Reprinted from The Progressive Jew
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I’ve repeatedly been asked why I abandoned Zionism – a movement I now see as racist, dishonest, violent, and dangerous – when so many other Jewish Boomers stayed with it. What follows is my attempt to put myself “on the couch” and offer a halfway decent answer.
SubscribedMy Zionist Roots
I was born when Israel was less than a decade old. Among Zionists, the story of a “Jewish State” surrounded by hostile “Arabs” (or “Ay‑rabs”) who “hated Jews for being Jews” and whom “we” defeated “against all odds” was widely considered a modern miracle.
Decades later, I’d realize I was immersed in Zionist bullshit (ZBS) throughout my Wonder Years. In the North Jersey Jewish community of my childhood, we were bathed in Zionism practically from birth. We’re talking full immersion. My parents were Zionists. Our Orthodox congregation was Zionist. From what I recall as a kid, every Jewish adult I knew was (you guessed it) a Zionist.
If someone in our Jewish community was anti‑Zionist, they certainly didn’t make it public. Criticism of Israel from Jews was simply not something we heard.
In fact, nothing we read or were told contradicted the story of a “land without people for a people without a land,” of how “Jews made the desert bloom,” and that the few “Arabs” who lived there “left their homes voluntarily” because their “leaders” promised they’d come back after “Jews were driven into the sea.” All of that land was supposedly ours anyway because “G‑d promised Israel to the Jews” – and thank G‑d almighty for Israel, because with antisemites lurking beyond every corner, the “Jewish State” was our insurance policy against a “second Holocaust.”
As a great‑nephew of Holocaust victims and survivors, that last point really hit home with me. When, as a small child, you learn that a sizable chunk of your family was murdered and you’re told that “our people” have withstood attempts throughout recorded history to wipe us off the face of the earth, you tend to take “Never again” to heart.
From what I recall as a boy, I never had a single conversation with a Palestinian or even a Palestinian ally. I was hermetically sealed inside a Zionist bubble, carrying a story spun from my family’s very real suffering in the Holocaust. Much later, I’d learn that the Israel‑related part of that story was, to put it mildly, too good to be true.
My Anti‑Zionist Leanings
When it comes to Palestine-Israel, it’s been said that many hardcore Zionists have closed minds and hardened hearts. I was an ardent young defender of Israel, but I was missing those two “essentials” that might have made Zionism stick for life.
In my bar mitzvah photo, my mouth is closed because I was hiding buck teeth. I also had big ears and a lisp. I was short and underweight for my age. I was mocked and sometimes pushed around. That gave me a tendency to be, as one of my brothers put it, “for the underdog.” I think it also gave me a deep well of compassion.
In a version of “white flight,” our family moved from what was fast becoming a majority‑nonwhite neighborhood to one just a bike ride away that was lily white and deeply racist. On the other side of the viaduct, where we used to live, I saw poverty and everything that came with it. In my young mind, it felt profoundly unfair to have immutable characteristics condemn a people to “othering” for life.
Two icons of the Civil Rights Movement – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali – were early heroes of mine. Even as a kid, I understood exactly what they were fighting for and, unlike many whites in my community, I had no doubt they were on the right side of history.
My dad was a Pearl Harbor survivor and classic “Greatest Generation” tough guy from the streets of Paterson. He taught his five sons how to defend themselves. Like my dad, I became a fighter. Living in Los Angeles as a college student, I had an amateur boxing match against a muscle‑bound surfer.
Before the bout, my opponent looked at skinny me across the ring with a smirk that said I’d be easy to knock down. When the bell rang, I walked straight over and smacked him across the face. I ended up winning a lopsided three‑round decision and “retired” undefeated as an amateur boxer with a lifetime 1‑0 record. An impulse to fight bullies never left me, and eventually it shifted to the way I saw Israel and the Palestinians.
As a young sports junkie, I was a voracious reader of sports pages. From there, I became an avid reader and news junkie, which put me on the path to discovering the reality of Palestine‑Israel.
Neither of my parents finished high school, but they insisted I get a good college education. More than anything, college taught me how to think. Thanks to the good people of California who funded public universities, my education taught me how to find quality information, ask the right questions, and make up my own mind.
That skinny little boy with buck teeth grew up to be strong and confident, with a passion for knowledge and a fierce interest in defending oppressed people – especially ghettoized and ethnically cleansed people, like my own family members.
As an adult, I had become the wrong person to tell to look the other way at injustice or keep quiet – especially when it came to what Israel was doing to Palestinians.
