Complicating Complexity: Israel Education after October 7
Benji Davis is Assistant Professor of Jewish Education at Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, and in the summer, Head of Israel Education at Camp Yavneh.
Hanan Alexander is Professor of Philosophy of Education, Emeritus and Former Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Haifa. He currently serves as the Helen Diller Visiting Professor of Israel Studies and Visiting Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley.
ESTHER WERDIGER
The events of October 7, 2023, and their aftermath have shaken Jewish education in North America to its core. As educators, we are now navigating a landscape dominated by polarized narratives and ideological certainties. In this environment, some have reduced Israel education to advocacy, while others have turned to simple presentation of “both sides,” aiming to foster intellectual honesty by exposing students to Palestinian voices and narratives.
Our central claim in this essay is that Israel education today requires what we call “rooted and respectful criticism.” Students must learn to evaluate all narratives, including romantic Zionist mythology and Palestinian nationalism. This requires learning to distinguish between compelling moral critique and frameworks that dehumanize other people or deny their legitimate national aspirations.
The turn towards integrating the Palestinian story into Israel education is not new. Over the past decades, many institutions have been wrestling with how to stay rooted in the Jewish and Zionist story while making those other stories more complex. One approach is to expose educators, students, and Israel trip participants to Palestinian perspectives through curated visits to places in East Jerusalem or Bethlehem. Others engage in dialogue with Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists in Israel and the territories, or in programs in North America.
These approaches reflect a healthy instinct, recognizing that mature commitment requires intellectual honesty and moral courage. They also reflect a larger understanding about Israel education: that learning about the actual Israel requires considering its complexities. This complex Israel emerged from the dreams of early Zionist visionaries and the concrete realities of building a Jewish state in a hostile region. However, Israel education does not only entail learning about Israel as an end in itself but resides within a larger framework of Jewish education. This entails transmitting knowledge that enables learners to consider the relevance of Jewish tradition, values, beliefs, and ideas to their own understandings of what makes life worthwhile. We call these understandings “visions of the good life.” For learners to cultivate a Jewish vision of the good, that is, to draw on their heritage in deciding for themselves what makes life worthwhile, they require exposure to different, sometimes even contradictory, perspectives.
Educationally, this entails embracing a critical rather than solely romantic stance toward Zionism. While Israel education has traditionally focused on “our narrative,” it should also teach perspectives that differ from what we hold sacred in our own Zionist values and beliefs, including Palestinian perspectives, as well as alternative forms of Zionism or even anti-Zionism.
But we are not advocating carte blanche exposure. Expanding the conversation might tempt learners to adopt newly encountered voices without sufficient scrutiny. As Israel education broadens its scope, educators need to develop a critical lens towards Palestinian perspectives and anti-Zionist viewpoints in addition to Zionist mythology. More specifically, they must address narratives that have taken hold in liberal society, especially in progressive circles, sometimes called “critical progressivism.” This refers to the ways in which critical social theory—Marxism, neo-Marxism, postmodernism, and especially postcolonialism—interpret the Israel Palestine conflict through an imposed set of categories such as power, colonialism, and oppression.
At the same time, several interpretations of Islam, often collected under the heading “radical Islamism,” advance a political theology that seeks to reinstate what it perceives to be the glory days of Islamic rule in the Middle East. This political theology, the influence of which has been growing in recent years, rejects Jewish sovereignty altogether. These conflicting ideologies, one looking forward, the other seeking to reinstate the past, converge in portraying Zionism as a colonial project, denying the legitimacy of Jewish national self-determination and cultural self-definition. When such narratives enter educational spaces without careful examination, they can flatten historical complexity, reject critical thinking, and undermine the core goal of Israel education: to transmit meaningful knowledge that helps learners integrate Israel into a purposeful view of Jewish life.
In the ensuing discussion, we argue that certain strands of critical social theory have partnered with radical Islamism to challenge the educational climate by creating conditions in which antisemitic ideas masquerade as academic analysis. We then propose an educational approach that can distinguish between legitimate criticism and ideological distortion.
