Coming from a Judeo-Catholic family is a blessing for me because my Jewish side is much stronger to me even though I tell everyone I have the best of both worlds – Judaism and Catholicism.
To me, Judaism is more than just a religion, it is a nation, an ethnicity, and a people.
To me, Zionism was a thing long before the creation of the
Jewish state and it will remain a thing long after.
To me, being a Zionist, doesn’t mean blindly standing behind all the decisions
of the Israeli government. It doesn’t mean pretending Israel is perfect. It is
not synonymous with the denial of Palestinian self-determination.
In actuality, being a Zionist means wrestling with the complexities of the Jewish state and of the conflict in general, being a link in the chain of the history of Zionism and most importantly, maintaining that all peoples, like the Jewish people, deserve the right to self-determination.
To be honest, it really frustrates me when I hear the phrase, “Zionism is Racism.” Zionism is the movement which maintains that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination, nothing more and nothing less. And it is truly disheartening when people condemn that movement, denying the Jewish right to self-determination, while simultaneously advocating for the self-determination of other peoples.
Zionism has a past, a present and a future. Zionism of the past
sought to revive, renew and liberate the Jewish state. Zionism of the present
seeks to defend the Jewish right to self-determination. And Zionism of the
future involves constructively criticizing that Jewish state to enable it to
fulfill all that it is destined to be.
I am a Zionist.
Hebrew is the language I use to thank the Creator, and also to swear on the road. The Bible does not only contain my history, but also my geography. King Saul went to look for mules on what is today Highway 443, Jonah the Prophet boarded his ship not too far from what is today a Jaffa restaurant, and the balcony where David peeped on Bathsheba must have been bought by some oligarch by now.
I am a Zionist.
I think that the State of Israel is not only a place, it is also an idea, and I wholeheartedly believe in the three extra commandments engraved on the wall of the Holocaust museum in Washington: "Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but above all, thou shalt not be a bystander."
I am a Zionist.
I am a man of tomorrow but I also live my past. My dynasty includes Moses, Jesus, Maimonides, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, Bobby Fischer, Bob Dylan, Franz Kafka, Herzl, and Ben-Gurion. I am part of a tiny persecuted minority that influenced the world more than any other nation. While others invested their energies in war, we had the sense to invest in our minds.
I am a Zionist.
My Zionism is natural, just like it is natural for me to be a father of three brilliant kids, and a son. People who claim that they, and only they, represent the "real Zionism" are ridiculous in my view.
I am a Zionist.
Every time an innocent victim dies, I bow my head because once upon a time I was an innocent victim. I have no desire or intention to adopt the moral standards of my enemies. I do not want to be like them. I do not live on my sword; I merely keep it under my pillow.
Zionism is about freedom of speech and freedom of religion; about the right to dissent, to argue, to criticize. Zionism is a messy, feisty, imperfect work-in-progress that can be a liberating model for the rest of the Middle East. Indeed, if Arab countries offered its citizens the same rights and freedoms that Israeli Arabs enjoy in a Zionist country, that alone would represent major progress.
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