Mari Cohen

Mari Cohen is an American Jewish journalist and associate editor at Jewish Currents. She publicly identifies as an anti‑Zionist and has spoken about her political development from a liberal pro‑Israel upbringing toward a structural critique of Zionism. In a 2024 Jewish Currents podcast, she described her discomfort with the idea of a state reserved for a specific religious group and explained why she adopted the anti‑Zionist label after years of questioning Zionism and learning from Palestinian peers. Cohen rejects political Zionism as a legitimate framework, stating that the term has become inseparable from its colonial history and its effects on Palestinians. She argues that Zionism’s meaning is determined by what it has meant to those displaced by it and affirms support for Palestinian liberation and equality. Her work situates her within a broader current of Jewish anti‑Zionist dissent that challenges Jewish supremacy and critiques the ideological foundations of the Israeli state. “The term Zionism has become subsumed by what it has become in Israel, by its effects on Palestinians, by its colonial history… I’m fine with taking the term Zionism, throwing it in the proverbial trash.” - https://jewishcurrents.org/on-zionism-and-anti-zionism