The Groybergs

Inside the Zionist Zoomer Right

When I lived in the US and was very involved in my community, it wasn’t difficult to incite sectarian flames in the kids. The US Jewish community has undergone a lot of demographic change that hasn’t caught up to the liberal boomer old guard. With 80% marry out rates among the non-Orthodox, as well as Soviet and Israeli immigration, everyone below my age is far more skewed towards the right wing and being more religious. The majority below 30 is assuredly Orthodox at this point. The token Jew that most goyische Americans of this age remember from school is often not recognisably Jewish at this point, and has no Jewish identity beyond eating pickles but that would also be too generous in many cases.

The American diaspora in this way has taken a very Soviet turn, especially in light of the wave of left wing antisemitism. They’re very integrated into general society, highly educated, and dominate the elite sectors. But as the liberal left dream failed to produce true acceptance, they’ve hit a brick wall. True freedom isn’t relying on a majority tolerating your existence, it’s being able to make decisions for yourself. And so like Soviet Jews, Zionism becomes the new epithet. Like Soviet Jews too, the assimilation has melted all traditions and identity that is more than being an other. There exists within this an up and coming cadre of online dissident right zoomers that completely reflects this trend. They’re from peripheral communities usually, and from more secular or religiously relaxed right wing families. Many are even from Russian speaking backgrounds. They’re full of anger and conflicting identities. In other words, Libermans. And like Liberman, they’re serious Zionists. Some have already made Aliyah, with many of the others planning. I’ve spent the last months with many of the personalities in this new online space and interviewed a few of them. They are the future.

Being 28, I never related much to generational conversation. I’m a “zillennial”, neither zoomer nor millennial, old enough to remember a world where history had still ended but young enough to have been jaded by its end. Recently however, I have felt like an “unc.” I am old now. I have learned this unfortunate fact after seeing right wing Jewish zoomers online and interacting with them online. They have run circles around me. I have been shocked by the edginess. My youth has ended.

But their methods are effective. They have learned the lesson from the Tik-Tok age that if you’re explaining you’re losing. Nobody has the attention span and even if they did, they would be too self absorbed anyway to listen. Being raised through extremist discord servers with Nick Fuentes in one ear, and Ben Shapiro in the other, they’ve created a shock and awe style of posting. Absolutely ruthless, their video edits feature the most destructive and explosive IDF combat videos next to Eurodance meme music. When they comment, they revel in Gaza being laid waste unapologetically. Their meme images have copied alt-right and nordicist elements, with Lehi posing Anime girls cutely baying for blood. Their figurehead that they invoke is like a spectre haunting Israel, Meir Kahane. He dances in dark electronic music videos and appears constantly as a ghost of what is to come.

Some of this group was always obsessive about politics like niche poster @nordausson who “came into politics naturally at a young age - 2015 MAGA. Uncle beat the shit outta me at Thanksgiving and called me a Nazi (fun times). I was 10.” But others had moments of awakening as the chief video editor, @zadokism, explains, “The moment that began to ‘open my eyes’ politically was COVID, as I believe many other people were the same. A lot about Covid was blatantly, systematically false—although we were being told the contrary (e.g. lied to).” Another big moment was October 7th which dragged many towards the right with prolific memer @generalzog613 relating, “I was in Israel on October 7th and seeing the worlds reaction to it made it clear it was an us vs them sort of situation, the more time that passed since then the more radical I became.”

For people a bit younger than me, I’m not saying anything new when I say their late adolescence and early adulthood have been robbed from them. For everyone with COVID and now Jews with the war. I’ve seen in real time and in my own life everyone around us go insane and things in the diaspora return to their historical mean. The rational response to this is to radicalise. But there’s a deeper alienation that always has been lurking under the surface.

My offline friend, Dosi, known by the handle @parsatz97, wrote to me beautifully about this, “I’m a Russian Ashkenazi ‘Israeli’ living in the US. I put Israeli in quotes because while I was physically born in Israel and hold Israeli citizenship, I left Israel at a young age to go to the USA. While I spoke Hebrew fluently, the ESL teachers at the time thought that children should only speak English.They ordered my parents to speak only English to me at home. I lost my birth language to forced integration and struggle to understand them today.

