Feel completely disconnected

[u/PattonSmithWood]

How do fellow, non-religious, anti Zionist Jews in this sub reconcile their anti Zionist views with their Jewish identity when 80/90% of contemporary Jews across the world are staunch Zionists.

I feel at a complete loss in terms of my identity. Extended family and relatives are 90% Zionists, they take literal pleasure in any and all harm to Palestinians. They are gleeful and boastful of the current genocide (and they proudly label it as such). They marginalise, shut down, bad mouth any relative who believes in Palestinian dignity, self determination and sovereignty. They call us self hating Jews and turncoats.

My values and some close family are completely, polar, opposite. We are more in harmony with the views of some prominent Jewish scholars and identities such as Norman Finkelstein, Gabor Mate, Miko Peled, Noam Chomsky, Avi Shlaim, Gideon Levy etc

I'm proud to be a Jew with faith in universal values of humanity. Although I am not an observant Jew, and am pretty much secular and atheist, I find myself increasingly aligning with some teachings of Torah Jews, specially their teachings about diaspora being essential to Judaism and spiritual Israel only being reinstated by the mashiach and not a group of atheists.

I know this is a bit of a rant, but I feel so out of place amidst contemporary Jews.

Would love to hear any experiences navigating this identity crisis.

[u/Benyano]

Learn about family histories find ways to reconnect with your own Jewish culture, and get involved in anti-Zionist or diasporist Jewish organizing. There are a lot of great people doing work of all kinds in this broad movement, even if we’re still a minority of Jews. But we’re Jews, we’re comfortable being in the minority.

One good place for anti-Zionist Jewish political and cultural education is a podcast I (co)create, The Jewish Diapsorist. We’ve interviewed dozens of Jewish organizers and scholars from around the world doing this kind of work. Jewishness is alot more than religion or Zionism.

I’m not sure what your connection to Jewishness is, but music can be a good entry point. Daniel Kahn is a brilliant musician who’s lyrics make one think, and music could be described as Klezmer Punk.