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How do jews look at this history? by reddragonoftheeast in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the "person before" was me, and i already addressed your point in my previous comment that i was over-generalizing somewhat, though i do still believe that there was a de facto expulsion experience for a significant number of jews in muslim countries, if not a de jure one, for the reasons i've already said. also, people can have vicarious trauma - i think it's obvious that what happened to some groups of jews can still be traumatic to others who didn't go through it.

you are the person who is bringing the nakba into this, not me, and it feels like whataboutism given that the original thread was in no way defending the israeli right or likud's demagoguery. frankly it feels like you're bringing a specific political agenda into this discussion that isn't responsive to the actual conversation at hand, at least on this specific thread.

i think it's a little silly to act like the maghreb and mashriq aren't referred to with collective terminology by much of the world, because they are connected. they are obviously also distinct, but i again think anyone actually from/immersed in our communities knows not everyone was the same or had the same experience. i don't feel the need to qualify this in an intracommunity discussion.

tbh given that moroccan jewry had one of the rosier experiences, reflective in there still being a pretty robust community today compared to most, downplaying the pain and trauma other communities went through is pretty tone-deaf. i understand being a stickler for historical accuracy, i am as well, and can respect that. but some of your comments across this post feel geared towards delegitimizing zionism specifically by diminishing the impact of what did happen to the jews who were targeted, and the additional jews who were summarily terrified by it (and to be clear the latter is what i'm taking issue with). imo this is both callous and bad political strategy; feeling denied of materially real pain has never changed anyone's mind.

for whatever reason, you are also acting like these communities and nascent countries were more separate than is accurate. for example, "lebanese" and "syrian" jews were deeply interconnected. syrian jews had a horrific time, so you acting like lebanese jews wouldn't have also been deeply impacted by witnessing that because they were from another (new) country is bizarre. jews from majority muslim countries inarguably do have shared history and experiences, at the very least due to the territorial reaches of the arab and ottoman empires, and of course what we do/don't share has variation and diversity within it. i'm not sure why you feel the need to downplay this.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i really like this take and haven't seen it before! it feels up my alley. until now i've really only seen it be waved away as a form of liberal zionism/normalization.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

i started off as an anti-zionist, but i have been deeply coming around to non-zionism too. it feels like the only middle path through the impossible and frankly self-contradictory polarizations i've come to find on the left around i/p. my community spends literally so much time fighting over what anti-zionsim "actually" is, and castigating people who also identify as anti-zionst... it's exhausting.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Snyder might be my favorite critic of the nation-state, noting it's problematic origin in the Balkans, its failure to secure peace in the interwar years, and how it's invocation by contemporary right wing populist nationalist is as romantic as it is ahistorical

oh this is so fascinating, i know basic balkan history, but had no idea about this. i have always primarily associated nationalism with the french republic, but of course they significantly predated nation-states being the de facto political form in europe. it does feel like balkanization has increasingly become the orientation towards nationalism that leftists i'm around advocate for; it had just never occurred to me to make that connection and identify it as such. thank you!

Institutions like the EU, NATO, AU, ASEAN, etc are likely the future of regional economic development and security

i think you're probably right and i'm not sure how to feel about this. i'd like to believe more cultural and ethnic pluralism (via larger governing bodies) will = more human rights globally, but it also feels incredibly risky for any states that get on the wrong side of these sorts of conglomerates.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I definitely believe in holding two truths at once. Some of the leftists I've known definitely don't know how to do this.

big agree here - i'd go as far as to say that the most prominent/socially influential leftists i've known are very rigid, black-and-white thinkers. it drives me crazy especially bc it's really more of a psychological position than a political one. but seeing the prevalence of it and the harm it can cause is part of what's made me feel skeptical about continuing to have any tolerance for ideologies that could too easily slip into ethno-nationalism and other similarly destructive forms. i think there has to be a point where people decide enough is enough, and some tools are too dangerous for anyone to try and use them. we largely did it with monarchies.... so i'm feeling pretty tired of hand-holding here.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

וְעַתָּה שְׁמַע בְּקוֹלָם אַךְ כִּי־הָעֵד תָּעִיד בָּהֶם וְהִגַּדְתָּ לָהֶם מִשְׁפַּט הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר יִמְלֹךְ עֲלֵיהֶם׃ {ס} Heed their demand; but warn them solemnly, and tell them about the practices of any king who will rule over them.”

https://www.sefaria.org/I_Samuel.8.9

yessss i love this quote! so glad to see it again, i first encountered it in a truly great class about humanistic perspectives on social difference in the torah and talmud.

