I would respectfully challenge your infographic stating Zionism as "those who do not want Jews deported from their homeland." I would not consider myself a Zionist but also I do not want Jews "deported" from Israel as it would lead to even more regional conflict in the long term, further fuel anti-semitism, and is just highly impractical. Neither would I want Israel "dissolved," for the same reasons.
Note: while your definition of Zionism (provided on Facebook in SWEEP NJ) can include non-Jews, I am not Jewish.
Like many people, I have plenty of criticism for the state of Israel. I won't get into that here. What I will say that is that while I have plenty of criticism for many hardcore Zionists I've encountered, I also think I understand WHY they are Zionists and feel I likely would be as well if I was Jewish (as I think most people would be). Most people are not aware that in post-war state Europe, 90% of Polish Jews were murdered (in what had been a refuge for centuries) and that only ~4,500 live there today (0.14% of the pre-war Jewish population). Near complete eradication. The story is repeated over and over. If an overwhelmingly percentage of my ancestors had been systematically murdered, I likely would be a Zionist, too.
Most Americans, as well, have no real concept of war, ethnic cleansing, or genocide---leading to their inability to understand any of this, or peoples' reactions to generational experiences and how those are passed down. As the descendants of non-Jewish Germans who lived through WWII on the ground, including some who opposed the Nazis, some who supported the Nazis, and some who were conscripted to serve, I understand the complexities of loving people who have lived through things you cannot even begin to fathom and do not wish to speak about what haunts them.
An entire generation of Europeans, who lived through it, "do not speak" of the Holocaust---which means the subsequent generations are losing the cultural memory that the Jewish community has kept alive because they know the very real dangers of letting it fade. This is not far off the mark for most Americans who have no concept of true domestic instability or strife--the promise of Israel and the consequences of anti-semitism are a "concept" for them, they are not "real."
Since before November 2024 I was adamant--and making a lot of people angry--that people needed to wake TF because Trump was going to usher in fascism. Why? Because I grew up hearing first hand accounts of WWII from immediate family members and this cultural memory was always "real" and "alive" to me. It was not in a history book. I relocated states in 2017, Trump's first term, because I saw what was coming and knew if there was a refuge left New Jersey was part of it.
Thank you for commenting. I’m a little confused by your comment though. It sounds to me for all intents and purposes that you are a Zionist - a Zionist is simply someone who believes that Israel has the right to exist. Wikipedia and other sources have literally had the definition changed by anti-Israel editors (https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/20/tech/wikipedia-adl-report-antisemitism-bias) - so people aren’t even seeing the real definition which was drastically changed in the past year. But again - while my graphic was a bit crude and simplistic, this was the point I was trying to make.
Right now you and I both dislike our president and we are terrified of the implications of his actions, right? But we are still American. We want to live in America. We don’t want people to be prejudiced against us because we are American.
The media has greatly skewed not just the facts of the war, but the response of the people of Israel who have been protesting Netanyahu since well before 10/7. I stand with them. They are all Zionists.
I think there's a difference between someone who thinks it is pointless to argue whether Israel has the "right to exist" as an almost 80-year old country where whole generations have already lived and died, versus someone who does not have criticism for the founding of Israel and how it impacted the Palestinians present there (with many still alive today) as well as the motivations for countries (US and the UK) establishing Israel and how it benefited them and their motivations not being purely altrustic. In my experience most Zionists do not want to get into the details of the founding of Israel--obviously that's a whole other conversation. I'm aware that Israelis are as diverse (if not moreso) than Americans, and no country or its people are a monolith. To think so is beyond foolish. I'm also aware of the intricacies of Israeli society and find it hard to keep my mouth shut when I hear someone extoll on the virtues of Israel as a "democratic society" (compared to the rest of the Middle East) and then fail to address how conservative it is compared to the United States or how the Israeli government has sought to limit the liberties of non-Jewish Israelis.
The whole thing is extremely complex, and nuanced, which never translates well to high-level generalized conversation (which is a large part of the challenge).
So no, I would not call myself a Zionist in the sense "Israel had a right to be founded" as historically "ethnically-founded" or "religious-founded" states are largely anti-democratic. But, I also see zero sense or reason in Israel "not existing" in 2025, that also would be extremely foolish and to extensive more harm than good .
