some context: i’m a first generation american. my parents were both born in Israel proper. grandparents on moms side born in Egypt, on dads side grandma Egypt, grandpa Hungary. all were expelled from egypt in the 50s. grandpa fled to palestine mid/late 40s during the holocaust https://twitter.com/shinysocialist/status/1388267098401513478

i’m named after my paternal grandfather (Tzvi). most of his family was killed in the holocaust in hungary. he passed late 2015

my family is historically modern Orthodox Jewish

my first language was hebrew. i know rudimentary arabic even though my parents and onwards are fluent

i had an interesting upbringing. i was surrounded by arab/north african culture, food, and language at home. my temple was orthodox and i had a (very strict) bar mitzvah there.

the Israeli-Jewish community in LA is almost entirely Zionist https://twitter.com/shinysocialist/status/1388210251040641025

my schooling was not orthodox. i went to a “conservative” jewish elementary school (it leaned towards Reform Judaism often) often as my parents are both “free spirits” so to say and open-minded. my high school was Jewish but pluralistic

i’m the first in my immediate/close family to get a degree. i learned to read both english and hebrew fluently at an early age, as my mon encouraged it. she did not restrict it and even as i started to question Zionism/the family, my mom urged me to continue my studies

when i presented my thesis, my dad/family refused to come. my maternal grandfather wouldn’t speak to me once he learned i wrote it. i received dozens of death threats throughout college.

half of my family still lives in israel/palestine (mostly concentrated in haifa and bat yam) so i’ve been more times than i can count before becoming anti-zionist.

i went into the west bank for the first time as i was writing my thesis

once i finished, i made a copy for everyone in my family (and my family is big ) and they all read it

my mom is now anti-occupation (and always was somewhat critical of israel in different terms— she avoiding serving in the IDF). my dad has become more progressive since

i intentionally left out a lot of what i did and experienced in Palestine & intentionally didn’t cite from Palestinian sources much (I was critiqued for this by my mentor who’s a Palestinian scholar at UCSB)

i did this because i wanted to make it more palatable. looking back, i regret choosing to do this. i also regret not making it clear that i was anti-Zionist by that point.

my hope was that alternatives & critiques of zionism from jews to my jewish community would fair better

it didn’t. most of my family by in large is still zionist. i would say most are liberal zionists.

the thesis, however, had a major influence on many jewish students at UCSB & younger family members here and in Palestine

also re: arabic—

i was surrounded by it constantly, so i picked up some of it. i watched egyptian soap operas with my grandmothers often, danced to arabic music etc. but they refused to formally teach me.
knowing hebrew fluently and as perfect as possible was paramount

the egyptian dialect is also similar to the Palestinian one, so i was able to converse easily with most people in the West Bank. many also speak Hebrew and some english, depending on area and person etc.

there were times we often spoke this interesting hebrew-arabic hybrid

anyways— i share a lot of this in my thesis, but i wanted to give this context.

i now since then follow BDS, refuse to travel to Israel for vacation or at all now, but i’ve taken a step back from direct action/organizing due to disability

phew. anyways, i share this in hopes of encouraging other jews to feel comfortable opening up about their upbringing & their process of unlearning

and most importantly, to be unapologetic & unafraid to work against Israeli occupation/apartheid. and to follow the lead of Palestinians on the ground & in the diaspora.

the backlash i face(d) doesn’t come close to what many Palestinian comrades do. some simply for existing

also— you do not need to go to Palestine to see for yourself the brutality of Israel’s apartheid regime

it was far worse than what I had read by both Palestinian & Jewish scholars

there’s ongoing debate about this re: Jewish presence in the West Bank to support resistance

before becoming disabled, i was invited by a palestinian family i met to stay in the west bank and support from there until grad school

i don’t know if i would do that now and also i don’t know if my body could physically handle it yet

anyways, this thread is way too long now so i’ll leave it here.