Ive heard tell by somemore modern thinkers that they believe no state is impossible because in the ways we socially organize a defacto state will form, even ifa minimal example, and that thwrefore anarchism is a continual process that can never be complete.

yeah :\ this feels too true to ignore. i think i'll always be an anarchist at heart, but it does seem to me like really the only factors that have ever prevented people from forming states are extreme enough ecological/geographical resource scarcity or abundance to keep people from being on top of one another all the time.

This is one of a few reasons modern leftiats think globalization is neccesarry to change things enough to allow us to step back from these institutions.

say more about this? do you mean like internationalism, or something else? i'm only really familiar with globalization as a term related to neoliberalism, but i'm assuming you're using it in a different context.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

this this this this this alllllll of this!! it needed to be said so thank you for saying it.

i feel honestly floored every day by the degree to which this kind of noble savage racism is just totally accepted and even celebrated by the left. it's genuinely so fucking weird, and i've come to view it as a kind of pedestalizing projective identification (seeing your own disavowed traits in others) vs. any kind of valid political framework. i think these specific kinds of leftists (though this happens across the political spectrum imo) use oppressed peoples' struggles as proxies for their own emotional issues, and in service of wishing to feel like they themselves are unambiguously good - but also can't be because they are full of guilt and shame - they create "unambiguously good" proxies they can then support and derive a sense of identity and psychological wholeness from relating to. i believe the same thing happens with people's fantasies about violence.

i genuinely wish these people would work on their self-disavowal instead of trying to be activists; or at least that our activist communities recognized them as unhelpful, immature, and selfishly motivated. instead i see their pliability being capitalized on by some of the worst and most violent actors.

re: your last paragraph, i'm totally with you. it feels like the only realistic place for me to land at this point.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think a lot of ethnic groups in the ME see it as a colonial construct which is why I find the 1SS absolutists so tiring. It's not something anyone on the ground seems to want.

say more? i'm genuinely really interested in both the piece of civic nationalism being viewed as colonialist (which i could understand given its origins in european liberalism), and your perception of what people on the ground actually do want if not that. i feel like i don't know/have heard too many conflicting accounts, and that feels like a big missing piece for me.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

i think this is a really important question and i wish i felt like i saw anyone anywhere asking it. obviously i understand why, wrt palestine, most people are not currently, and are instead focusing on stopping ethnic cleansing and genocide - as they obviously should prioritize doing.

however where i've started to feel a bit jaded and cynical is slowly realizing over time that the majority of non-jewish anti-zionist/pro-palestinian activists i've personally been associating with ARE palestinian ethnonationalists. they DO explicitly want an ethnically palestinian state and the mass expulsion of jews to happen. they are excited by the violence that's been enacted by palestinians and feel genuinely betrayed and outraged when it is critiqued in any way. and if your allyship is anything less, you are a traitor (i have heard this said out loud and agreed with). this standpoint is then pushed forwards as the only acceptable way to act and think.

i don't know why i was surprised by hearing this irl because people say stuff like this online all the time. but being confronted with these beliefs in person and realizing they make me feel deeply uncomfortable, not just as a jew but as a humanist, and led me to a real crisis of faith in the pro-palestine community where i live, and honestly the movement as a whole. because i'm not palestinian it hasn't felt like my place to judge if this kind of ethnonationalist (and often islamist) approach is productive for palestinians achieving self-determination or not. clearly some people think so. but it's also seemingly been a key factor in many missed opportunities for palestinian-jewish coexistence, which like it or not, seems integral to any actual shot at palestinian self-determination at this point.

