Like the title says, they called me to serve in gaza to prepare the land for settlements and I said no.

I've spoken with a few other people who are conscientious objectors and they told me most reserve objectors don't end up in jail, but there is a good chance I might be the first one.

In any case it's gonna be a lonely road until I'll get away from this wretched land

Edit:

Just to clarify - They didn't say that we are going to gaza to resettle it.

They (the unit) told me I'm sent to help with the humanitarian aid to Gazans. But the role of the unit itself is to replace the state in civil matters. (I.e schools, water, electricity, infrastructure and what not). This in itself is a tool of Israel to suppress the Palestinians, make them dependent on us after we destroyed their means of living.

This, plus what some government ministers have said publicly about resettling gaza is what led me to this conclusion.

I could be wrong, but I'm positive that I'm not.

Edit2:

Just passed my trial, fortunately I'm not the first to end up in jail, for now...

They gave me a week of 'probation' and if they call me again in that timeframe and I refuse it's probably gonna end up in jail time

Thank you very much for all the kind words, I seriously felt isolated until I saw your beautiful comments and received a lot of support from past objectors.

This will sound super controversial, but please hear me out: I can no longer say I condemn Hamas.

Right now I dont feel comfortable saying I support it either, but listening to Palestinian voices on the matter has really changed my perspective. Multiple palestinians and allies have explained that for all the bad things they do, armed resistance is still necessary for liberation and without Hamas, Israel would finish the job of ethnically cleansing Gaza—turning it into the West Bank with settlements and a continuous Israeli presence.

On tumblr a Palestinian blogger has explained that Israel, the US and other imperial powers seek do demilitarize Gaza and the west bank, and if they achieve that and Hamas lays down its arms it will set back Palestinian liberation for decades the same way the plot/Yasser Arafat set back Palestinian unity and resistance by giving into negotiations during the intifada.

These are my thoughts. I hope to receive comments that are thoughtful and contribute to furthering the understanding for solidarity with Palestinians.

That's about it for now. I am 1000% in agreement with everyone who has been horrified by the Biden administration's enabling of genocide. I didn't have a ton of hope that Harris/waltz would do things differently but a tiny part of myself thought that maybe Kamala would do better. I could have been wrong! But My heart is beyond shattered thinking about what could happen to Palestinians under a Trump presidency. And I of course fear for everyone here in the US. I just don't know. This is really scary

I've started seeing the following frequently online:

-"Hitler was right. Look what they're doing"

-"There's a reason the Jews have been expelled from 109 countries. See how they behave"

-"Judaism is a religion of violent extremism."

-"How do we know the Holocaust happened? They're probably lying about it just like they're lying about the history of Palestine".

My favourite football club posted a Shana Tova message for its followers and there were hundreds of comments responding things like "not supporting you anymore because you support terrorism".

It seems that the actions of the rogue settler colony are SERIOUSLY leading to increased antisemitism. And these aren't right wingers. These are ordinary people. Many of them are unfortunately from other middle eastern countries. And I know that when I show this to Zionists they'll just see it as further proof why we need to support Israel more. It's breaking my heart.

I honestly am disappointed in people. I expect ignorance and bigotry from the privileged, the right and westerners. I don't expect it from people who can see the damage Israel is doing. It seems human beings are incapable of understanding that Israel and Judaism are not the same.

Genuine anti-Semitic remarks from people with huge platforms who claim to be “pro-Palestine” is so incredibly damaging and disgusting.

I was rudely awaken to this response from someone who has clearly been having me on my radar from here because in my flair here I say I’m Christian with Jewish heritage. This was on another sub, so clearly this person has been looking out for my posts. I assumed allies who weren’t Jewish were welcome on this sub, and I hope this person is just an unpleasant one off, because I’ve found everyone else here to be lovely so far.

I am very against Israel’s genocide, leaning toward antizionism, but when someone Zionist asks where the Jews go in a free Palestine, I don’t have an answer. Historically, not a lot of people accept us or like us, and getting along after all the violence committed in the name of Judaism is an impossibility.

How do we not just exchange one crisis for another? (I don’t think any one religion or people should rule a state, if that adds anything.)

