Arielle Angel, 41, is editor-in-chief of Jewish Currents magazine. Her mother's family were Arab Jews from Haifa while her father's family were Ladino-speaking Holocaust survivors from Salonika; her grandmother survived 20 months in Auschwitz. She grew up in Miami in a "very Zionist" home, Israel flag at school, March of the Living in Poland, summer camps, where she learned to speak about Israel in first person: "We did."

Since becoming editor in 2018 at age33, she has transformed the dormant magazine into a platform for American Jews seeking alternatives to Zionism. For many of its 10,000 print subscribers (and approximately 2.5 million annual visitors to its digital version), it represents a community center and critical space for discussion of American-Jewish-leftist identity that is trying to reinvent itself.

She now defines herself as anti-Zionist and says she may never return to Israel despite family there. She draws on doikayt - "here-ness" in Yiddish - the Bundist concept of building Jewish life where you are rather than orienting toward Israel.

On separation from Israel:

"Something happened that cannot be simply rationalized or turned back. Israelis committed genocide. That needs to be accepted. Truth and reconciliation are needed. And until then, I feel my work is to encourage separation. I think it's also good for Israel. If we agree that the conditions for internal change don't exist, we must believe in some form of public pressure. And public pressure from world Jewry can have an impact."

On Zionism emptying Judaism:

"It's so strange to claim that Israel is still the heart of our Judaism only in negative. In the Judaism of American Zionists there is nothing but Zionism. Zionism itself is what emptied Judaism of content. Not alone, of course—there was a whole history here. The truth is that for most non-observant Israelis it's the same thing. So the problem of the American Jewish left is not exceptional."

On the need for new institutions:

"If we aspire to weaken Zionism within Jewish communities, we'll need to develop a robust vision for contemporary Judaism; to meet those who want to extricate themselves from the rot with something beautiful and true in our hands," she wrote. "We cannot ask them to jump and refuse to catch them."

On whether Jews bear responsibility for consequences of Israel's actions:

"Israel changed the status of Jews in the entire world. We are experiencing more violence because of Israel's claim that we are its agents... When foreign governments console Netanyahu for Jews murdered in Sydney, that endangers us."

Hebrew https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/2026-03-25/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/0000019d-24f4-d7c1-a59f-eeffb4490000 or https://archive.ph/Xj17q

#zionism #israel #warcrimes #gazagenocide #JewishCurrents #antizionism