Emil Cioran wrote about the experience of the Romanian people with constant occupation, saying that ‘It is no nation we inhabit, but a language. Make no mistake; our native tongue is our true fatherland.’ The Romanian identity survived the various nationstates through language. Us Jews did the same. We communicated with Hebrew as a lingua franca despite us being spread throughout the world. Jews were the outsider group, united by Hebrew. Both sides of my family lived in Russia before the Soviet Union and had their Judaism ripped from them through secularization. There’s a concept that Hashem gives a family who wandered from Judaism 4 generations to become religious again before they’re wiped out. I was the 4th generation. Instead of being raised with the national language and being able to function in my own ethnoreligion’s society, I became the same as my parents who were raised secular in terms of understanding. Obviously this fucked me up deeply in ways that I’m still unpacking today. First, I will never be Israeli. My passport and documents cannot replace the cultural memes that come with growing up in Israel and I cannot adopt current Israeli memes in their pure form because I don’t know the language. I can support Israel and be a loyal citizen but I will never be truly Israeli. Some might argue that I’m fetishizing Israel and the Zionist idea of the New Jew. They are correct but this is a weakness of mine that I’m not quite ready to cover with armor. Second, I am very anti-assimilationist. This doesn’t mean that I’m not a loyal American, I absolutely love the United States. My heart is red, white, and tinged blue from the national diet. I’m patriotically fat, vote for the Republican candidate in every election, and am a strong supporter of American hegemony. That being said, I can do that without assimilating into American culture and without intermarriage.”

I would personally disagree with him regarding that he will “never be Israeli” however this is a common feeling that exists both in the diaspora and among Olim in Israel. There is something to be said about not growing up with the same experience but at the end of the day there isn’t one way to be Israeli, and that is an inherently Israeli experience. Despite fitting in myself and being Israeli before anything, of course I feel the differences. But these tensions are not dissimilar to the differences between the various communities and their experiences in Israel. What does it mean to be an Israeli to the Kibbutznik Ashkenazi is quite different from growing up in a peripheral Mizrahi home, which is different from a Russian in a seaside town. Let alone the vast chasm in life between the secular and religious.

But a common sentiment like this is one of the fundamental contradictions of living in the diaspora. While people bring up the idea of dual loyalty, in reality among committed Zionists there is only a single loyalty. Why else would you move to Israel, serve in a foreign military, and attach yourself to this national project? When I visited a friend at a bar in America recently, I made a comment about this idea of dual loyalty and he replied snarkily, “I had no idea you had any loyalty to the United States.” And he’s right, I don’t. I regularly bring up in these right wing Zionist circles that I don’t understand what seems misplaced to me, and everyone agrees more or less. Ultimately, it’s emotionally quite difficult to let go of what is familiar to you. Whatever part of me that was still American died on October 7th, for many others, especially online, it only was an incomplete death they don’t yet wish to completely acknowledge.

This plays directly with the current issues in American Jewish life, which has historically been much more liberal. My fellow OSINT junkie mutual @jacobL1994_ captures this dynamic that I’ve written about before, “What is broken in liberal Jewish life is that liberal Jews often see Judaism as simply providing religious justification for their political views. You see this in the form of things like ‘Tikkun olam means Black Lives Matter’- nothing to do with Torah.”

A Rhodesian from Rananafountein who wishes to remain anonymous continues the thread, “Jews have always been the forefront of the progressive movements , we were there when MLK wrote his speech , we helped gay rights. I think each generation of jews just became more and more woke and instead of saying ‘wait a minute maybe we should slow down a bit’ they have fully leaned into the whole idea of tikun olam and demand rights for everyone, even tho in this day and age there is rights for everyone(except white men).”

It’s worth explaining what even is the concept of Tikkun Olam. It is a concept from Lurianic Kabbalah and it is bizarre how it has been co-opted and twisted by Liberal American Jews. Simplifying, there exists a jewish mystical concept that whenever you do sins it creates bad destructive forces in the world and whenever you perform a mitzvah, a biblical commandment, you repair the world in a form of almost spiritual magic. The bagel Jews have morphed this into an all comprehensive vision that the religion of Judaism is not about keeping Shabbat and Kashrut and you know, Judaism, but is actually about social justice. This bastardisation of Tikkun Olam is invoked at liberal synagogues across North America as the mission, not keeping or studying the Torah.

