The arduous task of pushing back succeeded. In the interregnum, the world had changed: In 1989, the Soviet-aligned communist states of Central and Eastern Europe collapsed, followed by the Soviet Union itself, in 1991. With John Bolton, then Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs leading the way to repeal on Dec. 16, 1991, the General Assembly voted 111-25, with 13 abstentions, to rescind the odious measure. I was privileged to be in the General Assembly chamber that day representing B’nai B’rith, when the vote was taken.

Such big lies die hard, if at all. The vote to repeal was a high point in sanity at the U.N. But that moment quickly faded, and has devolved into an anti-Semitic, discriminatory morass at the world body, which seeks to single out Israel for opprobrium at every opportunity. Its agencies, like the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and the International Court of Justice, go about their anti-Israel business, frequently updating their hatred, as is the case today. At present, the blood libel that Israel is committing war crimes, carrying our genocide, and intentionally caused starvation of Palestinians is central to the patois of what passes for international diplomacy today.

The Zionism=Racism charge lives on today as never before. Remember the pro-Palestinian agitator who announced on a New York City subway car that he was declaring a “Zionist free zone”? Many university campus pro-Hamas “encampments” delivered similar admonitions. The 2017 Women’s March on Washington, co-led by Palestinian sympathizer Linda Sarsour, made it clear that “Zionism and feminism are not compatible,” essentially telling pro-Israel women they were unwelcome. In her speech at the march, she stated: “Nothing is more repugnant than Zionism.” (Today, Sarsour is an advisor to the newly elected mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani).

So then, what is it about Zionism that evokes such visceral reactions? We should begin by saying we have nothing to apologize for. The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is seeded in every paragraph of the Tanach. Archeological digs every year produce new revelations about our ancient birthright. We were a people led by kings and prophets and today, in modern day Israel, we can visit those very sites where these iconic figures in Jewish history lived, led and walked.

The Romans and others conquered the land, but not before uprisings spoke to Jewish identity and courage. And then, for 2,000 years, we were expelled and exiled, from the very center of our existence as a people. The yearning to return was omnipresent in Jewish hearts and minds everywhere in our dispersion, where we faced discrimination and persecution. My father, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1913, always told me that a picture of Theodor Herzl was proudly adorned in his shtetl home in Czarist Russia. As a recent immigrant to America, my mother, in 1912, gave a proud Zionist speech as a youth group leader in her new home in Bangor, Maine.

When I went to work in the Jewish community after graduate school, just as the Zionism=Racism resolution was being adopted in New York, I was the Boston director of the American Zionist Federation (now the American Zionist Movement). I can’t tell you how many speeches I gave in which I proudly stated, “Zionism is the liberation movement of the Jewish people.”

The stain brought about by the equating of Zionism and racism will not wash out easily. But there should be no doubt as to its stubborn intentions: to deny to us what is our historic right as Jews and as free men and women. For this, we are entitled. The effort to take this away from us is not about day-to-day geopolitics. That is a cover for more nefarious goals. The message of those who seek to wrest this right from us is very clear. They are telling you exactly what they mean: On Oct. 7, 2023, they acted out what the pro-Hamas demonstrators were chanting, globally: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

We have only one Israel. We can differ over a wide array of how to bring peace to it and its people—and to us, as Jews—but we also need to be mindful every day that the drumbeat to delegitimize and demonize our singular, sovereign place as a people continues unabated.

Unity is oftentimes elusive, in an age of divisiveness, but it is essential today if we are to prevail over those who seek ill for Israel and its supporters.

As always, the Psalms say it best. ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.” (137).

Words to live by.