More than 50 leading Jewish organisations from around the world have signed a declaration affirming that Zionism is an integral part of Jewish identity and warning that contemporary anti-Zionism can become antisemitic when it denies Jewish self-determination or demands that Jews reject Zionism in order to participate in public life, Jerusalem News Syndicate reports
The J50 Declaration on Zionism and Antisemitism comes amid growing concern among Jewish leaders about efforts to delegitimise Israel and the impact of increasingly hostile anti-Zionist rhetoric on Jewish communities worldwide.
Senior Jewish leaders gathered in Jerusalem to endorse the declaration, which was signed by 59 representatives and organisations. The document states unequivocally: “Zionism is part of Jewish identity.”
William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and chair of the J50 Forum gathering, said the declaration “affirms Zionism as the national movement of the Jewish people and the expression of our right to self-determination in our ancient homeland, Israel.”
The declaration calls for anti-Zionism to be recognised and challenged when it becomes a means of marginalising, excluding or discriminating against Jewish people.
It argues that opposition to Zionism crosses into antisemitism when it denies Jews a right to national self-determination that is recognised for other peoples, or when individual Jews are expected to distance themselves from Zionism as a condition for acceptance.
“Anti-Zionism, as manifested today through efforts to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination, or demand that Jews renounce Zionism as the price of acceptance in political, academic, professional, or cultural life, is antisemitic,” the declaration states.
The signatories expressed particular concern about the increasing number of institutions in which they say Zionism and Jewish self-determination are being challenged or delegitimised.
According to the declaration, governments, international organisations, municipalities, political parties, media and cultural bodies, universities, educational institutions, professional associations and civil society organisations have increasingly become arenas in which Zionism is distorted or delegitimised.
The document warns that this environment can have consequences extending beyond political debate about Israel by contributing to the marginalisation and exclusion of Jews themselves.
The declaration concludes with a direct assertion that Jewish communities should be able to define their own relationship with Zionism rather than having that identity defined for them by outside political movements.
“Zionism is part of Jewish identity. We will not allow others to define it for us,” it states.
The declaration follows the third meeting of the J50 Forum, hosted in Jerusalem by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on 1 September. The gathering focused on the global rise in antisemitism and what participants described as the connection between obsessive anti-Israel rhetoric and increasing hostility and attacks directed at Jewish communities in the Diaspora.
The forum brings together 50 core Jewish organisations and includes community presidents, chief executives, chief rabbis and other senior Jewish representatives from Europe, North and South America, Australia and South Africa.
Participating organisations include the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Federations of North America, B’nai B’rith International, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of European Rabbis and the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry established the forum as a mechanism for maintaining regular cooperation with Jewish communities around the world as they respond to antisemitism. Sa’ar founded the J50 Forum in May 2025 during the International Conference against Antisemitism at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.
Members receive regular briefings from the Israeli foreign minister and maintain daily contact with ministry officials.
The new declaration represents an attempt by a broad coalition of Jewish organisations to establish a clear distinction between legitimate criticism of Israeli governments and efforts to deny Jewish national self-determination altogether. Its central message is that requiring Jews to abandon Zionism as a condition for social, political, academic or professional acceptance can itself constitute a form of antisemitic discrimination.
Photo credit: David Isaac
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