I consider myself more intuitive than intellectual. And this war in Israel has been rubbing me the wrong way. I come from a Jewish Mother and a gentile Father. My mother's parents survived the atrocities of the Holocaust. I grew up getting pissed at holocaust deniers, and calling them out like the guy with tattoos in my Psychology Class that denied the holocaust happened.
"My grandma would slap you for saying that." I said.
And so naturally, a lot of us have a chip on our shoulder. And we're caught up with trying to defend the actions of Israel. After I went there on a 2 week trip I got into many arguments when I came home. People got in my face about how Israel is an apartheid and racist state. I could not understand where they were coming from. The Israel I saw was full of joy. It was the Israel of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, dancing and singing on friday nights. Hot girls with Uzis, fun bars and cafes. A great place. I wasn't being taken on hikes through the Gaza strip. I wasn't camping out with palestinians. And so, I came home with zionism tattooed upon my heart.
It is nice to identify with a tribe. To feel that sense of belonging. To feel your people (or your mother's people) who had been persecuted for so long finally had a home. But than people were screaming in my face. How could I support a fascist police state like Israel? Not only did this offend me, it angered me big time. I stopped even considering myself left wing. I started listening to right wing pundits on the radio because they supported Israel and this gave my brainwashed mind comfort. Luckily this was only a phase, as I got hip to the fact that right and left wings, on either extremes, are full of crap.
I also DID come across racism from my people, which greatly startled me. I was hanging out with an Israeli girl in San Francisco who told me she "hated Arabs. They're the enemy." I was surprised. Really? I had heard Eliyahu Mclean speak about how there was so much friendship between Jews and Moslems in Israel that had been overlooked. I didn't expect this kind of talk from an Israeli. And I don't think this how most israelis think. But it WAS eye opening.
When I was at my grandmother's apartment in Los Angeles, the one who survived Auschwitz, I noticed she would get a barrage of mail asking for donations to "combat antisemitism" and money for the Israeli Army. And than later listening to Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky talk about the foibles of Israeli policy. Could it be that people were capitalising off of grandma's suffering?
After a while, I didn't want to think of myself as a jewish victim anymore. I remember being at a meeting for Chabad in Marin County. An ex military Israeli man was arguing with an old Jewish American woman. Guess which one was arguing the Zionist side of things? The old lady. She couldn't believe that this soldier was saying that Israel wasn't always perfect and that there could possibly be Palestinians who were model citizens. Somehow this woman's liberal leanings went completely out the window when it came to her holy land.
At this point, do we even know if our Ashkenazi brothers and sisters even have historical ties that go back to Israel? Maybe our holyland is Khazakstan. Maybe many of our ancestors even converted to Judaism in the 10th century or something. Do we really need a holyland at this point? Are we that paranoid that we think antisemitism is going to raise up it's ugly head again if we don't have it? The land of Israel is supposed to be a metaphor for peace in our hearts. I don't think it meant that we could live in peace if we blow up hospitals and Gaza, murdering women, children, and as of yesterday, the journalist Ramay Ryan.
And please don't call me a self hating jew. I am a self loving jew. I love my mom and all of her relatives, (there weren't too many because of the holocaust.) I loved my summer camp, the songs, the dances. Heck I even love the alphabet. I want to see Judaism succeed. If Judaism or, Zionism even, was a juvenile delinquent, I want to help him or her with discipline and not applaud wrong doing. Many seem to want to encourage bad behaviour in the home land. Is that the country you want your children and their children to live in? Where old ladies are kept at check posts for hours, dehydrated and screamed at? "Whatever they have to do," said one of my zionist friends. BULLSHIT. We can't lower ourselves to being victimisers just because we (or to more accurately put it, SOME of our ancestors) are victimised. Many jews who currently live in comfort need to stop acting like they're still in the camps, and benefit, or act entitled and enabled by something that happened to my grandparents. It didn't happen to you so stop acting like it did.
