Contested Diaspora: A Century of Zionist and Anti-Zionist Rhetorics in America

This article explores the writings of four prominent Jewish American thinkers, propounding conflicting Zionist and anti-Zionist perspectives, from two different eras. Rhetorics invoked by both generations complicate the notion of a "homeland" and a teleology of return. Throughout, we take a critical approach to discourse analysis, seeing language use as a form of social practice. In the end, we argue that over much of the past century, the continuing contestation between Zionist and anti-Zionist thought, framed as it is in the Middle East, nonetheless has discursively constructed an American identity as a response to Diaspora. The article echoes themes found throughout this special issue, including the role of a "homeland" in the linguistic construction of complex, nonstatic diasporic identities as well as language shift, and the symbolic/performative role of language in identity construction.