response to kylebisme in mondoweiss

kylebisme asserted in a post by mark braverman regarding Presbyterian engagement on I/P creates new rules for relationship with the Jewish community.

that there had never been a mainstream Jewish majority support for Zionism until after WWII and this was because the Nazis had let the Zionists live and killed the antiZionists. I took offense.

kyklebisme- Germany had the highest survival rate for Jews of any country that the Nazis occupied, annexed or ruled. That was because from 1933 Germany made clear to the Jews that they weren’t welcome. Those who could afford it, left. Most of them went elsewhere besides Palestine. It may be true that those who ended up in Palestine survived and those who escaped to the Netherlands (for example) ended up dead, but that was not because of the Nazis preferential treatment of Zionists.
In any case, Germany was never the great home of Zionism. Eastern Europe (particularly those lands ruled by the Czars from 1790 until 1917) was the great home of Zionism. And in Eastern Europe the Nazis didn’t differentiate between Zionists and nonZionists or antiZionists. They killed them all, or at least all they could get their hands on.
Post WWII Jewish mainstream support for Zionism did not have to do with the Nazi selections. It had to do with the fact that the universalism that was at the core of the Jewish secular belief system previous to WWII was shattered by the Nazis, their collaborators and the world’s apathetic onlookers. Maybe that shattering was a mistake. (Maybe in fact the world could be trusted to take care of its Jews? No. That assumption is fallacious. The world cannot be counted on to protect anyone. Rwanda’s Tutsi’s found that out 17 years ago.) But that may be beside the point. Maybe despite the fact that the world looks away when it is convenient, universalism is still the best philosophy around. It might be shitty from time to time, but it may be better than nationalism when we get down to cases. But in the aftermath of Auschwitz few Jews were in that state of mind. Their state of mind was: we have to worry about ourselves. The world doesn’t give a shit. That was what was different after WWII, not the population of Zionist Jews based upon the Nazis selections. (Read Isaac Deutscher, who obviously felt that this abandonment of universalism was regrettable and hoped that the Jews would recover.)
(I find your theory regarding the post WWII mainstream Jewish pro Zionist opinion to be ignorant and offensive.)