On the other end of the coin, all of you myopic jew haters who think that all of us are the same and all agree with this, get a fucking life. You're creating a catch 22, causing a people to want to be separate from you when we are all members of the human race. I don't think when we're on our deathbeds we're going to be moaning the fact that we didn't only spend more time with our own tribe.
"My grandma would slap you for saying that." I said.
And so naturally, a lot of us have a chip on our shoulder. And we're caught up with trying to defend the actions of Israel. After I went there on a 2 week trip I got into many arguments when I came home. People got in my face about how Israel is an apartheid and racist state. I could not understand where they were coming from. The Israel I saw was full of joy. It was the Israel of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, dancing and singing on friday nights. Hot girls with Uzis, fun bars and cafes. A great place. I wasn't being taken on hikes through the Gaza strip. I wasn't camping out with palestinians. And so, I came home with zionism tattooed upon my heart.
It is nice to identify with a tribe. To feel that sense of belonging. To feel your people (or your mother's people) who had been persecuted for so long finally had a home. But than people were screaming in my face. How could I support a fascist police state like Israel? Not only did this offend me, it angered me big time. I stopped even considering myself left wing. I started listening to right wing pundits on the radio because they supported Israel and this gave my brainwashed mind comfort. Luckily this was only a phase, as I got hip to the fact that right and left wings, on either extremes, are full of crap.
I also DID come across racism from my people, which greatly startled me. I was hanging out with an Israeli girl in San Francisco who told me she "hated Arabs. They're the enemy." I was surprised. Really? I had heard Eliyahu Mclean speak about how there was so much friendship between Jews and Moslems in Israel that had been overlooked. I didn't expect this kind of talk from an Israeli. And I don't think this how most israelis think. But it WAS eye opening.
When I was at my grandmother's apartment in Los Angeles, the one who survived Auschwitz, I noticed she would get a barrage of mail asking for donations to "combat antisemitism" and money for the Israeli Army. And than later listening to Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky talk about the foibles of Israeli policy. Could it be that people were capitalising off of grandma's suffering?
After a while, I didn't want to think of myself as a jewish victim anymore. I remember being at a meeting for Chabad in Marin County. An ex military Israeli man was arguing with an old Jewish American woman. Guess which one was arguing the Zionist side of things? The old lady. She couldn't believe that this soldier was saying that Israel wasn't always perfect and that there could possibly be Palestinians who were model citizens. Somehow this woman's liberal leanings went completely out the window when it came to her holy land.
At this point, do we even know if our Ashkenazi brothers and sisters even have historical ties that go back to Israel? Maybe our holyland is Khazakstan. Maybe many of our ancestors even converted to Judaism in the 10th century or something. Do we really need a holyland at this point? Are we that paranoid that we think antisemitism is going to raise up it's ugly head again if we don't have it? The land of Israel is supposed to be a metaphor for peace in our hearts. I don't think it meant that we could live in peace if we blow up hospitals and Gaza, murdering women, children, and as of yesterday, the journalist Ramay Ryan.
And please don't call me a self hating jew. I am a self loving jew. I love my mom and all of her relatives, (there weren't too many because of the holocaust.) I loved my summer camp, the songs, the dances. Heck I even love the alphabet. I want to see Judaism succeed. If Judaism or, Zionism even, was a juvenile delinquent, I want to help him or her with discipline and not applaud wrong doing. Many seem to want to encourage bad behaviour in the home land. Is that the country you want your children and their children to live in? Where old ladies are kept at check posts for hours, dehydrated and screamed at? "Whatever they have to do," said one of my zionist friends. BULLSHIT. We can't lower ourselves to being victimisers just because we (or to more accurately put it, SOME of our ancestors) are victimised. Many jews who currently live in comfort need to stop acting like they're still in the camps, and benefit, or act entitled and enabled by something that happened to my grandparents. It didn't happen to you so stop acting like it did.
On the other end of the coin, all of you myopic jew haters who think that all of us are the same and all agree with this, get a fucking life. You're creating a catch 22, causing a people to want to be separate from you when we are all members of the human race. I don't think when we're on our deathbeds we're going to be moaning the fact that we didn't only spend more time with our own tribe.
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