Amanda Berman, a 38-year-old Jewish New Yorker, founded the Zioness Movement in 2017 as a progressive Zionist organization seeking to counter the anti-Zionism and antisemitism she and her Jewish friends working in social justice groups encountered. Her goal was to give progressives the knowledge and tools to be proud Zionists by working with activists to confront antisemitism and anti-Zionism in their ranks.
Yet post-Oct. 7, Berman admitted, “This is the most challenging moment in my lifetime to hold those identities together.” She said she found it shocking that feminists who touted the need to believe women’s credible allegations of sexual assault would question evidence showing that women had been sexually assaulted by Hamas attackers. Those who project American experiences of racism onto Israel, she said, “flatten the diversity of the Jewish people” and ignore the persecution experienced by generations of Jews.