Saying “I love Jews, just not the ones connected to Israel” is no different from saying “I love Jews, just not the ones who wear kippahs.” In both cases, Jewish identity is tolerated only when it is stripped of its visible, collective, or national expression.

Historically, acceptance of Jews has almost always been conditional. During the French Emancipation, Jews were granted civil rights only as individuals, not as a people. Count Clermont-Tonnerre captured this logic succinctly: “Everything must be refused to the Jews as a nation, and everything granted to Jews as individuals.”

The same pattern emerged in the Soviet Union. Lenin formally condemned antisemitism while simultaneously attacking Zionism as illegitimate Jewish nationalism. Jews were “accepted” only if they renounced their national identity. Jewish existence was permitted, but Jewish peoplehood was not.

Today’s discomfort with Jews who identify with Israel follows this same historical script.

Jewish institutions share responsibility for allowing this framework to persist. By treating Israeli identity as an optional or embarrassing attachment rather than an integral component of Jewish peoplehood, Jewish leadership left a vacuum, one that others were eager to fill by redefining Jewish legitimacy on their own terms. In doing so, they allowed Jewish belonging to once again become conditional.