I just feel so ashamed, lied to and hopeless.

[u/Fun_Association2251]

My ancestors deaths meant nothing. I was brought up believing their deaths meant something. That all the education and all the stories and all the museums and all the damn movies, about what happened to our people during the shoah would help stop genocide from ever happening again. And not just to Jews but to any ethnicity.

Little did I know that I have been lied to by Zionism and that what we’re seeing isn’t new it’s been happening since 1948 and that the Zionists have hoodwinked our people and have put every single jewish life at risk in the name of a colonial ethnic-state and almost every jewish elder, mentor, and role model refuses to see what is so blatantly happening in front of our eyes.

I feel shame. Embarrassment. I feel ignorant. I feel naive. I feel stupid. What can I possibly do? A majority of Jews don’t see it as a genocide. I’m in the minority. What can we do? I have no sense of hope anymore. Palestinians deserve to be heard and I’m watching the media continually silence them and paint them the way the Nazi’s painted us.

[u/Effective-Papaya1209]

I’m sorry you’re feeling so hopeless. The thing that makes me able to deal with this is seeing the work that fellow Jews wre doing to try to stop this genocide. Is there a way you can connect with people like that where you are? There is power and comfort in numbers 

[u/Euphoric_Exchange_51]

You’re growing, my friend. And it’s because of Jews like the ones on this sub that our ancestors’ suffering does mean something. Don’t let Zionists pervert their memory for you.

[u/BolesCW]

I would wager that a majority of us antizionist Jews have had a similar negative epiphany of sheer disgust at some point, especially those of us who grew up under zionist hegemony. You're obviously not alone; you are here, and can take comfort at being among peers and allies. Have some patience with yourself as you move away from the ugly indoctrination of your youth; it doesn't all disappear in a day.

[u/Fun_Association2251 → u/BolesCW]

Thank you. I almost lost it yesterday at work. I work in film. Lots of conservative blue collar gentiles throwing around the word anti-Semite about people like us. You know… real Jews 🤣

[u/BolesCW → u/Fun_Association2251]

One of the worst parts of being an openly antizionist Jew is having to listen to goysplaining 🙄

Also, there will be non-Jewish antizionists who will also goysplain that you're not doing antizionism the right way...

[u/Yuri-Girl → u/BolesCW]

Honestly I can't tell if the goysplaining is worse or going to family gatherings and being one of the like 3 people present who think Israel should maybe not.

Last time I mentioned the whole "war crimes" thing to my brother and he started going off about how it's not literally illegal to intentionally aim attacks at civilians if they're being used as human shields. Which, pushing aside all of the parts of that which are incorrect, the ICJ had already ruled it as genocide when he said that.

Like I get it, we're Jewish, arguing is a thing, but you do not need to equivocate on fucking war crimes.

[u/cupcakefascism → u/BolesCW]

Meh ‘doing antizionism’ isn’t a Jewish thing so goysplaining doesn’t apply. The real problematic phenomenon is when Jews try to ‘Jewsplain’ it to those suffering under the material reality of Zionism.

[u/BodhisattvaBob → u/Fun_Association2251]

The biggest antisemites are the ones advocating for, or actually working towards, the transmogrification of "the Jewish state" into what is, in many ways, a half-levened reincarnation of National Socialist Germany.

[u/douglasstoll → u/BolesCW]

Can confirm

[u/01001110901101111]

You’re not alone. There are a lot more of us out here standing up against genocide than the media would have you believe. Go to the marches. Make a sign, find other Jews with signs. Find your local JVP. Find some anti-Zionist congregations to follow on social media. It’s hard and it sucks and you gotta do it. Find your local mutual aid groups. There’s someone in your area putting meals together, organizing protests, classes, support groups etc. get involved and you’ll find other Jews involved as well.

[u/Moostronus]

This genocide has made me much more ashamed in the Jewish communities I've been a part of, but by the same token much more proud and public about my own Judaism. Seeing so many people stand up for Palestinian liberation has reaffirmed that I'm not alone for having a heterodox perspective and that Jewish-specific solidarity DOES exist. I am anti-Zionist because I am a Jew, not in spite of it, and that gives me that small sense of self-assurance to continue fighting.

I have been so deeply ashamed in my communities' longtime leaders. Yet I am so deeply proud of the Jewish leaders popping up in campus encampments, public protests, youth groups, and in town hall meetings. We will overcome this Zionist fever, thanks to the work of these principled young folks who refuse to bow to the Zionist status quo.

[u/malry]

Whatever you do, don’t stop speaking up. Your voice will always count and is always needed.