The Current Educational Climate
The last decade has seen remarkable strides toward making Israel education more complex across a wide range of settings. Intensive multi-day seminars now offer sustained engagement with Palestinian narratives. Adult and teen curricula alike increasingly incorporate Palestinian perspectives. Even large-scale introductory Israel trips routinely include sessions in which participants hear from Palestinian speakers and/or participate in dialogue and coexistence programs. What was once peripheral has become a common feature of the field.
Yet October 7 and its aftermath have revealed the limitations of existing approaches when confronted with systematic campaigns that use the language of justice and human rights to deny Jewish self-determination, to negate Jewish indigeneity in the land, and to frame the very existence of a Jewish state as a moral wrong. The challenge we now face is how to maintain our commitment to complexity while reconsidering frameworks that fundamentally undermine the project of Jewish education, not simply the presentation of multiple perspectives. The real task before us is to ensure that this complex, nuanced approach remains grounded in honest inquiry and critical thinking.
This task is especially difficult in the current educational climate because of the ways that critical progressives, and through them Islamic radicals, protect their views from criticism. Advocates of these views argue that those who are stronger, in terms of politics, finances, or technology, use their power to dominate others who are weaker by, among other means, harnessing the influence that accompanies power to control public discourse in institutions devoted to government, education, scholarship, religion, entertainment, and the media. The narratives disseminated through these institutions are embedded in the assumptions of everyday life and reflect the interests of the powerful. To liberate oppressed peoples from these controlling and often undetected forces, intellectuals should doubt the veracity of these so-called hegemonic narratives and replace them with ways of talking that empower the weak.
However, the dichotomy between those who have more power and those who have less is an oversimplification that protects narratives of presumed oppression from criticism. It is not always easy to distinguish victimizers from victims, and the stories told by those who feel downtrodden are not necessarily more (or less) truthful than the tales of those accused of domination. Nor is strength necessarily bad or weakness better. Power, as well as powerlessness (especially presumed powerlessness), can be used for good as well as for ill. We should subject all narratives to equivalent critique, including both those believed to embody more power and those considered to entail less.
One way of describing those who have power is by referring to countries or cultures that have “colonialized” lands and societies that are not their own. This means that the leaders of those countries forcibly “occupied” lands that were not theirs, subjugated the local, sometimes called “indigenous,” people, who were powerless to stop the takeover, and mined the natural resources of those lands for their own financial gain rather than for those who had already been living there. Classic examples of this form of colonial power include the British in India and the French in Algeria.
The likes of Edward Said, a leading Palestinian post-colonial literary theorist, claimed that Zionism is a “colonial project” of this kind. Others, such as Ilan Pappe, an Israeli born post-colonial historian, have built on this claim to argue that those who support the idea of a Jewish nation state—in what Jews have historically called the land of Israel and others call Palestine—seek to oppress the local Palestinian population.
These ideas, which have become increasingly influential of late, are taught at prestigious universities and are making their way into commonly accepted middle and high school social studies curricula. They have also been used to depict radical Islamism as resistance to oppression, because groups like Hamas claim to be fighting for the oppressed Palestinians. Advocates of these views have employed social media to depict Israel—once a source of Jewish pride—as something about which Jews should be ashamed. They have done so by employing the language of critical social theory—colonialism, apartheid, genocide, humanitarian crisis—to delegitimize Jewish national aspirations.
For Jewish educators who seek to teach both Zionist and Palestinian narratives grounded in rooted and respectful criticism, this presents an unprecedented challenge. Students who participate in Birthright Israel programs, attend Jewish summer camps, or engage in Israel education initiatives increasingly return to campuses and communities where embracing any version of Zionism is immediately challenged. These challenges are especially disorienting because they are often framed in the very moral language that students themselves embrace—justice, human rights, and dignity. But this language is deployed to critique the idea of Jewish sovereignty altogether, not this or that Israeli policy. Learners are entitled to identify as Jews, according to this critique, only if they disavow their collective right to define for themselves what it means to be Jewish and to govern themselves in their ancestral homeland. Educators must therefore navigate not only content that challenges any vision of the good that embraces Israel or Zionism in some way, but also a broader social and epistemological climate that treats this delegitimization as a morally compelling call to action.
