The Jewish Quarterly

The Jewish Quarterly has cultivated literary journalism of the highest standard for almost 70 years. It is an independent publication that explores Jewish issues, and issues of humanity from a Jewish perspective.

The Jewish Quarterly is published four times a year – in February, May, August and November. Each issue features a major political or cultural theme, investigated in long-form essays by prominent voices from around the world. JQ’s mission is not to advocate, but to investigate complex and pressing matters of politics, religion, history and culture, and to do so in depth.

Founded in 1953 by Jacob Sonntag, JQ’s new editor is Jonathan Pearlman. The Jewish Quarterly is published out of Australia and is distributed and accessible worldwide.

In the aftermath of October 7, Zionism has increasingly been used by critics of Israel as a term of derision. From university campuses to TikTok and Twitter/X, the term is employed as a self-evident slur that presumes that Zionists are racist and supremacist.

Yet, as Adam Kirsch writes in this groundbreaking essay, the challenge for Jews today is not merely to counter
attempts to distort and corrupt the meaning and origins of Zionism. The Jewish people, he argues, do not need to defend the term – they need to reclaim it. The Z Word reckons with the current trajectory of a people: in an age in which Jewish existence is under threat, the promise of Zionism is essential.

Adam Kirsch is a poet, critic and editor at The Wall Street Journal, whose books include The People and
the Books: Eighteen Classics of Jewish Literature and On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence and Justice.