If this is an ignorant question, I am more than happy to be told so.

EDIT: wow this community is brilliant, thank you for the nuance and realism in your responses.

Even though what Israel is doing is wrong, there are people who use this conflict to spread actual antisemitism.

Some things I look out for are the usage of the word Jews vs Zionists. Someone saying "Jews are doing xyz" is super indicative of antisemitism to me rather than "Zionists are doing xyz"

I also try to keep a lookout for any racist/antisemitic political cartoons.

I also don't engage with anything any actual antisemites have said, even if what they said is true about Israel. For instance, there was a compilation of videos of people speaking on Israel and I liked the video before it ended. Then, a clip of Kanye was included. I unliked and hit "not interested" so fast. I made a post about it on a different social media platform because with the way the internet pushes algorithms, the more you interact with generalized statements or videos including actual antisemitism, the further down the rabbit hole you'll get. It starts off small then gets bigger and bigger until you're fully in an antisemitic headspace. Someone won't even know it's happening potentially.

I also look out for numbers, specifically 1488, but I know there's probably others used just as much that I'm not aware of. One thing that makes it hard is the 88 because someone's username could be blahblah88 but they were born in 1988, so I try to use context clues there. Funny side note: I created a Tumblr account like 10 years ago named 88pathsuntraveled or something. Idk why I chose 88, that's just what I went with. Someone messaged me saying hey..... you might wanna change that.... I did it literally after reading their message lol

So I'm just wondering, what other things could I look out for? I want to fight for the Palestinians but also advocate for and defend Jewish people at the same time.

This is an alt, but on a previous thread with a different account, I had three different people with ally flair mansplain to me what jvp is and suggest how to engage my parents in convo in response to me answering a different question. I’ve been having this conversation on various forms with my parents for 15 years. I’ve lost friend and family relationships over Israel/Palestine issues for 15 years. I come to this sub to process and discuss this stuff with folks who get it. This is our space.

If I’m asking for advice, fine, but I’m really struggling with feeling like I’m being mansplained to by folks who are not Jewish.

Are other folks feeling this too? Am I being overly sensitive?

To be clear, I LOVE that y’all are lurking here. I lurk on many subs for communities I don’t belong to. But I do not chime in, basically ever, because I want folks in that community to have their space. The only exception is when I’m explicitly asked to chime in.

I really want to try this Kosher Deli but I can see from the photos online they got Israeli flags displayed there and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I'm learning towards no since I kind of feel like it'd be the equivalent of eating at a place that displays a Nazi flag.

What do y'all think?

Seeing the stickied post regarding people seeking out progressive (particularly anti-Zionist) Jewish services, I wanted to talk about the formation of a progressive anti-Zionist Jewish denomination.

While there are progressive denominations of Judaism (e.g. Humanistic), these denominations don’t explicitly render themselves as anti-Zionist in the fact that they don’t declare “that there should not be a Jewish state”.

A new denomination such as this would need to remove practices phrases, statements and literature making overtures to the Holy Land and focus on community and belief in God. I see this as parallel to how some branches of Humanistic Judaism avoid using theonyms (names associated with God e.g. Joshua).

Thoughts?

It's really disturbing to me that dementia is disqualifying for Joe Biden, but him doing a genocide is not. That shows how Palestinians are viewed in America by the political class.

If only Hitler had dementia, maybe we could've gotten rid of him sooner, since the Holocaust wouldn't have been a problem for him with his domestic constituency.

What do others think?

CW: Bullying

This is a vent post and sorry if this doesn't belong here, I just have to get it off my chest.

They (and the entire school system really) made my life a living hell every single day for years. They inflicted all sorts of violence (including sexual) on me, humiliated me every single day and the whole school outcasted me, while their parents supported them and the teachers did nothing but blame it on me for "maladjustment". I was treated like less than dirt. They led me to multiple suicide attempts and left a lasting trauma that affects me to this day.

Recently I checked some of their social media accounts to see what they're up to, and what a surprise - they're doing their reservist service in Gaza, committing genocide. They upload their gleeful photos near ruins in Gaza and make fun of the Palestinians they murder and torture, while the teachers who stood and watched me get tormented praise them while posting their yellow ribbons and whining about "hostages" and October 7th. I cannot even begin to imagine the horrors these demons are now inflicting on Palestinians.