The resulting cognitive dissonance can lead some students to adopt critical perspectives about Israel as a way of maintaining moral coherence within this broader climate. In some cases, this dynamic contributes to the uncritical acceptance of claims that deny Israel as the Jews’ ancestral homeland or recast Israel’s struggle against violent extremism as inherently oppressive rather than as a defense of its citizens.
This phenomenon recalls Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew, and his analysis of how antisemitism seeps into Jewish self-perception, creating internalized negative identities. Ironically, it also mirrors post-colonial scholar Frantz Fanon’s analysis in The Wretched of the Earth, of how colonialism affects the colonized psyche. Fanon argued that colonized people internalize the colonizer’s degrading narratives about them, reshaping perceptions of their own identities. Social media and campus activism is subjecting Jews to that which they are being accused of doing—colonizing the other—when in fact, Jews are being colonized by those who want them to internalize antisemitic narratives as the basis for their own self-understanding.
This process contributes to many Jews moving away from Zionism and Jewish communal affiliation. If students understand contemporary Israel based on the allegations advanced by critical progressives and radical Islamists, many of which rely on questionable or exaggerated data, or ambiguous or tendentious terminology, then teaching Palestinian perspectives does not solve the problem it sought to address—providing other perspectives so that Israel education is actually educational and not a form of indoctrination. This is precisely why Israel education requires careful framing that helps students distinguish between legitimate Palestinian grievances and ideological manipulation
Our Educational Approach: Rooted and Respectful Criticism
The answer to this problem is rooted and respectful criticism, not a return to uncritical romantic Zionism. This builds upon our previous work on Mature Zionism while addressing limitations in the current ideological environment. This educational approach maintains several key principles.
Broad Application of Critical Analysis
We must prepare learners to engage Palestinian perspectives with the same sympathetic but critical attitude applied to their own heritage or to any other historical or political orientation, and with the same degree of rigor—questioning historical accuracy and acknowledging moral complexity. This includes narratives grounded in critical social theory or radical Islamic political theology as well as those rooted in romantic Zionism, whether found in primary sources or from live speakers. We must not exempt certain perspectives from scrutiny simply because they represent the other side or because they claim to epitomize the downtrodden. Rather, we should engage critically with all narratives, including our own.
This engagement should be rooted in Jewish ideals such as open inquiry, intellectual honesty, and respect for difference. But respect requires more than just listening with an open mind. One demonstrates genuine respect by taking a view seriously enough to subject it to thoughtful criticism. This requires identifying and evaluating its underlying assumptions and challenging statements unsubstantiated by appropriate evidence, including prejudices about Jews and Zionism. We should teach students to ask probing questions and to carefully reflect on the answers, whether in respectful dialogue with Palestinian speakers or in the analysis of historical or media sources.
For example, here are some questions we might discuss with our students relating to criticisms of Israel: How can Jews be colonizers in the land of Israel when Jewish culture was founded there more than two millennia ago? How is the Jewish case different from that of the indigenous peoples of North America? If Israel’s population includes fully enfranchised Arab citizens, what does it mean to say that Israel is an apartheid state? What about Israel’s previous proposals for withdrawing from the territories in return for an end of conflict and establishment of a Palestinian state? How can responding to a brutal attack of the sort perpetrated by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, with the stated aim of destroying the Jewish state, be fairly construed as a form of genocide rather than a form of self-defense?