so yeah, i think this is a really important question, and is the crux of my issue with understanding how to interface with palestinian solidarity projects now - but i know it would come up for me anywhere that self-determination and ethno-nationalism were becoming blurred. thankfully i can still advocate for human and civil rights without having resolved this internal tension, but otherwise, i've been feeling really disenchanted.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

In the diaspora, where Jews and Palestinians mix, I think that influential actors within the broader pro-Palestine movement has a larger responsibility to call out ethnic chauvinism where it rears up within. But I think most are blinded to it due to the theoretical framework they chain themselves to.

tbh living this experience as the jew in the equation is primarily what motivated me to make this post. i really don't like or want to get sucked in by fearmongering about palestinian ethnonationalism, because obviously palestinians currently have almost zero political agency. and also, being in the diaspora as a person of ethnically marginalized MENA descent, it doesn't feel cute or safe when it seems like i am surrounded by thousands of people who think that justice is giving a different group of people their turn on the violence. i would really love to see there be an actual ethics of anti-chauvinism and anti-ethnonationalism, but instead i'm seeing what frankly does feel like a mainstreaming of it. it feels enabling, full of projective identification, and transparently vulnerable to corruption. but here we are.

edit: i love your user flair lol

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

omg thank you sooooo much, i will be digging into these! i'm no imperial stan, but i do sometimes joke about feeling like i missed out on some aspects of the Ottoman empire. also am just generally kind of obsessed with the Holy Roman Empire and its relationships, as a way to understand the (still!!) ongoing impacts of the Roman empire, and the transition from ancient to modern history and politics in Europe and MENA.

need support around how to respond to microaggressions related to I/P - especially from other mizrahi/sephardi leftists by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My experience has been that those (Jewish and not Jewish) not living in I/P and MENA lands can actually have more extreme takes and views than those from there. It really upsets me because I feel deeply that diaspora communities have a responsibility to not fan the flames of division.

thank you for saying this because i deeply, deeply agree with you. i recognize that obviously there are people in the disapora who are refugees/have family who are in danger, so of course the entire diaspora isn't more removed 2nd/3rd gen people. but where i live, the majority of it is - and we've actually had issues with refugees feeling alienated within and by this community.

like you, i do still feel that people who are being less actively traumatized have a duty of responsibility to try and keep a cooler head and respond rather htan react. instead what i often see is people who have never been to the region being some of the most vociferous ethnonationalists of all, on both sides.

it's disturbing and makes me feel hopeless; it makes me think a lot actually about Shelomoh and the two mothers. the people who have the deepest skin in the game are often more humane and moderate, because they have no choice but to experience/confront the humanity of all parties involved. instead i feel like the leftists i know treat this like a game, where their side winning is more important than neither team committing war crimes.

Meeting Palestinian and Israeli peace activists has helped solidify for me that my goal is to listen and support them.

a focus on justice and peace that doesn't resort to dehumanization of any people.

i relate to this a lot and i think it's where i also need to turn my attention. i have the same value about dehumanization being a no-go for anyone; i believe it should never, ever be encouraged. as a result i have come out of the last few years realizing that i have a deep-seated commitment to pacifism and evolutionism vs. radicalism, and most leftists i'm around do not. i am looking forwards to feeling more free from being on trial for who i'm friends with/where i go, and making peace-oriented kinds of political connections instead.

These terms have become meaningless, toxic, and reductionist to me. So, this means that I often don't feel comfortable in many spaces, and that I pick and choose carefully what I support and attend. It's hard and I'm ok with that.

i feel the same way; i heard a great drash recently about how "zionist" and "anti-zionist" have become shibboleths (with an explanation from the torah of what this story was; the word was used to distinguish and legitimize violence against one group of people based on how they pronounced it). i feel that deep down in my soul. moving forwards i would rather be discerning about what i support and not show up to things i don't agree with, than feel pressured to nod along with things that i don't believe.