The tension I’ve written about before in previous works between Israeli and American liberals is relayed by @parsatz97, “I need to stress that American liberal Jewish life and Israeli liberal Jewish life are incredibly different creatures to the point where they share almost nothing in common. The American liberal Jew has no actual connection to Judaism outside of empty ritual and genetics. They had a bar/bat mitzvah once and do a seder once a year then call it a day. When they talk about Jewish culture, they talk about Ashkenazi food and identify with the historical victimhood of their Ashkenazi ancestors. This leads them to leftism and co-opting their own status for political points.They are either becoming religious or assimilating, none are staying in place. The Israeli liberal Jew is a Kaplanist who hates Netanyahu and who fantasizes about imitating the American Democrats to the point of naming their political party after them.They seethe with hatred at the collapse of leftist Ashkenazi state institutions. I mean, at this point just name all the stereotypes and you’ll be right. These people don’t meaningfully exist anymore”

Despite all identifying on the right, there is a certain sense of political homelessness. Jacob wrote directly to me that, “Politically I’m somewhat homeless, I suppose I would consider myself a ‘liberal nationalist’ if there is such a thing.”

There’s a lot of diversity of thought but there is an inherently alienating aspect of being an Israeli and a Jew as the whenwe anon describes, “I was always a bit radical but i think after Oct 7th i just became more. I mean the fact that i travel and i tell people im from israel and you can see the look of disgust on their face radicalizes you to some degree, but i think i went even more not normal than the average hasbara ‘israel has the right to defend itself’ which is just liberalism in itself.”

On this point, @magnumoctane talks specifically about how the dual consciousness of being Jewish eliminates the possibility of being fully assimilated into the right, “Being Jewish has shaped my politics because it has prevented me from fully buying in to any right-wing ideology. It allows me to take everything with a grain of salt, because Jewishness always comes with some degree of heavy and poetic alienation. As a result I have never soiled myself publicly or become unemployable by braying stupidities on blogs and podcasts under my real name.”

General Zog said similarly but focused on being Jewish in America, “Being Jewish shaped my political beliefs after I saw how much people hated me for, the more it’s hated the more I leaned into it and was proud of it. I take a bit of a whole bunch of peoples views and really created my own political identity. ”

Zadok goes a bit further, “I think my politics have shaped my Jewish identity more than vice versa. As mentioned, I wasn’t really raised ‘Jewish’, I was raised as ‘American’, more so. I knew I was ‘Jewish’, but didn’t grow up around that being my identity. When it comes to Israel/Zionism, etc — being Jewish does shape your politics when understanding the “Dual Loyalty” reality. We have a different plight than the traditional “White American”, even if you’re a White-passing Jew, you are still a Jew. You have alliances and dependency elsewhere. Notably (obv), Israel.”

In my own life, I really felt what Dosi said to me, “Being Jewish has made me more aware of how quickly opinions change and how deeply held convictions are most often performative. That being said, when they’re not performative you’re able to find some of the strongest allies that you would have never expected otherwise.”

There’s a saying in Yiddish, “America is not different.” The country we were most assimilated before the US was Germany. Warsaw and Baghdad used to be more Jewish than NYC, along with many other cities where now there are no Jews. Those who have woken up understand that our position can flip on a dime, that no place will truly ever be safe but our own.

There’s a few things in common here with this space in the general attitude. The propagandist Zadok calls the unification of this corner of the internet as, “ZOGGERS” and, “Might is right understanders.” @avundefeated said slightly differently, “Pro-strength, whether through peace or war.”

Dosi once again crystallises the difference here, “I’m too nuanced and I’m blunt with my criticisms. I have a hard time fitting in with normal people because their politics is too team based while I have no problems disagreeing with people. I left Kahanism because I heavily disagreed with kicking out Muslim Arabs from Israel when they fit the category of people who are halachically allowed in Israel. I annoyed American Republicans by supporting cutting aid to Israel. I don’t know how I would describe my average follower. They’re either Jewish or aligned with BAP. I deliberately don’t discriminate between male and female followers as it’s pointless.”

So, what is Zionism to these sensitive young men? A lot of overlapping and related things. As Zadok put it, “Everything. Psalm 51.”

