I admire the courage of this writing, Sarah, and I hope the essay gets a very wide audience. Admitting a mistake, especially with the level of detail you offer here invites or maybe encourages readers to admit their own mistakes. And once we admit mistakes, we can change our minds, hopefully in the direction of greater justice for all.
You asked, "How have you used your writing to right wrongs, friends? When have you set the record straight, and did it actually serve to create more justice?"
We rarely see the effects of our writings on others, so how can we know whether our writing creates more justice? A person I don't know commented that my recent story on kinship care changed her mind about removing children from struggling families. That was satisfying of course, but I think real change only comes from a groundswell of stories. It's unlike humans to hear or read something once and be forever changed. Most of us require repeated lessons from a variety of storytellers who are sending a similar message. In what ways will your essay be part of a larger groundswell or conversation, maybe about forgiving ourselves or about the courage to change our positions on important topics?
I am really troubled by this posting, Sarah, though I don’t question your sincerity. I was raised to be a very good little Zionist, in fact, in the 1967 war I was very gung-ho to give up my American citizenship and go to Israel and join the Israeli army. I was just on the cusp of 19 years old and very passionate. My aunt, a strong Zionist herself, talked me out of it, for which I have been forever grateful.
By 10 years later I was a Marxist and had gone through quite a wrenching and emotional examination of my own deep attachment to Israel which had been seriously baked into me from the day I was born and through 13 years of religious (“Sunday school”) school - after all, I had been born the same year that Israel was! It wasn’t easy to separate myself from my old ideas, but my new beliefs were not based on my need to impress anyone, nor as the result of cockamamie so-called left-wing ideas, etc. And over the years my antipathy towards the Israeli state has increased and deepened to a truly existential pain.
I am not a practicing Jew nor have I been for many years, but I am a deeply cultural and spiritual Jew especially in the sense that my moral foundation, commitment and impetus to constantly engage in the struggle for social justice is inseparable from the moral foundation formed early on when I was a very true believer. After everything else falls away, that remains. Support for Israel for me is inconceivable and absolutely irreconcilable with everything I believe in.
Which is not to say I don’t understand the fear and growing sense of precariousness I think all Jews in this country increasingly feel. I just can’t see Israel as the answer to that. I think it is a myth built on story desperate violated people told themselves in order to justify what had to happen - and keep happening even until today - to make it a reality. There was just never any way to build a permanent sanctuary on the blood and bones of another population forcibly displaced for it to happen.
In addition to which, whatever happens, Israel will never be “our” country, that is the country of American Jews. Please understand that I speak only for myself and do not judge you or anyone else for whatever choices you make or beliefs you have. But to the extent that rising fascism and antisemitism here in the US threatens us to an even greater extent and could reach the point where being here is so dangerous that the need to flee seems imminent, I don’t know what I would do. Perhaps I am too old to take up arms to join the resistance- but perhaps not. When I hear that frankly pretty scary and rather awful cry of “never again” I do not hear it as a rallying cry to make aliyah to Israel.
So my idea of teshuvah in the ends turns out to be, with all due respect, and appreciation for what you have shared, perhaps quite the opposite. It is to ask again for forgiveness from the Palestinian people for the ways in which I and my family have been complicit in their oppression. (And perhaps because it demands being said even though I wish it didn’t, no I do not think the Palestinian leadership or the Palestinian terrorists are blameless, innocent, “good guys” whatever and I’m not “on their side” . That is another very complicated facet of another very complicated dynamic that I’m not even talking about here.)
Finally I just have to add that I have found excruciating the success with which great swaths of the Jewish community, political leaders around the world and certainly in the US, and the Israeli state have had in conflating Judaism as a religion and Israel as an independent political state which may be under the aegis to some extent of the Orthodox rabbinate but which also has democratic elections and a representative body called the Knesset and is not one and the same as the Jewish religion.
And more to the point does not speak on behalf of the world’s Jews and definitely does not represent all the Jews in the US (which Netanyahu makes every effort to assert) any more than the ayatollah represents and speaks for all the Muslims in the world which everyone understands, or almost everyone anyway.
I greatly appreciate your posting but I couldn’t help but be struck by the deep ambivalence I still feel there as I read it over your feelings about Israel today. Is it not possible to regret and wish to repair the errors and ignorance of the past without having to make a 180°? I think it is without in any way diminishing or detracting from your honest and deeply felt reassessment and regret about the past. In any case, l’shana tova - may you be inscribed for a sweet year filled with apples and honey!
I went through a similar phase in my life, not knowing where I stand on Israel. I too, struggle with the plight that this has placed upon the Palestinian people.
Yes, Anti-Semitism takes different forms. The right has their own strange and twisted anti-Semitic stances. And then, the left has theirs. I think that those of the left are far less dangerous than those of the right, personally, as you've said here.
My journey took a different path. Have you seen "The Believer?" With Ryan Gosling?
Yes, amazing & thank you & I can’t wait to read this essay.