Grounding in Relevant Evidence
All claims must be subject to evaluation grounded in relevant evidence, whether from the Zionist or Palestinian perspective. When Palestinian narratives make factual claims—about casualties, historical events, or current conditions—students should learn to assess them using the same scholarly standards that we apply to other historical and sociological data. Respect for humanity requires a critical disposition toward evidence, which means having empathy for suffering and pain—not belittling that experience even as we scrutinize historical and political claims that may advance fallacies which could harm both sides.
For instance, concerning the colonial claim, we might compare with our students the cases of French colonialism in Algeria with the Zionist return to the land of Israel. Similarly, relating to the accusation of apartheid, we might compare the position of Blacks under South African Apartheid to that of Palestinian Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Druze, and others who are citizens of Israel. In the same vein, concerning the genocide allegation, we might discuss the origin and legal definition of the term compared with the way it is being used today in the international arena regarding Israel in the Gaza war. In all these cases, we might also discuss previous libelous accusations against Jews and compare the ones found in those accusations to tropes being repeated today.
Recognition of Agency
Our approach recognizes that all parties possess varying degrees of agency, make moral choices, and bear responsibility for their actions, rather than reducing actors to the simplistic categories of oppressors and oppressed. This approach sympathizes with the Palestinian experience of discrimination, oppression, and suffering due to intentional or unintentional Israeli actions and policies. But it takes the same approach towards Israelis. It recognizes that Palestinians are not merely victims without power and that Israelis are not merely oppressors without legitimate concerns. It challenges both romantic Zionist narratives that deny Palestinian suffering and critical progressive narratives that deny Jewish victimization and our identity as an ancient people rooted in our homeland.
For example, we might examine cases with our students that are comparable to the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, such as the Turkish Greek conflict in Cyprus, the Russian Ukrainian war, or the Saudi Arabian war with the Houthis in Yemen, asking who exercises agency in each case and how the legacy media and the international diplomatic community responded.
Commitment to Humanization without Idealization
While we must critically evaluate narratives that dehumanize Jews, we must simultaneously work to humanize Palestinians and understand their legitimate aspirations and grievances. This begins with what we call “resilient listening.” When Palestinians describe painful personal and collective experiences with Israeli policies and actions that cause them suffering, our first task is to listen and acknowledge their lived reality, even when it makes us uncomfortable. It is our hope that when our students meet Palestinians, both parties exhibit this sort of response, one that requires a rooted and respectful critique of each other’s positions. However, humanization should not be used as an excuse for dehumanization through justification of terrorism, authoritarianism, or eliminationist ideologies. This distinction between hearing legitimate grievances about policies and actions, and accepting claims that deny Jewish national identity or justify violence against civilians, is crucial for programs that bring Palestinian voices into Jewish educational settings. This is how we continue to promote education without sliding down the slippery slope towards indoctrination.
Practical Applications
The implications of this analysis extend far beyond theoretical frameworks to incorporating an intellectual understanding of the alliance between critical progressivism and radical Islamism. In the current environment, where students encounter anti-Israel content across multiple platforms and educational settings, Jewish institutions should incorporate this sort of critical approach to Israel education, which acknowledges uncomfortable realities while maintaining educational integrity. Such programs should include at least four categories: curriculum design, Israel experiences, identity activism, and professional development.
Curriculum Design
Israel education curricula should incorporate a rigorous examination of critical progressivism including its alliance with radical Islamism. This should entail a review ofpopular social media content and an analysis of relevant texts. For example, is there a connection between Edward Said’s Orientalism and media personality Mehdi Hassan? Such a curriculum would integrate media literacy with primary and secondary sources to distinguish complex history from insidious ideology. This analysis might also include a comparison of critical progressivism to the influence of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Marxist and Socialist thought on Zionist pioneers, such as Be’er Katznelson, and to critiques of labor Zionism by so-called post-Zionist scholars such as Ze’ev Stermhell and Ilan Gur Ze’ev. It might also consider the writings of non-socialist left-leaning twentieth-century Zionists such as Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem in addition to right-leaning thinkers such as Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
The “Israel Experience”
“Israel experience” programs, from Birthright Israel to RootOne and Masa programs, must include robust preparation for the ideological challenges students will face upon return. This means not only exposing students to Palestinian perspectives while in Israel but also providing them with analytical tools to engage with these perspectives critically. Tour educators, madrichim, and expert speakers should incorporate elements that help students understand the broader ideological landscape they will encounter.
