"Ask A Jew" Wednesday

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[u/Electrical-Wrap-3923]

Do you have to deal with estranged family as antizionists? Have you found “found family”?

[u/Dis-Organizer → u/Electrical-Wrap-3923]

Sorry this is long, clearly your question hit a nerve

My extended family doesn’t talk to me anymore—they tried spamming me with bad hasbara videos for quite a bit but now have just stopped. At least they no longer comment horrible things on my social media. I still post a shana tova or whatever in the family WhatsApp and get one heart if I’m lucky. This is really painful because my family is quite close in an Israeli way (which isn’t the same in American Jewish culture—we literally spent every Shabbat together and that’s pretty common). I’m lucky that my immediate family is fairly left although they definitely secretly think I’ve lost it and have stopped telling me things

I tried to find “found family” for a while, but being Israeli in the US, the American Jewish community was just really tough, even anti-Zionists (maybe especially honestly). Many American Jews assimilated to white US culture in a way my family hasn’t—our traditions are different, our connection to heritage and lineage feels vastly different. Like many Israeli families, mine is pretty multi-cultural, and even though there’s so much to say about racism and the Ashkenazi hegemony in Israel, I grew up hearing stories from my aunt’s mom’s childhood in Iraq and my other aunt’s mom’s stories from Morocco, my cousin incorporated traditional Tunisian Jewish elements into her wedding, I have Chinese Jewish cousins, and Jewish diversity is just a lot more present in the culture, like my parents didn’t have to try hard to put me in a diverse school with Ethiopian and Yemeni and Russian Jews (etc). Even among Ashkenazim—in the US it feels really flattened to me, while my Grandpa was extremely proud to be a Galitzianer. I would say most US Jews don’t grow up enmeshed in non assimilated Jewish culture. Granted our Judaism has been colonized by Zionism so I’m not saying it’s perfect, just very different

Many US Jews who are active Jewishly are also higher socio-economic status than my family and I, and that has always made me uncomfortable. So I tended to gravitate to other immigrant kids growing up. I’m also lucky that I did grow up in an area with Jews from many different parts of the world including recent immigrants, but many became right wing, so as I got older and stronger in my politics mt Jewish community disappeared and the activists I tend to do actions with are great for that but not really great at community for me. Recently I’ve found community with other anti-Zionist Israelis here, and it’s the first time I’ve felt mishpacha in a while

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