My cousin is a Zionist. He made Aliyah and has served in the IDF in Gaza and Lebanon. He was in the brigade that responded to Oct 7 and lost one of his best friends to a Hamas bullet that day. I've spoken with him and he's open to learning more. I'm looking for a book to give him which is a very GENTLE introduction to an alternative viewpoint from Zionism, something that won't scare him. Can anyone recommend something.

I have witnessed so much antisemitism everytime I go online it's starting to become worrying. I see non Jewish leftists say that antisemitism isn't a real problem for Jews in America, usually being boiled down to "most Jews are white, rich, and have never experienced antisemitic violence physically". Yet antisemitism is rising and is a real problem that we should still consider in this time of jewish identity being weaponized and the jewish supremacy that is enacted in Occupied Palestine. Stating "most jews are white" seems harmful and also just false. Also Jews have always been hesitant to be apart of surveys so it's hard to find legitimate info on these things. Am I alone in this?

EDIT: I am not talking about any specific statistics or surveys. This is based on what I've personally seen scrolling on social media. I understand/agree there isn't a clear way to see that based on largely pro zionist orgs. EDIT PT 2: I am not saying that Pro Palestinian sentiment is antisemitism. I am talking about LEGITIMATE antisemitism. This is not a post talking about false accusations of antisemitism based in Zionism.

I've been getting the impression lately that so much of this sub is becoming posts like "as jews of conscience, what do you think of X?" or "as real jews who believe in real judaism, what do you think of Y?" These questions are from non-jews. I appreciate non-jewish allies taking part in this sub but lately it's feeling that it's just people trying to paint us as "the good jews". This sub is about being jewish and anti-Zionist and the struggles that come with that. It's not a sub for us to parade around claiming to be the "true jews" or for people to parade us around like that. We are jewish and we oppose Zionism but the Zionist jews are also jewish. We're no less or more jewish than they are. And we're not here to justify judaism in the face of Zionism. There are a million (very important) subs where there is general discussion about Palestine and the genocide in Gaza. But I feel like this sub should be something for us.

Hey everybody I'm here with some rare good news.

Because so many of you supported my campaign, posted last week in this subreddit, to report the "Two Nice Jewish Boys” podcast for breaching platform terms of service (specifically hate speech). They have been removed from Patreon!

Give yourselves a pat on the back.

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.

Now, I don't think the Jewish organization that got the Keffiyeh Jesus removed was doing it for justified reasons, but it was very disheartening to scroll through a post where almost every top commentor's flair was "Non-Jewish Ally" and see them not recognizing how the Catholic Church has been the institution most responsible in the last thousand years for spreading, developing, and theorizing antisemitism across Europe, primarily through the deicide charge, and why presenting Jesus as a Palestinian baby can easily be picked up on as a reframing of that.

"Jesus was a Palestinian" is mostly a meaningless phrase to me, cuz it's like saying "Charlemagne was French" or "Hammurabi was Iraqi," but I'm shocked that plenty of you can't recognize how this is the institution that has blamed us for killing Jesus for thousands of years up until Vatican II, the primary reason Jews have been oppressed throughout the Christian world, and then going so far as to attack Vatican II and the adoption of revisions to antisemitic Catholic doctrines.

I'm probably breaking a lot of posting rules and I apologize, but I discovered this sub not even an hour ago and reading through all these posts brought me to tears. Thank you all so much for speaking truth to power in what I know is a very hostile enviornment. I fight with friends and family members back home constantly trying to break the lumping in of all Jews into the same group as militant Zionists and it's an uphill battle. This sub is such a great resource to help me with that. Thank you all again.

Do you feel alone in your point of view, or do you have many friends that agree with you? What is it like to be in Israel for you? Were the protests that we saw in Israel just to bring the hostages home and for Netanyahu to resign, or also calling what's going on a genocide and to actually free Palestine? Do you, or do you know, anyone who refuses to participate in the IDF? I'm just very curious what it is like to live in Israel right now.