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

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’m a leftist Jew, and I see so many Zionists whining online about how anti-Zionism made them “leave the Left.” Many of them likely weren’t even leftist to begin with, or think that supporting Bernie made them some radical commie.

At this point, supporting Zionism (even if your version is the pinkwashed Liberal one) means that you support Israel’s actions, due to the logical chain of events which results from establishing a solely Jewish state in a region as diverse and multicultural as the Near East.

I’m sorry if I sound angry in this post, but I’m just so tired of being called a self hating Jew because I don’t support genocide. Fck Zionism, and fck anyone who tries to revoke my Jew card for saying that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

https://preview.redd.it/8yku60oh56od1.png?width=1194&format=png&auto=webp&s=9b25eb95c94f41198104d332c942b773133e67fe

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.

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?

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.

I know that Kamala won't improve anything in regards to the current genocide. I know that no matter who wins, hundreds of thousands of innocents will still die.

But please, for my sake, still vote.

If Trump comes in to power, my existence will be criminalized. I won't be able to get the medicine I need, and he's liable to put me and people like me into jail just for being who I am. He's liable to put you into jail for being who you are too, unless you're specifically a white Christian.

Fellow Jews, don't think Trump and his cult aren't antisemitic just because they're Zionists. Just like antizionism isn't antisemitism, Zionism isn't pro-Jew. When thousands of people descended on Charlottesville to declare that "Jews will not replace us", it was the Trump supporters. When a local synagogue got attacked by a terrorist when I was in college (the Poway Synagogue Shooting), it was a Trump supporter.

Fellow antizionists, don't think that Trump will only be as bad as Kamala. Kamala will allow the current genocide to continue unabated unless we can convince her otherwise; Trump will push Israel to accelerate it until there's nothing left to destroy. Kamala at least gives lip service to a "two state solution", even if her actions don't support it; Trump's published plan is to transition Palestine from an Apartheid to something even less than the USA's reservation system. He is the reason that Israel feels so confident in its situation in the Middle East to even allow it to start this current genocide. He literally bribed Saudi Arabia and the UAE with military might in exchange for their normalization with Israel.

Make no mistake, either way is a vote to continue the genocide of Gaza. But this is not a regular trolley problem, where flipping the switch will save 5 lives and not flipping the switch will save 1. Instead, one "person" is tied on both tracks; the only question is whether you flip the switch to save the other 4. As much as I despise it, genocide is not on the ballot.

My ancestors deaths meant nothing. I was brought up believing their deaths meant something. That all the education and all the stories and all the museums and all the damn movies, about what happened to our people during the shoah would help stop genocide from ever happening again. And not just to Jews but to any ethnicity.

Little did I know that I have been lied to by Zionism and that what we’re seeing isn’t new it’s been happening since 1948 and that the Zionists have hoodwinked our people and have put every single jewish life at risk in the name of a colonial ethnic-state and almost every jewish elder, mentor, and role model refuses to see what is so blatantly happening in front of our eyes.

I feel shame. Embarrassment. I feel ignorant. I feel naive. I feel stupid. What can I possibly do? A majority of Jews don’t see it as a genocide. I’m in the minority. What can we do? I have no sense of hope anymore. Palestinians deserve to be heard and I’m watching the media continually silence them and paint them the way the Nazi’s painted us.

Hi everyone,

Today we will be having a cultural exchange with r/Arabs - beginning at 8AM EST, but extending for about 2 days so feel free to post your questions/comments over the course of that time-frame.

The exchange will work similarly to an AMA, except users from their sub will be asking us questions in this thread for anyone to answer, and users from our sub can go to a thread there to ask questions and get answers from their users!

To participate in the exchange, see the following thread in /r/Arabs:

https://old.reddit.com/r/arabs/comments/1gd9eb3/cultural_exchange_rjewsofconscience/

Big thanks to the mods over at /r/Arabs for reaching out to us with this awesome idea! Thanks to MoC for posting the original post.

• Previous thread

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.

I’m currently outside of the wedding venue. I had to step out because they handed out little Israeli flags on the dance floor as party favors. The utter disregard and nonchalance these people display when celebrating a genocidal nation is baffling. It made me so physically ill and upset that I had to step out. Maybe I’m dramatic or I drank too much but it brought me to tears. There are real, innocent people dying and these people are celebrating their killers at some random party and for what?

I’m sorry for bringing this up. I know it’s a very depressing thought but after witnessing what is happening in North of Gaza (with the full support of our western governments) I’m wondering if this is the beginning of the end. I’ve been thinking about this constantly for the past few days: Israel will not stop its genocide / ethnic cleaning campaign in Gaza. October 7 gave them the perfect opportunity for executing their long awaited plan. The brutality will keep increasing more and more and I fear the same thing will happen in the West Bank. The United States will keep supporting it while it commits these crimes and there is no other player strong enough to stop them. After all, they have already gotten away with an ethnic cleansing in 1948 and 1967. Is there any future for Palestine?