Sarah -- Amazing. Thank you for this
I admire the courage of this writing, Sarah, and I hope the essay gets a very wide audience. Admitting a mistake, especially with the level of detail you offer here invites or maybe encourages readers to admit their own mistakes. And once we admit mistakes, we can change our minds, hopefully in the direction of greater justice for all.
You asked, "How have you used your writing to right wrongs, friends? When have you set the record straight, and did it actually serve to create more justice?"
We rarely see the effects of our writings on others, so how can we know whether our writing creates more justice? A person I don't know commented that my recent story on kinship care changed her mind about removing children from struggling families. That was satisfying of course, but I think real change only comes from a groundswell of stories. It's unlike humans to hear or read something once and be forever changed. Most of us require repeated lessons from a variety of storytellers who are sending a similar message. In what ways will your essay be part of a larger groundswell or conversation, maybe about forgiving ourselves or about the courage to change our positions on important topics?
I am really troubled by this posting, Sarah, though I don’t question your sincerity. I was raised to be a very good little Zionist, in fact, in the 1967 war I was very gung-ho to give up my American citizenship and go to Israel and join the Israeli army. I was just on the cusp of 19 years old and very passionate. My aunt, a strong Zionist herself, talked me out of it, for which I have been forever grateful.
By 10 years later I was a Marxist and had gone through quite a wrenching and emotional examination of my own deep attachment to Israel which had been seriously baked into me from the day I was born and through 13 years of religious (“Sunday school”) school - after all, I had been born the same year that Israel was! It wasn’t easy to separate myself from my old ideas, but my new beliefs were not based on my need to impress anyone, nor as the result of cockamamie so-called left-wing ideas, etc. And over the years my antipathy towards the Israeli state has increased and deepened to a truly existential pain.
I am not a practicing Jew nor have I been for many years, but I am a deeply cultural and spiritual Jew especially in the sense that my moral foundation, commitment and impetus to constantly engage in the struggle for social justice is inseparable from the moral foundation formed early on when I was a very true believer. After everything else falls away, that remains. Support for Israel for me is inconceivable and absolutely irreconcilable with everything I believe in.
Which is not to say I don’t understand the fear and growing sense of precariousness I think all Jews in this country increasingly feel. I just can’t see Israel as the answer to that. I think it is a myth built on story desperate violated people told themselves in order to justify what had to happen - and keep happening even until today - to make it a reality. There was just never any way to build a permanent sanctuary on the blood and bones of another population forcibly displaced for it to happen.
In addition to which, whatever happens, Israel will never be “our” country, that is the country of American Jews. Please understand that I speak only for myself and do not judge you or anyone else for whatever choices you make or beliefs you have. But to the extent that rising fascism and antisemitism here in the US threatens us to an even greater extent and could reach the point where being here is so dangerous that the need to flee seems imminent, I don’t know what I would do. Perhaps I am too old to take up arms to join the resistance- but perhaps not. When I hear that frankly pretty scary and rather awful cry of “never again” I do not hear it as a rallying cry to make aliyah to Israel.
So my idea of teshuvah in the ends turns out to be, with all due respect, and appreciation for what you have shared, perhaps quite the opposite. It is to ask again for forgiveness from the Palestinian people for the ways in which I and my family have been complicit in their oppression. (And perhaps because it demands being said even though I wish it didn’t, no I do not think the Palestinian leadership or the Palestinian terrorists are blameless, innocent, “good guys” whatever and I’m not “on their side” . That is another very complicated facet of another very complicated dynamic that I’m not even talking about here.)
Finally I just have to add that I have found excruciating the success with which great swaths of the Jewish community, political leaders around the world and certainly in the US, and the Israeli state have had in conflating Judaism as a religion and Israel as an independent political state which may be under the aegis to some extent of the Orthodox rabbinate but which also has democratic elections and a representative body called the Knesset and is not one and the same as the Jewish religion.
And more to the point does not speak on behalf of the world’s Jews and definitely does not represent all the Jews in the US (which Netanyahu makes every effort to assert) any more than the ayatollah represents and speaks for all the Muslims in the world which everyone understands, or almost everyone anyway.
I greatly appreciate your posting but I couldn’t help but be struck by the deep ambivalence I still feel there as I read it over your feelings about Israel today. Is it not possible to regret and wish to repair the errors and ignorance of the past without having to make a 180°? I think it is without in any way diminishing or detracting from your honest and deeply felt reassessment and regret about the past. In any case, l’shana tova - may you be inscribed for a sweet year filled with apples and honey!
I went through a similar phase in my life, not knowing where I stand on Israel. I too, struggle with the plight that this has placed upon the Palestinian people.
Yes, Anti-Semitism takes different forms. The right has their own strange and twisted anti-Semitic stances. And then, the left has theirs. I think that those of the left are far less dangerous than those of the right, personally, as you've said here.
My journey took a different path. Have you seen "The Believer?" With Ryan Gosling?