As much as I have a longing for (a liberated) Jerusalem & for (a liberated) Palestine rooted in my Jewishness & the sacredness of our tradition, deep in my heart and in my Neshama, I also find the discounting of Jewish life in the Diaspora to be invalidating on the whole.

We have developed beautiful forms of Jewishness in what Homi Bhabha would name the "Third Space", Stuart Hall "diaspora identities", and James Clifford "traveling cultures" (Ramanazi, 7).

My Jewish identity is existence between longing for homeland and a life developed around Diaspora. Davening for a return to (a liberated) Jerusalem is just as important to me as singing American niguns — there is something to be said for existing in the in-between.

And while yes, Diaspora Jewry can often leave us feeling brutalized & oppressed, @tashakaminsky said it best when they commented on how there is much more to celebrate than to fear. Romanticism of Medinat Israel as our saving grace is both misleading and problematic.

The primary issue being the colonial power established in occupied Palestine with the ongoing Nakba — I cannot conceptualize "Return" unless Palestinians are granted the same, and freedom & justice are established; because, again, colonialism isn't Judaism, it's Zionism.

And, as @jewish_worker said, "zionism requires the belief that jews cannot thrive in diaspora and that we are perpetually endangered both by antisemitism and assimilation/intermarriage...." 1/2

"...if anything, what we have seen is that jewish values thrive in diaspora and die in israel on the altar of nationalism." 2/2

To idealize Medinat Israel as a people is to sacrifice our Jewish identity for Zionism — for nationalism & colonialism, which up until Zionism, has never been a possibility, because we've been a Diaspora-based peoplehood for thousands of years.

Because we should *not* turn our longing for home into a reality until Palestinians can do the same. And until then, we *must* exist in the enumerated Third Space. & that Third Space isn't so bad.

The Diaspora is beautiful, and it is a tactic of Zionism to paint it as only violent. Antisemitism will always exist anywhere Jews exist, and so to discount the labor and love of our ancestors in building Diaspora Jewry is inappropriate at best.

With that said, I am of the belief that Diaspora Jewry has an obligation to advocate for Palestinian freedom; when we pray for a return to Jerusalem, it should be prayer for return to a liberated holy city.