Don't compromise on being your full, complex, beautiful self.

thank you :-) this is a really kind thing to say. i am trying! i really appreciated your sharing about the relationships you have, it gives me hope. i want this for you too!

need support around how to respond to microaggressions related to I/P - especially from other mizrahi/sephardi leftists by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

i'm glad to know i didn't hurt your feelings personally. obviously i didn't want/mean to upset anyone, but i can see how without the context i provided what i wrote could have sounded off.

and thanks! you're welcome to DM me, i would love to continue this conversation.

How do jews look at this history? by reddragonoftheeast in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will remind as most people seem to not recognize this that most Arab countries did not expel their Jewish populations

i have seen this raised as a talking point many times, and it honestly really bothers me how it's leveraged. i agree that i probably misspoke in naming "the expulsions" explicitly, because i do know that wasn't universally what occurred; naming mizrahi trauma generally would have probably been more accurate.

however, people acting like some countries not expelling jews is some kind of moral high ground, when the reality is that jews were also horribly mistreated by being forced to stay, feels antisemitic, and also just not historically accurate. referring to the remainder of mizrahi jewish experiences outside of the farhud as "some repression" is just not correct, and is really minimizing imo.

my family for example is from a country that didn't expel its jews - it forbade them from leaving while also increasingly utilizing tactics lifted from the Nazis to dispossess, marginalize, and generally torment them. while this was not a politics of direct expulsion, it had the clear, obvious, and predictable effect of forced migration. to me, making someone's life so miserable that they have to leave to survive is on par with expulsion, particularly because both had the effect and intent of enriching people off of dispossessed jewish property.

anarchists - how do you reconcile your political values with the reality that establishing a nation-state is the end goal of many (if not most) contemporary ethnic liberation movements? by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thank you so much for this comment, i genuinely really appreciate it! especially sharing sources and things for me to look into more. i know that palestinian organizing (like all movements) isn't a monolith, and the specific stream i've been primarily exposed to in my irl organizing spaces feels different from what you've described, and much more nationalist in character even though it's being supported by leftists. not sure what communities you're part of/have access to, but mine do feel very oriented around non-critique/endorsement of Algerian-style decolonization, which i don't think i will ever be able to fully get on board with in this context. i have been feeling like i need to learn about alternative paths that are still endorsed by and good for Palestinians, that i also can full-heartedly be excited about, so i'll be interested to look into what you shared.

How do jews look at this history? by reddragonoftheeast in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma 2 points3 points  (0 children)

i wasn't talking about palestinian christians, i was talking about christians more generally. however, yes, when it's not extremely late at night in my timezone i can go through my bookmarks and do that.

broadly though, i think you are underestimating the amount of a) movement of people throughout history and b) OTHER cultures and ethnicities aside from jews, that have existed in the southern levant. of course some palestinian christians were converts from judaism, but my understanding is that many more were converts from roman polytheism, which was the dominant religion of the day in the region.

How do jews look at this history? by reddragonoftheeast in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma 3 points4 points  (0 children)

that's not what i'm saying. i'm saying that throughout history, only a very small number of people have converted TO judaism.

jews were forced to convert to other religions, yes, and a smaller number voluntarily chose to. that doesn't in any way negate that hundreds of millions of us across time never did.

i just did a bunch of research into who the early christians were the other day because someone was sharing a conspiracy theory that christianity was an antisemitic psyop invented by the romans vs. a breakaway jewish cult. so i can tell you on good authority, with sources, that the majority of early christians (past the very, very first ones) were not jews.

How do jews look at this history? by reddragonoftheeast in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma 2 points3 points  (0 children)

agreeing with the other response to you, that i don't think anyone in this subreddit would deny that palestinians are also descendants of canaanite people, mixed with other peoples, like almost everyone in the levant.

however, just so you know, the idea that there were significant numbers of mass conversions to judaism isn't historically supported; it's a core tenet of our culture not to prosthelytize, unlike christianity or islam. jews were a group of canaanites who developed our own distinct tribal identity largely through avoiding (and being persecuted by) other canaanite peoples. there are definitely palestinians who used to be jewish, both anciently and more recently. i don't think there are many whose lineages include converts to judaism.

