Abstract. We show how to express intuitionistic Zermelo set theory in deduction modulo (i.e. by replacing its axioms by rewrite rules) in such a way that the corresponding notion of proof enjoys the normalization property. To do so, we first rephrase set theory as a theory of pointed graphs (following a paradigm due to P. Aczel) by interpreting set-theoretic equality as bisimilarity, and show that in this setting, Zermelo’s axioms can be decomposed into graph-theoretic primitives that can be turned into rewrite rules. We then show that the theory we obtain in deduction modulo is a conservative extension of (a minor extension of) Zermelo set theory. Finally, we prove the normalization of the intuitionistic fragment of the theory. The cut elimination theorem is a central result in proof theory that has many corollaries such as the disjunction property and the witness property for constructive proofs, the completeness of various proof search methods and the decidability of some fragments of predicate logic, as well as some independence