Acrylic, known also as @canuckyahood, states simply, “I support the simple definition that Zionism is the belief that a Jewish state in the land of Israel should exist. I want an Israel that is prosperous, growing, religious, independent of others and bigger! Zionism makes me proud to be a Jew, but I still see reality. When we flex and make our enemies feel impotent it brings me great joy.”

General Zog outlines a similar vision, “Zionism to me is simply the right to a Jewish homeland. I hope in the future Israel is less left wing and with less bureaucracy. The more people hate Zionism the more I lean into it. I love it when Israel flexes, it makes me think Jews aren’t so easy to fuck with anymore.”

AV talks in terms of the idea of the national project, “Zionism means the right of Jews to self-govern anywhere but especially Israel the holy land with Jerusalem as the capital. I want a stronger Israel, but a more beautiful one. Israel’s architecture, art, food, music, etc. must continue to elevate and be greater, and be so incredibly unique and beautiful its existence can never be questioned. Jewish mass immigration from all over the world has created a unique mesh of identities but it is time to form one that shames others.”

But Nordau’s son declares how we must change as a people, “Zionism to me is Jewish Nationalism. Reclamation of our ancient homeland. No longer are Jews merely a mercantile, intellectual peoples - we are warriors.”

A question here is raised is how does this group interact with the parallel dissident right figures in the gentile world. One that is often antisemitic. The brai cooker bluntly puts it, “Nick Fuentes I actually really think he is the voice of the young gen right men. We are just so fed up with everything , unfortunately Nick is a nazi, but he does have that charm about him which def brings out the fire in zoomers.”

But Magnum makes a distinction here however, “The groyper tendency is something that came after the old alt-right. Groyperism is more diverse and gen-Z. I think dissident right is whiter and more millennial. Antisemitism from those I otherwise disagree with is on a case-by-case basis. Martin probably defines the line. He feels the need to antagonize us to maintain his bona fides, but he has done a lot to dispel the more abysmally moronic tendencies. But you still see those from intelligent people like BAP or Anna Kachiyan. That’s when it pisses me off the most, because they should know better and are simply captured to a degree by their audiences.”

In terms of how they feel online, I think Dosi captures the average view, “Dissident right spaces are more blunt, offensive, and rude which fits with my personality. I have no problem with antisemitic right wing people because they are honest with it which allows us to talk freely about it. I’ve changed plenty of people’s minds by being open and talking to them about Jews/Israel. I think rightwingers are all bark with very little bite while Leftists hide their antisemitism until it explodes and end up hurting people.”

Their overall religious views are not what you might expect. They are typically traditionally minded or on the lighter end of the religious spectrum. But with the centrality of nationalism, this should not be surprising. I’ve been to Dosi’s family for Shabbat and would say he is at the more religious end of the group, “I’m Modern Orthodox and this has sort of influenced my politics but not as much as you would think. I’m anti LGBT rights and all that stuff but I’m also very skeptical of the Israeli far right, especially Religious Zionism. They keep on saying stuff like take Gaza it’s our holy land but when I point out to them that Gaza was never promised to the Jews, they get really angry. Same with the death penalty, halachically we are unable to impose it but they support it anyway. Modern liberal values are not compatible with Judaism but they’re the least antisemitic at this point.”

Zadok takes the more American approach, “I would call myself ‘Conservative’/Masorti. I have my disagreements with the mainstream Orthodox perspective, but I appreciate them and their plight. I have a separate one in my belief/life path ahead.”

Acrylic I think is a good representative of much of the group, raised secular in peripheral Jewish communities, “I’m steadily becoming more religious, I wear a tzitzit, I say shema twice a day, I light candles and do a Kidush on Fridays and I celebrate all the holidays, I guess this makes me masorti. I became religious sort of independently of my politics and I have a separation of the two, however I think religion has really helped me see the value in traditional family values and gender roles. I think liberal values are compatible to an extent but I’m really nobody to speak about this since my knowledge on religious philosophy is still limited. I can’t speak for the other question either really.”

What’s next for all of them? Zadok aims the highest, “Probably politics. Propaganda. the Jewish Goebbels. Gen-Z Shapiro. Something of the sort. Still up in the air.”

Acrylic’s answer though is the one of a real Zionist, “I’m moving to Israel and joining the IDF soon, afterwards I’d like to get a degree and marry and have lots of children, from there we’ll see.” A lot of people call themselves Zionists online, but if you’re not doing what he is, do you really mean it?

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