewish law.

Their mother cared for the children, six boys and a girl.

One of the twins, named Yisroel, joined Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) and, in 1882, emigrated to Palestine, where he helped found Zichron Yaakov, a town on Mount Carmel, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, between Haifa and Netanya.

His twin, born Shneur Zalman — named for Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement — took a different route.

Shneur Zalman was a prodigy, reported to have read Hebrew at age 3, mastered Chumash (the Torah in book form, with vowel markings) at age 5, entered a yeshiva at 10, and studied with Talmudic scholars at 13. He studied in Vienna and Berlin, before making his way to London and then to Cambridge University as a reader in Talmudics.

Along the way, Shneur Zalman became Solomon.

In 1897, on his travels home to England after spending months unearthing the trove of Jewish history in the Cairo genizah, Solomon visited Yisroel in Zichron Yaakov.

When Solomon moved to New York in 1902, as president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, American Zionists sought his support.

But he was distrustful of Zionism, finding the movement to be overly political and nationalistic, and insufficiently religious.

Yet, in 1905, he pivoted, seeing Zionism as a “bulwark against assimilation,” believing that a Jewish homeland could be established in Palestine while also building strong Jewish communities in America, reflecting his experience and his brother’s.

“Zionism has succeeded in bringing back into the fold many men and women, both here and in Europe, who otherwise would have been lost to Judaism. It has given them a new interest in the synagogue and everything Jewish, and put before them an ideal worthy of their love and sacrifice,” Solomon wrote in 1906 in, “Zionism: A Statement.”

I thought of the paths taken by my great-grandfather and his twin brother as I considered a recently published survey of Jewish Americans, who clearly lack consensus on a definition of Zionism.

The survey, conducted in March 2025 for the Jewish Federations of North America, included 1,800 Jewish respondents out of more than 4,100 people queried on issues related to Zionism and Israel.

Zionism was intended to support the establishment of a national homeland for Jews in a land that can trace a Jewish presence back a few thousand years, a place where, in Theodor Herzl’s words, “we can live at last as free men on our own soil, and where we can die peacefully in our own fatherland.”

The words “Zionism” and “Zionist” had been used as pejoratives by anti-Israel activists well before Oct. 7, 2023, but by any measurement, since that day they have become even more charged.

In an op-ed published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Mimi Kravetz, chief impact officer at JFNA, wrote: “The word Zionism has undergone what might be called ‘definition creep’ over time, shaped by a mix of political agendas, public discourse, and broader social forces. It has come to be understood as encompassing ideas that go far beyond its once-standard meaning.”

Rather than fill this column with numbers and percentages, I’ll share several I found noteworthy — if not a bit contradictory and head-scratching.

In the survey, 37 percent of Jewish Americans identified as Zionists, but 88 percent backed Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and Democratic state.

Seven percent of Jewish Americans identified as anti-Zionist Jews, while eight percent called themselves non-Zionist, 18 percent were not sure, and 30 percent said none of the labels fit them.

Eighty percent of the anti-Zionist Jews believed that “supporting whatever actions Israel takes” is a tenet of Zionism, where only 15 percent of the self-identified Zionists shared that belief.

On one hand, 71 percent of the self-identified Zionists agreed that “I feel emotionally attached to Israel” and 60 percent said that Israel made them proud to be Jewish.

On the other hand, 69 percent agreed that “I sometimes find it hard to support actions taken by the Israeli government.”

Each in his own way, the Schechter twins dedicated their lives to building strong Jewish communities, Yisroel in what would become the modern nation of Israel and Solomon in America. Yisroel is buried in Zichron Yaakov and Solomon in New York. I wish it were possible today to have a conversation with Yisroel and Solomon about Zionism and whether that movement has succeeded or failed to meet their ideals.