…It is commonplace that the Haredim opposed Zionism because the Messiah had to come first. Yes, but that is just a surface, initial cause. On a deeper level, they rightly experienced the Zionists as less saviors of the Jewish people than antagonists bent on leaving them behind. For Israelis like these — I almost married one — she was adamant that she was not a Jew but an Israeli. For her, raised in a communist family in Israel, Judaism was the opiate of the masses. She did not believe in Christianity and so was not a Christian, she said, and did not believe in Judaism, so don’t call her a Jew…