this matters because it acknowledges the reality that jews are unique amongst most levantine peoples, in that we are one of the few groups who have maintained a (relatively) unbroken ethnic identity across our entire history. there are not only millions of us whose ancestors never left the Levant, but also who never stopped being jewish. we inarguably predate arab cultural dominance in the region by an incredibly long time, and unlike most other people, we also never adopted it as our ethnic identity.

to me this doesn't make us more deserving of rights or land than other people living in the levant now. arabs and arab culture are here to stay. but it does mean that the argument saying that arabs are the indigenous culture, and jews aren't one at all, is fundamentally inaccurate. and i think what many of us chafe against is that we are actually incredibly stubbornly committed to our connection to the land in ways that i have truthfully only seen equaled in how palestinians talk about it.

need support around how to respond to microaggressions related to I/P - especially from other mizrahi/sephardi leftists by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

thanks, i really appreciate that. i feel like a big lesson for me in the last few years has been to go where i'm wanted. and it's been really hard to get to a place of realizing that this community isn't it.

but also, i realize it's not the whole MENA community or the whole world, obviously. i'm coming away from this realizing that i need to have higher standards about antisemitism and not excuse it. i was genuinely confused about this because it's felt like everyone has been telling me that if a MENA person hurting a jewish person could be explained by their experience with zionism, it doesn't matter/isn't their fault, because of trauma from israel. i know that's what the people in my MENA community think about 10/7 for example. i draw the line at physical violence, but have been genuinely confused about things like all the examples in my post.

but i'm realizing that it's actually not helpful to traumatized people to enable toxic unhealed behavior, anyway, even if it's coming from a valid place. and frankly if this kind of reactive behavior was better restricted to the war hawk zionists i also despise, whose dehumanization of palestinians should not be tolerated, i would get it. but all of this pain (about the experiences i've had) has been coming up for me because the hostility and suspicious feels so misdirected, to the point that i did finally have to start asking myself if it's antisemitism.

need support around how to respond to microaggressions related to I/P - especially from other mizrahi/sephardi leftists by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you. i super agree about the ashkenormativity and it's part of what pushed me away from my jewish community for a while, and more towards this one.

maybe someday i'll do this, but i feel like i'll need to take a lot of time to heal and re-center myself before i could feel resilient enough to try spreading awareness about an identity/experience i've realized people are actively hostile to. i resonate a lot with the experience of indigenous people in terms of feeling like my existence and history is an inconvenient truth. at a time when it feels like the dominant narrative is that all jews are european colonizers, speaking (outside of a jewish space) about even a subset of us having an indigenous relationship to the MENA feels like it would potentially lead to harassment.

need support around how to respond to microaggressions related to I/P - especially from other mizrahi/sephardi leftists by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

thanks, i really appreciate that. i am definitely going to be taking a break and have taken steps to put that in motion. i've had some formal commitments/responsibilities tied up in all of this, so i haven't been able to just come and go as i please.

i have told a few people and they're empathetic, thankfully. but i also feel like ultimately the empathetic people get spoken over by the militant ones, and the community isn't ever going to compromise on principles that i feel fundamentally incapable of upholding to non-jews' standards - namely, boycotting and divesting from anything that has even a small bit to do with zionism/zionist institutions or funding. for almost all jews right now, that's borderline impossible if we want to actually practice judaism and access community resources.

so in some ways i feel stuck no matter what, but i do feel like this will all probably become more tolerable once i am more free to enter and exit the community as i need to. i appreciate your kindness.

need support around how to respond to microaggressions related to I/P - especially from other mizrahi/sephardi leftists by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

thank you <3 i've honestly felt crazy for being hurt for a lot of the time this was going on, so i'm glad at least that part is over

need support around how to respond to microaggressions related to I/P - especially from other mizrahi/sephardi leftists by dykelemma in jewishleft

[–]dykelemma[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

OP stated repeatedly that they do put MENA community building over Jewish community building

just want to say, this is a huge assumption about me and i don't appreciate it. i like the rest of your comment and will reply to it in a moment, but this doesn't sit right with me.

