In the book review of a festschrift in honour of Rabbi Elmer Berger "Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections" (1988), Sheldon Richman characterized Shahak's interpretation of Zionism as viewing it as an atavistic reaction against the European Enlightenment's individualism that strove to revive the suffocating world of the Jewish ghetto. The founders of the movement did not believe Jews could lead a normal existence in democratic societies. In this sense, for Shahak, Zionism can be thought of as "a mirror image of anti-Semitism," in that, in common with antisemites, Zionists considered Jews to be aliens who must be quarantined from the rest of the world, a viewpoint Shahak read as capitulating to European antisemitism. For Richman, Shahak's analysis shed light on the tragic consequences that followed upon the establishment of Israel, as Arabs were swept away to forge a state for Jews alone.