My response to your criticisms.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle. You are reading a special Friday edition for paying subscribers only. Thank you for supporting our work. Please spread the word.

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First things first, I need to issue one small but important clarification.

In our piece last Friday, I referenced a Jerusalem Post story alleging that “Hamas had admitted” 72% of the dead in Gaza were “combat-aged men.” However, between the time I first started working on this piece (in April) and the publication of the piece (in late May), The Jerusalem Post updated their headline in a very important way: They changed it from “Hamas admits 72% of deaths are combat-aged men as it quietly reduces civilian death toll” to “Hamas admits 72% of combat-aged fatalities are men, quietly reduces civilian death toll.” This is a subtle but obviously critical change, and it adds weight to my skepticism about the data. One reader sent in a helpful breakdown about this curious change, which you can read here. 

Now, I’d like to talk about what we are doing today. Every now and again, when a piece like last Friday’s generates so much feedback, we decide to follow it up with an edition focused on reader criticisms and responses to what we wrote. We have done this on Israel pieces in the past, but also other topics such as the murder of Brian Thompson, trans issues, reparations, and abortion, among others.

We do this because we understand that we are not the arbiters of truth; we don’t regard our position as sacrosanct; and we know how many of our readers are smart, passionate, thoughtful people whose views and ideas also deserve a platform. Also, we believe it fits into the Tangle ethos of elevating a wide range of views, a diversity of opinion, and respectful dialogue.

The format looks like this: I’m going to share some criticisms and pieces of feedback in plain type font, and identify the names and the locations (if disclosed) of the people who sent them. I’ll reply to some of the responses — where readers ask me direct questions or where I think a criticism really merits an answer — in bold with a clear label that the writing is from me, Isaac. However, most of the criticism will stand on its own.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that my essay was received positively by so many people, even my critics, and that it seemed to generate some genuinely thoughtful and respectful debate in the Tangle community. So thank you, again, to everyone who participated in the conversation in good faith. 

One final note: Shortly after I published my piece last week, I got a text message from Jonah Platt, the host of the Being Jewish podcast (where I was a guest last year). He and I see this issue differently, and he asked if he could come on the Tangle podcast to ask me questions about the piece. I thought this was an interesting (and Tangle-y) idea: inviting a critic onto my podcast to interview me. So… we did it. 

And have to say, I thought the conversation was genuinely excellent. Jonah asked some really thoughtful, pointed questions. We were able to disagree without being disagreeable, and it helped me clarify some of my own positions. It also helped me realize where I needed to better articulate my views, and made me question some of what I wrote in the piece. I strongly encourage anyone interested in this topic to listen to the interview: You can find that episode here; we’re also releasing a YouTube version of the interview, which you can watch here (it should be live around 12:30pm ET).

Now, onto the feedback…

A post by the writer Adam Sherman, which he also sent via email:

Isaac Saul's recent podcast “I think I'm leaving Zionism, or Zionism is leaving me” struck a deep chord with me. As a Zionist Jewish father, I find myself grappling with two painful realities: watching what I believe is ethnic cleansing unfold in Gaza, and seeing the Zionist movement increasingly hijacked by religious fundamentalists. This is a pattern that eerily mirrors how extremist Muslims have co-opted Arab nationalist movements.

I regret that I failed to write Isaac earlier to voice my support for his Zionist case for a ceasefire. Many moderate secular Zionists I know view Isaac as Zionism's ideal representative, despite religious zealots claiming there's no room in our movement for moderates like him.

The comparison to American conservatism offers hope. Just as MAGA has taken over much of the Republican party, Netanyahu and his Knesset coalition represent what I believe is the most destructive incarnation of Zionism we've witnessed. Yet core Republican judges have stood firm against Trump's overreach, refusing to abandon their principles of limited government and constitutional values. They haven't abandoned conservative Republicanism, they're fighting to preserve its true meaning.

Similarly, I believe Jews who still believe in the Zionist project must refuse to abandon our core principles in the face of extremism. We cannot let Netanyahu's government define what Zionism means, just as principled conservatives won't let Trump define conservatism.

My vision of Zionism rests on three fundamental goals:

• The establishment of a safe and secure homeland for the Jewish people
• Israeli self-determination, not domination over others
• Peaceful coexistence with Arab and Palestinian neighbors and citizens

This dream feels farther away than I can ever remember, but distance doesn't diminish its worth. The current crisis makes these principles more vital, not less.

I cannot imagine a better spokesperson for authentic Zionism than Isaac Saul, who has taken the time to understand and experience all sides of Israel's current reality. So I come, hat in hand, asking him to continue identifying as a Zionist. A Zionist, who like me, rejects settlement expansion, who opposes the bloodthirsty rhetoric from Netanyahu's government, who stands for Judaism's principle of “Tikkun Olam,” literally repairing the world.

These are Zionism and Judaism's fundamental principles. Those who call for mass murder of civilians and children have abandoned both traditions. We who remain must reclaim what they've distorted, not surrender the field to them. The stakes couldn't be higher. Without voices like Isaac's, Zionism risks becoming everything its founders never intended and everything its critics claim it always was.

Moderate Zionism needs you more than ever Isaac, please don’t leave us.

— Adam from Portland, Oregon

Isaac: I’ve gotten similar feedback from a lot of people. I view it as a kind and generous gesture — to insist I have a home in Zionism and to make me feel more welcome. I’m struggling with how to understand or process it. In simple terms: I am absolutely moved by the call to action to help reform this iteration of Zionism back toward something more just and moral. I think that is a strong call to action, and I’m quite sympathetic to the view that believing in a homeland for Jews is all that is required to make me a Zionist. Candidly: The idea that nothing I wrote means I’m not a Zionist was a consistent theme in the feedback, and one that readers may just be right about.

However, a few thoughts do still hang me up.

First, I wonder how useful the label of Zionism really is in 2025. I want a Jewish homeland, and it exists. Zionists achieved Israel. Today’s question is not the same one we had in 1948 — it’s what we want that state to look like now, how we want it to account for and accommodate the people harmed by its creation, and what kinds of relationships we want it to have with its neighbors. If Zionism has been so captured by zealotry and fury, then I think it’s reasonable to wonder if a separate, different movement of people who still insist upon a Jewish homeland but want to see it manifested in a more moral and just way can exist outside the umbrella of Zionism.

Second, I think Zionism is more than just the belief in (or maintenance of) a Jewish homeland. Zionism is a political movement, one made of people and ideas that are more than just the basic belief in Jews’ right to self-determination. For instance, I can observe that “Zionism has gotten more extreme” or “Zionism has gotten more religious” in the last few decades; I can’t say the same about the basic belief in a Jews’ right to a homeland. I think, in part, what I’m struggling with is how completely overmatched and isolated people like me and Adam are in the movement, given how different so many of our views are from the vast majority of its adherents.

To be candid: I don’t know if my views still qualify me as a Zionist, and I don’t know if leaving the movement or staying in it is more productive. Maybe Adam (and the many other readers you’ll see below) are right that this fight is better fought from the inside. I’m thinking out loud and evolving in public, so I can’t pretend to have all the answers.

For Israel and me, at the age of fourteen, it was love at first sight. This love at first sight is an experience common to Jews who visit Israel. Perhaps thousands of years of prayers and longing have imbued our psyche with a connection that we feel as soon as we step on terra sancta.