Roger Cohen is a colum­nist for The New York Times, where he has worked since 1990: as a cor­re­spon­dent in Paris and Berlin, and as bureau chief in the Balka­ns cov­er­ing the Bosn­ian war (for which he received an Over­seas Press Club prize). He was named a colum­nist in 2009. He became for­eign edi­tor on 9/11, over­see­ing Pulitzer Prize-win­ning cov­er­age in the after­math of the attack. His columns appear twice a week, on Tues­days and Fri­days. His pre­vi­ous books include Sol­diers and Slaves and Hearts Grown Bru­tal. He lives in Lon­don, and will move back to New York in June. His newest book, The Girl from Human Street: Ghosts of Mem­o­ry in a Jew­ish Fam­i­ly, is now avail­able. He will be blog­ging here this week for the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil’s Vis­it­ing Scribe series.

As a New York Times colum­nist, I move reg­u­lar­ly back and forth across the Atlantic. I car­ry my Jew­ish iden­ti­ty with me, of course, but Jew­ish­ness is lived dif­fer­ent­ly in Europe and the Unit­ed States. Expres­sion of strong sup­port for Israel rais­es eye­brows among Euro­peans inclined to view the Jew­ish state as bel­li­cose or colo­nial­ist. Pales­tin­ian vic­tim­hood plays well on a con­ti­nent of strong paci­fist ten­den­cies. By con­trast, in the Unit­ed States it is crit­i­cism of Israel that tends to cause a fris­son of dis­ap­proval. The Israeli saga – of courage and will in the face of implaca­ble foes – res­onates in Amer­i­can mythol­o­gy, far beyond the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty. Per­haps no oth­er for­eign state prompts such intense feel­ings of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and sympathy.

Since the heinous Paris attacks on free­dom of expres­sion in gen­er­al, and on Jews in par­tic­u­lar, I have been pon­der­ing these dif­fer­ences anew. It is 120 years since the Drey­fus Affair involv­ing a French Jew­ish offi­cer wrong­ly accused of trea­son. The case divid­ed French soci­ety into Drey­fusards and anti-Drey­fusards, who were also anti-Semi­tes. Among those who cov­ered the case as a for­eign cor­re­spon­dent in Paris was Theodor Her­zl. The founder of mod­ern Zionism’s con­vic­tion that Jews would only escape anti-Semi­tism through the cre­ation of a state of their own was rein­forced by this expe­ri­ence; his sem­i­nal The Jew­ish State” was pub­lished in 1896, in the midst of Capt. Drey­fus’ legal tribulations.

Today, Zion­ism is a dirty word in Europe. Say you are a Zion­ist, as I some­times do, and you may encounter a scarce­ly sup­pressed gasp of increduli­ty. Yet, four French Jews have just been killed in a kosher super­mar­ket by an Islamist fanat­ic. Their bod­ies will be tak­en to Israel for bur­ial. The neces­si­ty of a Jew­ish home­land has been illus­trat­ed yet again.

It is a neces­si­ty born of a sim­ple fact: mil­len­nia of dias­po­ra wan­der­ing that cul­mi­nat­ed in the Holo­caust (which even Her­zl could not have imag­ined) demon­strat­ed that Jews could always be turned upon when a scape­goat was need­ed, that they would nev­er belong entire­ly, and that in the end only self-reliance would save them. Look­ing into the wan­der­ings of my fam­i­ly over four gen­er­a­tions – from Lithua­nia to South Africa and on to Israel, Britain and the Unit­ed States – I was left with no doubt that Jews need­ed a safe har­bor, a place where scrawny schol­ars would become vig­or­ous tillers of the soil, and no Jew would ever again go meek­ly to her fate. If Jews reached this con­clu­sion, it was with reluc­tance. Hav­ing reached it and forged their state, they will nev­er renounce it.

I would like to see a dis­cus­sion of Zion­ism in Europe on the basis of last week’s events. I would have liked to see Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu and Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Abbas shake hands in Paris and com­mit them­selves to the two-state peace that remains the only viable out­come in the Holy Land. Israeli-Pales­tin­ian peace would not elim­i­nate jihadism but over time it could help stanch it. I am con­vinced that Mus­lim lead­ers must do far more to denounce the mur­der­ous ide­ol­o­gy that finds its inspi­ra­tion in a Wah­habi read­ing of Islam and turned Paris last week into a city of fear.

Last time I was in Israel I saw an old friend, Micha Sha­grir, a movie pro­duc­er who is dying of can­cer in a Jerusalem hos­pice. We talked about old times. It was a ten­der moment. Micha mused on projects he still dreamed of com­plet­ing. His body had become the frail ves­sel of an unbowed spir­it. A year ago, in Paris, he was found wan­der­ing around, lost, the first sign of the tumor in his brain. Thir­ty-five years ago, in 1980, his wife Aliza was killed in the bomb­ing of the syn­a­gogue on Rue Coper­nic in Paris.

Life’s pat­terns, the per­son­al and the polit­i­cal, how one con­tains the oth­er, how time is not lin­ear but may eddy in cir­cles: these have been and remain the themes that inter­est me most. 

Check back on Thurs­day for more from Roger Cohen.

Relat­ed Content:

Roger Cohen is a colum­nist for The New York Times, where he has worked since 1990 as a cor­re­spon­dent in Paris and Berlin and as bureau chief in the Balka­ns cov­er­ing the Bosn­ian war, for which he was cit­ed for excel­lence by the Over­seas Press Club. He was named for­eign edi­tor on 9/11, over­see­ing Pulitzer Prize-win­ning cov­er­age in the after­math of the attack. His pre­vi­ous books include Sol­diers and Slaves and Hearts Grown Bru­tal. He lives in London.