Professor Artyom Kirbichunok, a Jewish historian and philosopher, asserts that the Zionist movement has never represented Jewish consensus since its inception, and that critical Jewish voices have emerged from within academic and military institutions, rejecting the reduction of Jewish identity to a settler project. In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Kirbichunok shares the details of his intellectual and personal journey, from his upbringing in a secular socialist environment in the Soviet Union to his emigration to Israel and service in its army, culminating in his decision to leave the country and disconnect from the official narrative.
Kirbichunok recalls his early days with family in Israel, stating they lived in a "absorption center" in Jerusalem, an old hotel where each family occupied one room, and that his elderly parents relied on aid while he worked as a cleaner and prepared to enroll in university. After a year, they purchased an apartment in Ashkelon near Gaza due to the high cost of living in Jerusalem, feeling the initial excitement of beginning life as refugees fleeing the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He expresses his shock at the integration process: the beauty of Jerusalem captivated him, but the reality of the new Israeli cities along the coast was ugly to him, and the Israelis generally treated the incoming Jews as competitors, with a disdain he was not accustomed to from the Soviet Union. This led him to minimize his interactions with Israelis and limit himself to professional relationships until he realized that Israel was a country different in culture, language, and mentality.
Kirbichunok served in a warehouse on one of the Israel Defense Forces bases in northern Gaza in the mid-1990s. He was surprised by the lack of discipline among Israeli soldiers, from sleeping on duty to neglecting their weapons and uniforms, which explains his disbelief in conspiracy theories regarding the October 7 events, and his astonishment that the crisis had not occurred earlier. He explains that learning other principles through study and exposure to lectures and literature dissenting from the official propaganda led him to reevaluate Zionism.
He states that Zionism was built on economic and historical myths, for example, the claim that it brought prosperity to Palestine, while he learned in lectures that settlers faced difficulties adapting to the climate and agriculture, and that the survival of some settlers was linked to assistance from Palestinians and other settlers.
He also lived in neighborhoods inhabited by Jews from Morocco, Yemen, and Iraq, where he sensed hostility from earlier arriving European Jews, learning that Israeli society is one interwoven with feelings of mutual hatred among its different groups, and that the war with the Palestinians is the only unifying factor. This discovery led him to connect with leftist activists and members of the Communist Party, and to a final decision not to continue living in Israel.
Kirbichunok points out that many Israelis remain in the country for pragmatic reasons: debts, family ties, or a desire to secure the migration of the next generation to countries like Canada, the United States, or Germany. He noted a significant contradiction between what Israelis write publicly online and what they say in their homes.
As a historian, he asserts that Zionism is a historical phenomenon with a beginning and potentially an end, and that addressing its impacts (the trauma) will be a task for Jews to face in the future as occurred after previous ideological collapses. He adds that he feels ashamed of his prior involvement in the Zionist project and that he will continue to pay the price for that.
Critically, Kirbichunok mentions the central European perspective in interpreting the conflict, and that the terms Jewish or Israeli regarding Palestine carry a doubled weight in the West, forcing Palestinians to cite statements from Israeli dissidents to gain credibility. However, he believes that the world is gradually moving toward a plurality of opinion centers, and that this will change sooner or later.
In his practical recommendations, he advises Israelis to learn Arabic and gradually transform into what he calls “good Palestinians,” while urging Palestinians and Islamic countries to study Israeli society in depth to understand its strengths and weaknesses, emphasizing that academic understanding of the adversary leads to effective victory.
Kirbichunok also outlines moral and intellectual reasons for his break from Zionism, explaining that breaking away is a voluntary moral choice that allows individuals to determine their camp, citing historical comparisons that show exposing the falsehoods of ideologies does not mean their immediate collapse.
Kirbichunok’s interviews present a model for dissenting Jewish voices within the debate on Zionism, a voice relying on a mix of personal experience in Israel, and academic and critical expertise in history and politics.