r/JewsOfConscience • u/ray-the-they Ashkenazi • Apr 23 '24

Discussion Being a Jewish Anti-Zionist feels exhausting.

First off, I’m an American and I am aware of exactly how much privilege that affords me.

But at the same time I feel like I’m fighting on all fronts - I’m fighting my own people, sometimes my own family, who cannot even bring themselves to acknowledge the crimes against humanity being committed. Heck even if I censor myself and my true feelings about Israel (that it was made as a monument to antisemitism, not a place to fight it) I’m a “traitor”

And then when there is actual antisemitism if I call it out, I get attacked for it and called a zionazi.

I am just so tired and worn out emotionally from all this. It feels like the group of people I can rely on or trust is very small.

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u/SexAndSensibility Jewish Apr 24 '24

I feel you a lot. Last week at the JCC I go to weekly an antisemite waving a gun got arrested. This is the third time since 10/7 this has happened. That said, the community and my family are thoroughly Zionist and it’s frustrating to fight them and anti Semitism at once.

I’m lucky that my wife feels the same way. She wasn’t Jewish when I met her but converted a few years after we met. The rabbi and synagogue were Zionist but there was no brainwashing like I experienced when I grew up. She’s been Jewish a few years but doesn’t know a whole lot about Israel or Zionism. She doesn’t understand how anyone can support Israel now.