[u/BodhisattvaBob → u/malry]

This.

[u/YouKnowNothingJonS]

I support Jewish Voice for Peace for this exact reason. They are one of the only organizations that has been consistently and steadfastly against what is happening — and have been demonstrating and spreading the word that not all Jews are Zionists. AND that it isn’t antisemitic to be anti-Zionist

[u/wandrin_star → u/[deleted]]

Your comment left me vibrating with anger.

A. Why are you repeating lazy hearsay with no sourcing?

B. My rabbi is in JVP. They’re Jewish enough.

C. Who do you think you are who can gatekeep the fake Jew from the real?

D. Jewish ancestry is Jewish enough to get rounded up. Being a convert is enough to get rounded up. If someone identifies as Jewish in anything like good faith, they’re Jewish.

Your whole comment is just… ugh.

[u/wandrin_star → u/[deleted]]

Why repeat the stuff that is disinfo? Why repeat anti-Semitic or at least gatekeeping that you disagree with? Why neg one of the few Jewish organizations consistently on the right side of the genocide in Gaza from the get-go? To what end?

[u/[deleted] → u/wandrin_star]

To the end of pointing out where some of its weaknesses lie. Weaknesses that may need to be addressed. Sure, it isn’t all true, but some of it is.

[u/wandrin_star → u/[deleted]]

Gah. Next time you could just say “hey, here’s this one minor true thing” and leave it at that, unless being infuriating and wasting folks’ time is what you’re into.

[u/justadubliner → u/[deleted]]

Here's some more Jews of Conscience organisations for you to go pick holes in since you're so inclined.

@BtSIsrael

@Mondoweiss

@taayush

@Zochrot

@omdimbeyachad

@btselem

@CJNVtweets

@TorahJews

@VOJews

@TorahJudaism

@Zionocracy

[u/cupcakefascism → u/[deleted]]

On your first couple of points, yes and that’s why Palestinian orgs have quite strong criticisms of it.

[u/BeautifulCup4]

i feel the same i’m just fighting for palestinian freedom with or without “most jews”, in honor of people like maerik edelman and in honor of every jew who threw sand in the gears of nazi oppression however they could.

[u/BodhisattvaBob → u/BeautifulCup4]

Another great comment.

[u/Electronauta]

Don't feel ashamed. Feel insulted, challenged. As a descendant of native Americans, I know my own people have been massacred, displaced, invaded and insulted... and is still ongoing. I'm pro Jew as much as I'm pro Palestinian and pro Lebanese. And I know many that are like me.
We love you. Those who are not Jews or Palestinians, we definitely love you. We know who are the guilty ones. We know who have been brainwashing, manipulating, lying and deceiving.

It has nothing to do with Jewishness, but with racism, imperialism, militarism, far right ideology. They use Jewishness as an excuse for their crimes. But we see beyond the curtain, it is too obvious.

I know I will have to stand for my Jew brothers and sisters at some point in the near future. I know that. I'm ready for that.
For now, all my strength is with Palestinians, for obvious reasons, but make no mistake. Not only you are not alone, but also you are no the guilty one.

We need you. Take a brake, do something else. Breath. See what is good on humanity, There is plenty.

For your mental health, for your soul, and for those who need us right now but also tomorrow.

Our fight is the noblest of the fights. Is the ultimate test of humanity inside us. Feel proud about it. You are winning. We will prevail, we will help to heal Palestine and Lebanon and Israel. One way or another.

Again, from the bottom of my heart: we love you. Get it and rejoice on it. You deserve it, brother/sister in arms.

[u/MangoLovingFala7]

We do not bear responsibility for the crimes of those who share our culture, religious beliefs, ethnicity, or nationality.

Do not feel shame, you have every right to be proud of your heritage. It is Israel’s attempt at conflating itself with the concept of being Jewish that is making you feel this kind of responsibility.

[u/Long-Lobster-4149]

Your last sentence hits me hard because that’s what I’ve been thinking non-stop. Reading German news or following mainstream journalists and politicians on Twitter, and the way they speak about Palestinians, is so dehumanizing. Truly a blast from the past in the worst way.

[u/stemcellguy]

You don't need to feel that way. As an Arab, Muslim, and Pro-Palestine individual, I can tell you that I’ve seen many Arab and Muslim Zionists. These are people who were never deceived; they’ve studied the Nakbah, witnessed atrocities firsthand, yet still chose Zionism in pursuit of money or fame. You, however, discovered the truth despite all the odds. There’s a story in Islamic tradition about an Arab man who lived during the 600-year gap between Jesus and Muhammad. He refused to worship idols like the rest of his people and ultimately found God on his own. In Islam, this man, Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl, will stand as an entire Ummah on the Day of Judgment, honored by God. You are like him—you found the truth in a world full of darkness and deceit.

