r/JewsOfConscience • u/PattonSmithWood • 3d ago
Discussion - Flaired Users Only Feel completely disconnected
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.
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u/daudder Anti-Zionist 2d ago
It sounds like the values of your family members are not simply Zionist, but ultra-right, blatantly racist, apartheid and genocide supporting, Palestinian dehumanising, neo-Nazi Zionists. I.e., Kahanists.
While this represents a sizeable chunk of contemporary Zionists, it is only one part. The rest vary between apologists for all of the above, through supporting-but-denying the worst of the Zionist excesses, all the way to so-called liberal Zionists who propose a Palestinian bantustan.
While there is a chance that most or all of them are in fact of the rabid-racist type, there may be a range of opinions and you can form tactical alliances and friendships with the more moderate types and meet with them nausea-free.
If they are all, in fact of the rabid-racist type then you have no choice but to stay away from them and interact only with those whose values you can tolerate, even if you do not necessarily share.