tzedek tzedek tirdof

I feel like I wrestle with this question often:

“To what extent do I care about Israel? Why do I care about the actions, survival and goings on of a nation that I have no political sway over?”

And it’s something goyim seem all too ready to answer for me these days. It’s usually some flavor of:

- Well…. *INSERT ANTISEMITIC ZOG RANT* but in a #Nazi #1488 #MAGA way or

- Well… *INSERT ANTISEMITIC ZOG RANT* but in a #woke #anticolonialist #antizionist way or

But the reality of the situation is that Israel is what its anthem promises: Hatikvah… “The Hope”

It’s hope that we again can be in charge of our own destiny. Hope that there is at least 1 nation among nations where policy will never be the ethnic cleansing and extermination of Jews ever again. Hope that 1 nation will always take you in when you’ve been driven out. Hope that someone will come for you when you’ve been pinned down.

Israel has made innumerable mistakes in its pursuit of this hope. The government has been cruel, it has been callous, it has been biased against the other groups who call the Middle East, and the levant specifically, home. I condemn these actions.

But to believe or hope for the destruction of Israel… the death of the hope… it’s beyond fathoming. My grandmother told me when the state was declared, there was dancing in the streets. Finally, it seemed, we had our hope fulfilled.

The Bund has failed. We had asked the goyim if they could be trusted to come to our aid, to allow us to live peacefully among them. But the answer is either no or Yes*.

And that * is always “until we need you to leave or die”. It’s always “until you are a convenient enemy”. And no political faction on the extreme seems to be able to resist that. October 7th had proven that in my life time, but if we’re honest with ourselves, goyim prove again and again and again that we are only tolerated for a time. The groove of antisemitism in their brains is culturally too deep. We’re in your fairy tales, your polemics, your holy texts, your rage, your nightmares.

So no, I could never advocate for the dismantling or destruction of Israel. Frankly, I question the yiddishkeit of anyone who claims both my heritage and advocates for the death of hope. At best, it’s an ignorance of history, at worst, a desire to be accepted, assimilated and loved by the goyishe nations. I pray they never learn the historical reality first hand, but the Hebron massacre was of Antizionist Jews, October 7th hit left wing kibbutzim the hardest.

I have not lost my lefty heart, but I can’t imagine a world where I can trust the goyim with our collective safety ever again. I consider myself a non-Zionist because I am a stickler for terms, that I believe Zionism is the desire to found a nation which has now been founded. But should the dark day ever come that Israel is no more: catch me at the local Jewish labor Zionist club that I’m restarting faster then you can say “k*kes get out”.