Israel experience participants are our most engaged audience for Israel education. There’s broad consensus that being in Israel and seeing these complex realities firsthand is powerful. But programs must intentionally prepare participants to be rooted and respectful critics of the thinking advanced by the alliance between critical progressivism and radical Islamism in their communities and on campus. They can do this by integrating on-the-ground experiential education with grounded intellectual understanding of the ideological context used to characterize Israel.
Identity Activists, not Israel Advocates
Jewish student organizations and community organizations should move beyond defensive responses to anti-Israel activism toward proactive educational initiatives that demonstrate the intellectual sophistication of Jewish approaches to complexity. This might include hosting speakers who model critical engagement with multiple perspectives while maintaining a commitment to their Zionist heritage. We cannot assume everyone should be an activist for Israel. Rather, how can Israel education prepare students to be advocates for themselves as Jews? This requires teaching a critical stance not only towards our own romantic narratives, but towards criticism against Israel and the Jewish people today.
Professional Development
Educators also need training in these approaches. Our educational institutions should create comprehensive professional development opportunities that help teachers navigate these complex pedagogical challenges. Keren Fraiman’s research identifies four critical barriers to educators’ engagement with difficult topics: knowledge gaps, pedagogical skills for facilitating challenging conversations, emotional support capabilities, and institutional backing. Building on this important research, we should invest in professional development programming that aims to develop educators who can thoughtfully engage with complexity, equipped not only to identify misinformation but to facilitate nuanced discussions that prepare students for contested narratives beyond the classroom.
Teaching Complexity in Israel Education Without Moral Equivalencies
When we apply rooted and respectful criticism, a more accurate picture of Israel emerges—acknowledging both achievements and failures without false moral equivalencies. Israel is a vibrant yet contradictory society: a cultural and economic powerhouse where Pride parades coexist with ultra-Orthodox draft resistance and challenges to judicial independence. As Yehuda Kurtzer has observed, Israel’s founding documents committed the state to being “both a Jewish state and a state of all its citizens”—an “incredible list of commitments [that] could be read as exhausting and contradictory, but [whose] authors understood them as together constituting a coherent ideology.”
Israel is also a society traumatized by October 7, continuing war, hostage brutality, and rising global antisemitism. This painful awakening from the dream of transcending Jewish history is also an educational opportunity for students to grapple with reality through their various ideological commitments.
Simplistic oppressor-oppressed binaries do not capture this complexity. Israel’s policies, settlement movement, and military actions may be legitimately scrutinized, but criticisms must acknowledge the context of existential threat and historical persecution. Jewish educators should neither present Israel as “rainbows and butterflies” nor accept the “settler-colonial state” caricature. Instead, we must invite students to wrestle with a complex modern democracy facing profound moral, political, and security challenges while maintaining its aspiration to be both Jewish and democratic.
Our task is constructive, not merely defensive. We seek to educate, not indoctrinate—equipping students to evaluate evidence, analyze ideas, and navigate complexity while maintaining commitment to Jewish meaning and purpose. This requires distinguishing between legitimate complexity and ideological manipulation; maintaining intellectual honesty while acknowledging that not all perspectives deserve equal consideration in Jewish educational settings.
In a moment when Jewish students face isolation and false choices between liberal values and Jewish self-identification, we must provide a third way—one that maintains moral clarity while embracing intellectual sophistication, accepts valid criticism while rejecting relativism, and prepares students to engage the world as proud, knowledgeable Jews who maintain hope and gratitude—in Naomi Shemer’s words: for “all these things,” both the bitter and the sweet.