[u/Aurhim]

I made it through Oct. 7 this year just fine, only for everything to fall apart on Oct. 11.

We were watching Bill Maher’s show, and he went on an anti-antizionist screed, and I got into an argument with my father that ended with me breaking away and sobbing (first on the couch, then in my room) for the better part of two hours as the enormity of the Holocaust ran through my mind and body.

My father is the archetypical centrist. He hates Trump (he thinks he’s a madman, a fascist, and a murderer for his mismanagement of COVID-19), but complains about raising the minimum wage resulting in raised prices, and is still sore about affirmative action having supposedly robbed him of a spot at a west coast dental school back in the 1970s.

Normally we follow up with one another after events like this, to make sure we’re okay, but I haven’t touched bases with him about it, simply because I don’t think reconciliation is going to be possible here—and for that, I blame the propaganda. (Though, after writing this, I’ve figured I’ll give it another shot.)

Over the past year, I’ve been sharing with the family the horror stories I’ve uncovered, mostly because they just upset me that much. A high point was when I read from Herzl’s own polemics (the Mauschel abomination) and got my dad to agree that Herzl, as he put it, “sounded like a man who hated Jews”.

On the 11th, my father accused me of being biased when it came to Israel and Zionism. (On that charge, I’ll happily plead guilty.) But that’s not what hurt me. What hurt me was that he accused me of selectively presenting the information, with the implication being that the facts I bring up cannot be trusted in this regard.

And that just broke me.

I take the truth very seriously. I don’t adhere to this idea of life as a zero sum game where every demerit on your side is an extra feather in the other guy’s cap. Moreover, when I bring things up without context, it’s because I feel that we’ve already gone beyond context.

Early this year, my father and I had our first encounter with the fact of the Deir Yassin massacre, as described in a Vice media YouTube video. My dad, who had been only half-attentive (as he usually is with videos) suddenly sat up and accused the video of parroting Hamas propaganda.

Oy vey.

The way I see it, before Hitler could kill the Jews, he had to destroy their individuality. In classic blood-and-soil right-wing nationalism, the Nazi movement succeeded in condensing the Jews of Europe into a single racial entity. I think it was Goebbels who said something to the effect that the entire “Jewish race” had to be condemned as a whole, otherwise innocent, good-intentioned aryan Germans might say, “now hold on, while all the Jews you know might be evil parasites, my Jewish neighbors are the exception: they’re good Jews, and aren’t a threat.” For the Nazis, this attitude had to be stamped out, or else it would allow the targets of their genocide to survive—and, to be clear, the survival was not that of individuals, but of races.

It is tragic beyond words that a people who have suffered throughout history, only to be brought to the edge of annihilation by one of the most evil acts in human history, were so broken and damaged and hapless that, for the sake of solidarity and racial survival, the values of secular liberal democratic humanism could and would be rejected en masse.

A couple weeks ago, a quote from a Jewish pacifist and Holocaust survivor was making its rounds on r/Jewish. In it, the speaker being quoted said he would rather see the Star of David on a tank than on his own concentration camp uniform. It goes without saying that the quote earned much praise over there, but I couldn’t help but look at it in abject horror.

Ultimately, especially among those with liberal sentiments, that’s the dichotomy that makes this all possible. Regardless of whether or not this zero-sum “it’s either us or them” view of the conflict is accurate, what horrifies me is the idea that that dichotomy is seen as tolerable

My dad has a habit of yelling “kill them all” whenever news of Hamas’ (or anyone else’s) terrorist acts gets announced on CNN. Often times, when he makes comments like this, I feel compelled to point out that, by that logic, he has no right to complain about the 1,200 civilians murdered on October 7. Hell, you can’t even complain about the Holocaust. There were plenty of Nazis who genuinely believed that the Judaeo-Bolshevist conspiracy was an existential threat to the Aryan race. For them, the killing was for the sake of their fatherland. Likewise with many (if not most) of the Arabs who would whoop with joy is Israel and its population were wiped off the map. If being locked in an existential struggle is sufficient justification to push for the extermination of one’s opponent, then you have no grounds for complaining when that same justification gets turned on you. As long as you acknowledge that, you have a logically sound system of “morality”, albeit one that I find to be repugnant through and through.