I would respectfully challenge your infographic stating Zionism as "those who do not want Jews deported from their homeland." I would not consider myself a Zionist but also I do not want Jews "deported" from Israel as it would lead to even more regional conflict in the long term, further fuel anti-semitism, and is just highly impractical. Neither would I want Israel "dissolved," for the same reasons.
Note: while your definition of Zionism (provided on Facebook in SWEEP NJ) can include non-Jews, I am not Jewish.
Like many people, I have plenty of criticism for the state of Israel. I won't get into that here. What I will say that is that while I have plenty of criticism for many hardcore Zionists I've encountered, I also think I understand WHY they are Zionists and feel I likely would be as well if I was Jewish (as I think most people would be). Most people are not aware that in post-war state Europe, 90% of Polish Jews were murdered (in what had been a refuge for centuries) and that only ~4,500 live there today (0.14% of the pre-war Jewish population). Near complete eradication. The story is repeated over and over. If an overwhelmingly percentage of my ancestors had been systematically murdered, I likely would be a Zionist, too.
Most Americans, as well, have no real concept of war, ethnic cleansing, or genocide---leading to their inability to understand any of this, or peoples' reactions to generational experiences and how those are passed down. As the descendants of non-Jewish Germans who lived through WWII on the ground, including some who opposed the Nazis, some who supported the Nazis, and some who were conscripted to serve, I understand the complexities of loving people who have lived through things you cannot even begin to fathom and do not wish to speak about what haunts them.
An entire generation of Europeans, who lived through it, "do not speak" of the Holocaust---which means the subsequent generations are losing the cultural memory that the Jewish community has kept alive because they know the very real dangers of letting it fade. This is not far off the mark for most Americans who have no concept of true domestic instability or strife--the promise of Israel and the consequences of anti-semitism are a "concept" for them, they are not "real."
Since before November 2024 I was adamant--and making a lot of people angry--that people needed to wake TF because Trump was going to usher in fascism. Why? Because I grew up hearing first hand accounts of WWII from immediate family members and this cultural memory was always "real" and "alive" to me. It was not in a history book. I relocated states in 2017, Trump's first term, because I saw what was coming and knew if there was a refuge left New Jersey was part of it.
Thank you for commenting. I’m a little confused by your comment though. It sounds to me for all intents and purposes that you are a Zionist - a Zionist is simply someone who believes that Israel has the right to exist. Wikipedia and other sources have literally had the definition changed by anti-Israel editors (https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/20/tech/wikipedia-adl-report-antisemitism-bias) - so people aren’t even seeing the real definition which was drastically changed in the past year. But again - while my graphic was a bit crude and simplistic, this was the point I was trying to make.
Right now you and I both dislike our president and we are terrified of the implications of his actions, right? But we are still American. We want to live in America. We don’t want people to be prejudiced against us because we are American.
The media has greatly skewed not just the facts of the war, but the response of the people of Israel who have been protesting Netanyahu since well before 10/7. I stand with them. They are all Zionists.
I think there's a difference between someone who thinks it is pointless to argue whether Israel has the "right to exist" as an almost 80-year old country where whole generations have already lived and died, versus someone who does not have criticism for the founding of Israel and how it impacted the Palestinians present there (with many still alive today) as well as the motivations for countries (US and the UK) establishing Israel and how it benefited them and their motivations not being purely altrustic. In my experience most Zionists do not want to get into the details of the founding of Israel--obviously that's a whole other conversation. I'm aware that Israelis are as diverse (if not moreso) than Americans, and no country or its people are a monolith. To think so is beyond foolish. I'm also aware of the intricacies of Israeli society and find it hard to keep my mouth shut when I hear someone extoll on the virtues of Israel as a "democratic society" (compared to the rest of the Middle East) and then fail to address how conservative it is compared to the United States or how the Israeli government has sought to limit the liberties of non-Jewish Israelis.
The whole thing is extremely complex, and nuanced, which never translates well to high-level generalized conversation (which is a large part of the challenge).
So no, I would not call myself a Zionist in the sense "Israel had a right to be founded" as historically "ethnically-founded" or "religious-founded" states are largely anti-democratic. But, I also see zero sense or reason in Israel "not existing" in 2025, that also would be extremely foolish and to extensive more harm than good .