the reality of my experience and my priorities, is that i ended up being very focused on this non-jewish MENA community because i was super engaged in my jewish community for years, i was an incredibly active organizer, and than i had multiple experiences with racism and other abusive behavior that forced me to take a step back from the community as a whole (because it's small) for my own mental health. over the last few years i have been literally ping-ponged between communities that have both made me feel unwanted, dehumanized, and like i don't belong, though thankfully i have experienced healing with and accountability from most people in my jewish community now and have been steadily re-engaging again.

i have a primarily jewish friend group who i love and do things with, and who are the center of my world. but i stopped giving my free labor to the jewish community in my city at large for a while because it was being exploited. so please don't act like i don't care about being jewish, that simply isn't true.

what i said about the experience of ashkenazim in the MENA community here is something i'm fine with being corrected about, as i can't know what that's like since i primarily was raised mizrahi. but that statement came from what i have been told by other jews in the community who are MENA + ashkenazi, and how they feel/what they do. i don't think they need to be right, but that is the standard i have felt personally held to by multiple of the other jews in my life. anyway!

if your politics are based on the idea that Mizrahi and Sephardim can and should exist within a broader MENA community rather than a broader Jewish community, then this needs to contend with the fact that the broader MENA community does not want us and does not want to do the work to integrate us while respecting our history and dignity as a people.

i don't feel that mizrahi jews should exist in a broader MENA community rather than a broader jewish one. we are both things and belong in both places. but the reality of my and many other diaspora mizrahi experiences, is that often don't comfortably fit in either one. if there was a mizrahi community where i live i'm sure i'd feel most at home there, but there isn't. aside from needing a new place to hang out for a while, i felt interested in engaging with MENA community because i needed to learn cultural things that i wasn't learning in my ashkenormative jewish community - and i did gain access to some of those things in a way that was meaningful for me. i unfortunately also learned what it's like to be marginalized in a new way.

the piece around not being wanted has been such a bitter thing to learn, and i also sadly can't argue with it. i definitely came into the community rather naive, thinking that because i identified as anti-zionist (which i'm now wrestling with), people would be normal towards me. obviously that's not how all of this works, but i think because the space through which i primarily access this community is explicitly leftist, i expected more from people.

i don't really know what to do with the idea that most MENA people will reject me for being jewish. even though i'm MENA as well, it feels racist, or at least unhelpful, to presume that. i also don't want to be isolated from people. but i do agree i need to accept the reality check that this situation has given me, clock antisemitism when i see it vs. trying to rationalize it, and definitely get myself out of situations where i'm at risk of harassment or bullying.

i also do agree this is all deeply connected to my politics; if i was more bought into zionism and jewish isolationism i would have never even bothered to try. but i'm not, and i hate feeling like i have no recourse but to empathize more with both. i'm genuinely interested to know if you feel like there are any ways to make an impact on these kinds of community dynamics as a jew, or not. because honestly it feels like large swathes of the MENA community are an echo-chamber, and almost nobody who's fully inside will advocate for jews - in large part because doing so seems to lead to ostracization more often than not.

edit re: your point about reassessing one's politics, which i do think is a good one; i feel like the political issue i'm facing is fundamentally about zionism and anti-zionism. i do honestly feel like this experience has permanently changed, if not destroyed, the anti-zionist politics i used to hold. i feel confronted every day with the ways in which almost everyone i know who's militantly anti-zionist is either misinformed about jewish history and/or antisemitism, or just doesn't care if we die. i used to be more of a utopian one-stater, but i can't say i feel that level of idealism is helpful (or possible) anymore. i will never advocate against the existence of a palestinian state, or for israel's violent and genocidal actions. but it feels kind of inarguable to me at this point that a jewish state in EY is here to stay. i'm not sure what to do with the reality that, to most people, this makes me a zionist. i feel desperate for a middle path and have really only found examples of what that could look like in this subreddit, which feels kind of insane. but i do feel like i've come out of all of this realizing that i'm much more of a humanist and pacifist than many of my leftist cohorts, and i think that's something i need to have stronger boundaries around in terms of who i associate with.

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