I think what bothers me most about all this is that it’s so clear. The Talmud speaks of the Torah as existing, in its supernal form, as black fire on white fire. To me, the inherent wrongs of Zionism and reducing human beings to aggregates of ethnoracial identity are just as clear as black fire on white fire. It’s so obviously wrong, just like breaking down the wall between church and state. One of the reasons I get so angry about these issues when discussing them with family is because I genuinely don’t understand how they cannot see it, and not be stirred and repulsed by it. The thought of an “Islamic republic” or a Christian “theodemocracy”, or a “Jewish and democratic state” trigger a reaction in me not unlike seeing a child get run over by a car. I can’t help but react to them as being intrinsically wrong, and few sights upset me as much as seeing the people I love (and who love me in return) be totally blind to these issues. It makes me wonder: what else might they have gotten wrong?

It’s sad. It’s incredibly sad. But there’s nothing that can be done about it. We just have to weather the storm, while keeping channels of communication open to the best of our ability.

[u/PlinyToTrajan]

As a Jew, you can make an enormous and unique difference in our collective, American effort to deconstruct Zionist ideology and put the U.S.-Israel relationship on a new footing, and your participation will also help underscore that it is not the Jews who are the problem, but a particular apartheid form of thinking and state-planning that has taken hold amongst a subset of them.

The only time I was ever moved to tears by an anti-genocide protest was when it was carried out by Jews who were openly identifying as Jewish. I felt less afraid and any inchoate prejudice I had vanished.

[u/uncivilians]

Be not ashame! You have already made the bravest and most honourable first moves!

To stare in the face of generational lies and shook yourself awake.

To reject the system which would have been your safety bubble and accept what you feel is right.

Let this bravery and honor fuel your coming stand. We no matter how far, stand beside you.

[u/skabenga1000]

I feel the same way. I used to be proud of my Jewish roots, no longer.

[u/BolesCW → u/skabenga1000]

You can still be proud of your Jewish roots. In the 3-4000 year history of our people, zionism is a recent phenomenon, barely over 100 years old, and even then was a distinct minority until after the 67 war.

[u/skabenga1000 → u/BolesCW]

They’re too entangled now, Judaism and Zionism- now when I tell people I am Jewish I have an opening disclaimer- that I’m an anti-Zionist Jew. And in saying this I know I’m in the minority. I mean we’re growing, people will hopefully see the light. But the damage is so vast

[u/knuppi → u/skabenga1000]

They’re too entangled now, Judaism and Zionism

This is according to the Zionists plan.

They want you to feel alienated from your community, so much that you can only feel safe in Israel. While also pushing the 5th column conspiracy (that all Jews are potential agents for the state of Israel) so that your neighbours and colleagues think less about you.

The most dangerous antisemites are Zionists.

[u/skabenga1000 → u/knuppi]

Agree 100% Zionists are the ultimate anti-semites. And to grow community of anti/non-Zionists is important.

[u/acacia_tree → u/skabenga1000]

In the 2,500 years of Judaism only for 150 has Zionism existed. Don’t be ashamed of your Jewish heritage.

[u/normalgirl124]

You are not alone🫂🕯️❤️

[u/blossum__]

I just want to say that I’m so sorry for what is happening and what a toll this is taking on your conscience. God bless you and your courage.

[u/gronfisk]

I have felt this so much in the past year, but you're not alone, as much as it feels like that sometimes. our numbers are growing as folks learn, grow, and have their eyes opened to the lies and half truths they were taught. younger jews are increasingly feeling less loyalty to israel. we can live our jewishness differently, make thriving jewish spaces that don't center zionism, and raise our children and communities with a true love of justice, peace, and asking questions, continuing to carry on those parts of us and our ancestors. we're here and we can make ourselves known and honor the parts of our tradition we love and thrive on. it will be hard often, but we can do this together.

I hope you're able to find an antizionist group/congregation if that would be helpful for you; some continue to have zoom services etc in a commitment to accessibility, so regardless of location folks can attend in some ways. I know my american shul has run zoom classes that included people as far away as new zealand.

[u/sheri1983]

I'm not a jewish, and originally from the middle east and what the Jewish anti Zionist did this last year is astonishing, I wouldn't believe it I always knew about the Orthodox Jews who condemn Israel but I never imagined I would stand with secular, socialist and non affiliated Jews supporting the Palestinians. What you guys are doing is the greatest thing happened this century.

[u/Correct-Block-1369]

Non-Jewish ally here, Lebanese American.

Your family's deaths matter. They matter to me. I think about your people's suffering a lot, and their stories inspire me to fight for my people and for all people who are not free.