yiddisheyfe

[yiddisheyfe]

do you have any advice for a jew who wants to unlearn zionism? I grew up in a very reconstructionist-zionist community and have started the process of re-evaluating a lot of what I’ve thought as intrinsic to jewish identity, but it’s all leaving me feeling very lost

Hi anon, 

I am glad you want to unlearn Zionism. Even in the liberal Jewish world, it has a real stranglehold over the religion. It might seem counterintuitive, but I think it’s better to learn the history first, and only then to rebuild your religious identity.

You’ll know what’s legit and what isn’t by that point, and you’ll know how to spot “soft” Zionism (general Jewish chauvinism, obsession over bloodlines, wanting to maintain ethnic majority, etc) Don’t build a house upon sand, as they say. 

Please know that you may feel lost, but you are not alone. Judaism has been anti-Zionist for most of its existence, and it will become the majority again soon, God-willing. 

Books that I have personally benefited from reading below. Most are either free online or available through Libby or your school library if you’re a student. Many have audiobooks, and ebooks can be read aloud with text to speech software, including old scans.) If you cannot find, I have copies of most works mentioned below. 

On Palestine

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi (if you read only one thing on this list, read this one.)

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe 

Orientalism by Edward Said 

Justice for Some by Noura Erakat 

Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, Mosab Abu Toha, Mohammed El Kurd, Refaat Alareer

All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 ed. Walid Khalidi and Sharif ElMusa 

https://www.zochrot.org/welcome/index/en History of ethnic cleansing as well as info on villages destroyed in 1948 in website form

Palestinian left revolutionary history: https://learnpalestine.qeh.ox.ac.uk/ 

Films “Born in Gaza” (on kanopy, which most libraries have) and “Gaza Fights for Freedom” and “Angel of Gaza” (free on youtube) 

On Judaism/Zionism 

The Jewish Dilemma by Rabbi Elmer Berger

A Partisan History of Judaism by Rabbi Elmer Berger 

(Most of R. Berger’s work is free on the Internet Archive) 

The 1885 Pittsburgh Platform of Reform Judaism rejects Zionism

Duties of the Heart by Rabbi Bahya ibn Pekudah if you like dense personal theology 

I’ve heard from other anti-Zionist Jews that reading the writings of Zionists like Herzl and Jabotinsky was very enlightening re: Zionism’s colonial intentions. 

Film: Israelism, now available for screening. Shows liberal US jews unlearning Zionism. 

From a Reconstructionist/Renewal perspective specifically

Shomeret Shalom: Replanting the Seeds of Jewish Revolutionary Nonviolence by Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb

I also highly recommend reading Rabbi Brant Rosen’s work: Blog: https://rabbibrant.com/ 

Book: Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity 

Rabbi Rosen is the rabbi of Tzedek Chicago, a shul you can attend online (might need to ping their admin a few times to get the Zoom link) 

Further reading I recommend Decolonize Palestine’s website, as well as their reading list: https://decolonizepalestine.com/reading-list/ 

Adalah’s discriminatory laws database which clearly shows that even Palestinian citizens living in the 48 territories suffer terrible discrimination: 

There’s also a whole online library about Palestine you can check out here, tons of books: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zqyxFMrGP3fFifjAC75wk5QjMMYC96eo 

[yiddisheyfe]

[yiddisheyfe]

There, where we live, there is our country! A democratic republic! Full political and national rights for Jews. Ensure that the voice of the Jewish working class is heard at the Constituent Assembly.

Bundist poster from Kyiv, Ukraine, circa 1918. Source.

[yiddisheyfe]

Doikayt: On Being Here and Loving It

This zine is dedicated to Hereness. The concept of Doikayt was at the centre of the Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund praxis, a political organization that existed in Poland, Lithuania, and Russia between the end of the 19th and the middle of the 20th century. Doikayt is a word encompassing many ideas: Jewish diasporic identity, cultural autonomy, safety, meshing identities, and local entanglement. This zine is an invitation to think about Hereness. What can Doikayt mean to you? What does it mean to be a Jew? What does it take for Jews to thrive? Karl is a Montreal-based writer, trans gay activist, and history student. Their hunger for knowledge, social justice, and Jewish culture has made them passionate about Yiddish revival and secular Jewish culture.

(this is not my zine! i am an archivist! please support the original artist using the link above!)

[yiddisheyfe]

"Citizenship, of the kind I hold, has been a material piece of a long-standing genocidal process. The Israeli state, from its inception, has relied on the normalization of ethnically determined supremacist laws to bolster a military regime whose clear colonial goal is the elimination of Palestine."

[yiddisheyfe]

Disturb us, from Mishkan Tefilah, 173.

[yiddisheyfe]

“Don’t get into pointless arguments with jerks on the Internet” –the rabbis

[yiddisheyfe]

"The Four Mitzvot of the Soviet Jewish Diaspora" (September 2021) By Krivoy Kolektiv

[yiddisheyfe]

Doikayt fun Undzer Tsayt (Hereness of Our Times)

(May 2020)

By Etai / Tsukunst

The Yiddish text reads:

"Dos land gehert nisht tsu undz, mir shafn a haym tsuzamen / Mir darfen an etishn golus / in farbund mit undzere shkhenim"

("We do not own the land, we create home together / We need an ethical diaspora / United (bound) together with our neighbors")

[yiddisheyfe]

“Once I said, Death is God and change is His prophet. Now I have calmed down, and I say: Change is God and death is His prophet.”

— Yehuda Amichai, “Jewish Travel: Change is God and Death is His Prophet”

[yiddisheyfe]

With this month being Jewish Heritage Month & with pride coming up next month, i decided now would be a good time to update my shop (: These designs, along with several other Yiddish & Jewish designs, are available right now as buttons, stickers, and more!

I also plan to make another batch of these later this week with more identities, so keep an eye out ;)

[yiddisheyfe]

[yiddisheyfe]

[yiddisheyfe]

“For decades, Israel’s leaders have claimed that “all Israelis want is to live in peace with their neighbors.” Yet Israel has initiated war and conflict ever since its inception, refusing to bring the conflict to a negotiated end (for example, it rejected the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002). Agreement requires honoring UN resolutions and Geneva Conventions and removing Israeli colonies (Jewish-only settlements) from the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Syria. Israel prefers the conflict with territories to a negotiated peace without them.”

— Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Forces Made a Nation

[yiddisheyfe]

פֿון פֿאָרווערטס, נאָוועמבער 19, 1936

[yiddisheyfe]

Ethiopian jewish master potter near Gondar amongst her works in earthenware. c.1969

[yiddisheyfe]

if you don't mind my asking, what is a doikaytist? I couldn't find any google results for it :/

doikayt or דאָיקײַט is a Yiddish word meaning "hereness" that was coined around the time the Jewish Labor Bund / דער יידישער ארבעטער־בונד formed and is directly in contrast to the zionist "thereness" of yearning for / actualizing the colonization of Palestine.

“The concept of doikayt was central to the Bundist ideology. The Jewish Labour Bund did not advocate ethnic or religious separatism, but focused on culture, not a state or a place, as the glue of Jewish nationhood, within the context of a world of multicultural and multi-ethnic countries.”

(the article linked above is by a Black Jewish Doikaytist woman and rules. also i hope the Yiddish words didnt fuck up the formatting of this post too bad)