The Fear Factor: Assimilation, Antisemitism and the Relationship Between Zionism and Jewish Diasporic Identity

Drawing from ethnographic research conducted in the Toronto Jewish community, this paper examines the role that fears of assimilation and antisemitism have played in the constitution of contemporary Jewish diasporic identity. Using the University of Toronto campus as a lens, I illustrate how Israel has been instrumentalized by the organized Jewish community as a tool against assimilation, and as a result, Zionism has been positioned as a central feature of Jewish diasporic ethnic identity. I argue that this blurring between Jewish and Zionist identification has meant that for members of the Jewish community, anti-Zionist rhetoric constitutes an attack against the Jewish people as a whole.