Pro-Israel demonstrators gather outside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 3, 2024. Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP / Getty Images

Every year when we sit down for the Passover Seders, we end with the words “Next year in Jerusalem.” This phrase was added to the Haggadah during the 14th century, and was used orally for centuries before. Whether you interpret the phrase as referring to you personally visiting or moving to Jerusalem; more broadly referring to Jewish people returning there after centuries of exile; the possible beginning of a Messianic era; or use the preferred Israeli version, “next year in a rebuilt Jerusalem,” it is impossible to deny Jerusalem’s place within the heart of the Jewish people.

And yet so many do, loudly. If importance were measured in media coverage, one might think Israel was the most important country in the world. Not a day goes by without it being discussed, dissected or debated; some people have built their entire identities around supporting or opposing its existence.

With this outsized impact in mind, I present the following idea for consideration: This Passover, it’s time to retire the word “Zionist.” I understand that the word is a great source of pride and a core identity for many. But I also believe the term is dead weight, dragging us down and holding us back.

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A Zionist is a person who believes in Zionism, the Jewish nationalist movement, which says Jews should have a nation state in part of the ancestral homeland to which they are indigenous, and in which they have had a continuous presence for centuries. That’s a lot of meaning for one word to carry — too much to be suitable for the everyday vernacular of a society accustomed to communicating with emojis and encapsulating big ideas in 140 characters or less.

According to an October 2024 survey conducted by Jewish think tank Boundless Israel, just one-third of Americans were even familiar with the word “Zionism.”

It’s tough to correctly define something you’ve never even heard of. Which means that it’s even easier for the word “Zionist,” co-opted as it has been into a term for advancing anti-Jew hate, to be used in ways that are fundamentally damaging to Jews. As anyone who uses social media can attest, “Zionist” has been seemingly weaponized and transformed into a derogatory term for “Jew.” Using “Zionist” as a codeword allows anti-Jew bigots to demonize Jews without having to actually say “Jew,” giving them a kind of cover for their overt hatred.

But it actually gets worse. The vast majority of the anti-Israel crowd have been taught- often by their teachers, in the classroom — that Zionism is a racist, destructive “ideology,” literally akin to Nazism or the ideas of the KKK. Their understanding has nothing to do with self-determination or security, it’s all about Jews supposedly wanting to wipe out Palestinians. With this horribly incorrect and demonizing definition, it’s possible to think that calling someone, say, “Zionist scum” isn’t just appropriate, but a righteous act of justice.

Those who oppose Israel’s existence on the basis of these horrific inversions will say they are “anti-Zionist,” claiming that their stance is a legitimate criticism of the Israeli government, or of the processes that led to Israel’s creation in 1948. But defaulting to “anti-Zionist,” rather than being pushed to define and defend an actual political or procedural gripe, can too easily allow haters to paint Israel as something nefarious, untrustworthy and detached from normal humanity.

It’s not “the democratically elected Israeli government.” It’s “the Zionist regime.”

Additionally, there are those who believe that being a Zionist doesn’t just entail supporting Israel’s existence: It means specifically supporting the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Obviously, supporting Israel in no way means you must agree with everything its government does. Most Americans support the existence of the United States, and we certainly don’t all agree with absolutely everything the government does.

And yet, when it comes to Israel, instead of criticizing the government — as most of us do when discussing other countries, or our own — detractors just call the whole thing “Zionist.” By doing so, they turn any negative perception of the government into a negative association with Zionism as a whole, which in turn casts a shadow on the entire Israeli enterprise.

Which brings us to the primary issue, which is neither the word’s definition nor its misappropriation. We no longer need a term to describe someone who believes a state of Israel should exist as the Jewish homeland. Because a state of Israel, as the Jewish homeland, already exists. And it is not going anywhere.

By continuing to invoke Zionism to defend our right to exist in a place that already exists, we risk insinuating that we accept a paradigm in which the possibility of non-existence is on the table. We leave open the option that, with enough violence or bullying or morally confused rhetoric, we’ll say, “You’re right, let’s tear it all down, kick everybody out, and pretend this never happened.”

Israel is a country that has successfully defended itself from enemies bent on its destruction on numerous occasions, while somehow also finding time to become a thriving, pluralistic, liberal society. Israeli innovation has led to untold life-changing contributions to the fields of technology, medicine and science. The 77-year-old state of 9 million has given rise to more NASDAQ-listed companies than any country in the world other than the U.S. and China.

Jews are never giving up our freedom or agency again. So at this year’s Seders, when we utter those sacred words, “Next year in Jerusalem,” perhaps we will do so with a little extra kavanah — deep feeling and intentionality. Maybe this year, we will use that moment to remember how truly lucky we are to have transformed that phrase from a centuries-old wish into a complicated and beautiful reality.

Not existing is simply not an option. Let’s stop defining ourselves by a term that implies it is.

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