Jewish Anti-Zionist Movement Founded in Vienna Builds Momentum Across Europe

From Zionism's Birthplace: A Jewish Anti-Zionist Movement Emerges

The second Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress is set to take place in Dublin, Ireland later this week.

The 2026 iteration builds on last year’s inaugural gathering held in Vienna, the birthplace of political Zionism, where the movement was formally launched. It was in that very city that Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat in February 1896, the seminal work that laid the foundations for modern political Zionism and helped give rise to the Zionist movement.

Organisers of the Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress view the establishment of their organisation in Vienna as a symbolic reversal of that history, arguing that the same city that witnessed the birth of political Zionism is now hosting a growing Jewish movement opposed to Zionism and supportive of Palestinian liberation, equality, and self-determination.

“Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust,” activist and author Andrew Feinstein, who is a member of the organisation, tells Palestine Deep Dive. “But it is Palestinians who have suffered the consequences of the establishment, creation, and extreme militarisation of the state of Israel,” he says.

The upcoming three-day conference brings together a range of participants including academics, journalists, politicians, and activists to discuss the evolving landscape of Jewish anti-Zionist thought and its role in contemporary political discourse. Organisers describe this year’s theme as a shift “from words into action”, focusing on practical resistance to Zionist settler-colonialism.