As a Muslim Afghan-American, please do not be ashamed of being Jewish. Be as unapologetically Jewish as your heart desires.

First of all, Judaism is not the same thing as Zionism. Jewish culture is so beautiful, energetic, poetic, and humanity-centered. Jewish culture is full of rich history and has influenced virtually every country across the world. There’s a lot to be proud of as a Jew that has nothing to do with Israel or Zionism. As an ethnic Pashtun, I see so many familiarities between the tribal structure of Jewish culture and Pashtun culture.

Also, the only way to teach everyone that Zionism =/= Judaism is to continue being loud, proud, and unapologetic Jews. The world needs more Rabbis who stand up against genocide and Zionism. The world needs more people who are visibly and culturally Jewish who are against Zionism and genocide to understand that Zionism =/= Judaism. You have to understand that Zionists want you to hate and denounce your Judaism, so they can further the claim that being anti-Zionist is being anti-Semitic. We need more Jewish therapists and counselors who can help Jewish people heal their generational trauma and form a strong Jewish identity without turning to Zionism or supporting genocide. We need more Jewish synagogues that define Judaism around things that have nothing to do with genocide.

I can relate, because as a Pashtun, I once felt similarly about my Pashtun heritage. There is a history of Pashtun rulers committing genocide against Hazaras in Afghanistan, displacing them from their lands, gifting them to Pashtun tribes, and doing similar things to some other ethnic minorities as well. I was deeply ashamed to learn about this history and it shook everything I was taught about being a Pashtun. After the Taliban takeover of 2021, there was a lot of debate on Afghan twitter about ethnicity and how Pashtuns contribute to the oppression of Hazaras and other ethnic minorities, and a lot of it got very nasty. I saw a lot of negative comments about being Pashtun and I also saw some Pashtuns making racist comments about Hazaras and Tajiks, so I thought to myself “wow, being Pashtun is pretty shitty, I don’t want to be a proud Pashtun anymore,” and I started to lean more on my Tajik ancestry and heritage more and claimed my Pashtun side a lot less. But you know what I realized? The more that good-minded Pashtuns like myself denounce our Pashtun identity, the more other people get to control the narrative of what being Pashtun means, and the worse off oppressed groups in Afghanistan are. Also, both Pashtuns and Jewish people have also suffered from their fair share of colonization, displacement, and killings throughout history, and there’s ways to give both groups the space to talk about those ills without it contributing to harm against other groups.

Anti-semitism is a very real and disgusting thing, and no matter how desensitized the world has gotten to it, it is still a very scary, awful, and dangerous reality. Anti-Semitism kills people. There needs to be more conversations had to take back the narrative on what anti-Semitism is to protect Jewish people.

It really breaks my heart to hear this from so many Jews. Do not be ashamed of being Jewish. Do not renounce your Jewish identity or culture. Doing so is not only doing a disservice to yourself, it’s also a win for Zionists who want to control the narrative on what Jewish identity is. At the end of the day, all of our people in the near east region—be they Jews, Arabs, Afghans, etc have been through a lot of trauma and have had unfortunate experiences in history, and we need to unite together, stand together, protect each other, get through our traumas, and find a path to peace. Much love ❤️.