My Zionist Swan Song
When the First Intifada began in the late 1980s, I still identified as a Zionist, but something had shifted. Coverage of the occupation and Israeli oppression was ramping up in major media, including The New York Times, which I read every day, and I was paying attention. I began seeing distressing reports of Palestinian deaths and of life under what amounted to martial law.
For the first time in my life, I was reading about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, about the human beings Israel had turned into refugees, and about the actual roots of the so‑called “conflict” – a term I would later intensely dislike.
The last time I recall being a Zionist was around age 35, when Alan Dershowitz’s bestseller “Chutzpah” came out. This was decades before the now‑infamous Harvard Law professor emeritus became the disgraced figure he is today. I tore through “Chutzpah” and thought Dershowitz was the best defender of the Jewish people ever.
Ironically, years later, he became a Facebook friend – and then quickly “unfriended” me, presumably after one look at my anti‑Zionist posts.
Not long after reading “Chutzpah,” I went non‑Zionist. Once I understood that I’d been fed myths, distortions, and outright falsehoods – and kept in a Zionist bubble – throughout my childhood, I became intensely interested in finally learning the other side of the story.
Growing up, I had zero knowledge of the Nakba. I didn’t know Zionism was a classic settler‑colonial project, or that the so‑called “world’s most moral army” had what I would later understand as a long record of crimes against humanity.
Like other non‑racist Jews of my generation who got around to doing their own homework, the more I read, the angrier I became about how thoroughly I’d been deceived. Very quickly, I went from non‑Zionist to an anti‑Zionist opponent of a “Jewish State” built on exclusive rights for Jews and a long history of brutal oppression.
My Entrée Into Social Media
In 2007, I signed up for Facebook. Social media deserves most of the criticism it gets, but it also exposed eager learners to new people, new thinking, new ideas – and, crucially, new stories.
Through Facebook, I discovered Miko Peled, the Israeli general’s son turned peace activist and author of “The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.” I discovered Ilan Pappe, the Israeli historian whose 2006 book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” laid out what happened in 1948. I discovered Gideon Levy, the Haaretz columnist who has spent decades documenting what Israel does in the occupied territories.
Equally important, I began hearing directly from Palestinian writers and non‑Jewish allies across the Arab world and beyond, through Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, +972 Magazine, and other outlets that finally opened my eyes. It was beyond enlightening.
In 2014, when Israel’s assault dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” killed more than 500 Palestinian children in Gaza, I couldn’t stay quiet. I posted my outrage on Facebook and was attacked and, at times, threatened by Zionists. But something beautiful happened: as my posts were shared, Palestinians, Muslims, and other allies of Palestinian liberation started friending me, defending me, and educating me. From them, I’ve learned so much, gained real‑world friendships I cherish, and developed a clearer sense that Palestinians themselves are leading this righteous struggle for liberation.
My Point of No Return
After I went anti‑Zionist, I never looked back. I’ve never questioned my decision to quit that movement. Zionists didn’t seem to grasp that by expecting me to keep spreading ZBS after I’d learned the truth – and by trying to shame me into silence – they were only inspiring me to speak louder.
As a person named in Hebrew for a refugee from Nazi Germany, and a family member of people who were ghettoized and ethnically cleansed for being Jewish, I’m not about to support the ghettoization and ethnic cleansing of another people for not being Jewish.
For me, “Never again” stopped being a slogan about Jews alone and became a commitment to stand against ethnic cleansing anywhere, especially when it’s done in my name.
My Take on Fellow Jewish Boomers
This is speculation, but after a lifetime among Jewish Boomers, here’s what I see:
Most – including many who call themselves “liberal Zionists” – continue to support Israel because they think that’s what “good Jews” do. They were born shortly before, or not long after, Israel’s birth and still feel bound to the “Jewish State.” They see Israelis as their “people.” They view them as part of their “tribe.”
As youngsters, many of them internalized a fear of a second Holocaust. When that fear is introduced early and reinforced often, it frequently sticks – regardless of IQ or degrees. Later, many were sent to Israel on Zionist propaganda tours that doubled down on the same myths and erased Palestinian reality. On top of that, a lot of Jewish Boomers quietly worry that if they walk away from Zionism and start speaking out, they’ll be ostracized by family, shunned in their shuls, or branded “self‑hating Jews,” so even those with doubts often stay silent.
Sadly, a sizable share of Jewish Boomers will keep backing Israel regardless of the crimes it commits in our name – even as growing numbers of legal scholars and human rights organizations describe its actions as genocidal.
Fortunately, many of their children didn’t absorb their parents’ racism. They’re a big reason I’m still optimistic.
I’m a deeply flawed human who has made plenty of mistakes, but quitting Zionism isn’t one of them. For everyone who helped nudge me in a moral direction along this long road, thank you.
Shalom.
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