Opinion: I dedicated my life to the progressive movement. The Left’s anti-Zionism left me behind

Every week we begin our staff meeting sharing our highs and lows. They can be personal or professional, anything from the anticipation of Taylor Swift’s new album or the heartache of having a parent in the hospital. I look forward to this chance to connect with my teammates on a personal level before we dive into the work.

So when my turn came, I allowed myself to be vulnerable, to really open up about how much I have been struggling since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and my heartbreak over innocent lives being taken on both sides.

I also shared how I felt alienated as an American Jew in the progressive movement at this moment. How aside from the Jewish people, everyone else seems to have moved on from the horrific events that precipitated this war — the rape and murder of Jewish women at a music festival, the beheading of Jewish babies, and the hundreds of people still held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Instead of being given the space to grieve, we have had to use all of our energy fighting a global war of public opinion.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence before I was asked, “Do you have a high?”

As an American Jewish progressive, I had never felt so alone. Not one person offered a word of comfort. Not one. I wasn’t looking for any bold political statements of support. I’m not naive to think anyone who wants to publicly preserve their progressive persona would even dare speak up about Israel’s right to defend herself. But to not even offer a response on a human level, to not acknowledge how Jews are feeling after the worst mass murder of our people since the Holocaust — that was soul-crushing.

Tikkun Olam. Those two words have been the driving force behind my decades-long commitment to fighting for equality and social justice. Hebrew for repairing the world, it’s a mandate for Jews, a cornerstone of Jewish identity, and the reason we are so committed to making the world a better place.

The Jewish community has always been at the forefront of fighting for civil rights. American Jews played a critical role in the founding and funding of some of the nation’s most prominent civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SLCC). We’ve stood shoulder-to-shoulder with other marginalized communities, learning not just to be champions of equity, but knowing when to step back and quiet ourselves so the voices of those who must be heard rise to the surface.

So many of us have dug deep into the real work of self-reflection, honesty, and accountability as we continue to support and advocate for women, Black and Indigenous people and people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community, people living with disabilities, and those who seek safety and refuge in this country. We understand all too well what it feels like, and what can actually happen, when the world turns a blind eye to your right to exist joyfully, and peacefully — or even to exist at all.

Today, about seven-in-ten Jews identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party (Pew Research, 2021). We show up for our communities, demand action on gun violence, insist on safety for trans, nonbinary and gender-expansive people, advocate for abortion rights online and off, and protest racist killings of Black people by the police. And we continue to grow and learn to be the best allies we can be because we know once we stop seeing each other’s unique truths with open hearts and the nuances of the human condition, we begin to lose our humanity — we begin to “other.”

Somewhere along the way, our collective history was replaced by a new narrative — that American Jews who support Israel are colonialist oppressors who support apartheid and genocide. Decades of lived experience ignored, our allyship not just called into question, but shot into flames without a moment for the slow discourse we know is critical in moments of crisis.

We have watched our identities and ancestry completely erased, our very existence demonized for being unapologetic Zionists, and have been forced into silence in our shared progressive spaces. Does anyone who knows us really think our commitment to peace, justice, and equality does not extend to the Palestinian people? That we don’t mourn the loss of all innocent lives? Instead of seeing us for who we are — and who we have always been  — many of our trusted progressives allies have reduced an entire group of people to a slur, and turned their backs on us.

The Left has left us behind.

The left looks upon Zionism as a unique evil, without a clear understanding of what it even is — simply, the critical necessity of a Jewish homeland after two thousand years of persecution, expulsion, and genocide.

Since Oct. 7, antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have increased an alarming rate, up 400% over the same period last year. From rallies calling for violence against Jews on American college campuses to the desecration of Kosher restaurants to rioters storming a Russian airport in search of Jewish passengers, this global hunting of Jews is exactly why we need Israel to exist.

You can be a Zionist and support the existence of a Jewish state, while at the same time opposing the policies of the Israeli government — just as Palestinian activists have demanded we don’t paint them all as Hamas supporters. Don’t we deserve the same, nuanced understanding that Jewish Israeli citizens are not the Israeli government, and prior to the Hamas attack, a vast majority of Israelis were protesting their government in the streets? After four long years of living under Trump, American progressives should understand this more than anyone. We didn’t say we were anti-America, we just fought back harder than ever.

We must start addressing anti-Zionism and antisemitism. We must slow down and have the very human conversations we demanded for other recent paradigm shifts towards a more just and whole America. This insidious, divisive hate is weakening the progressive movement. It undermines our values and credibility as a movement that aims to fight all forms of oppression. It silences and erases an entire community, the majority of whom identify somewhere on the left of the political spectrum. And yet the progressive movement is so invested in anti-Zionist sentiment that we aren’t able to see that anti-Zionism is in fact, antisemitism.

So where do progressive Jews go from here? We are facing an identity crisis. Is there anywhere in the movement we will not only feel welcomed, but understood? Can we continue to be in community with our progressive family, and be our whole selves — our Jewish selves?

I implore my progressive friends, those very groups and individuals we have marched with and worked alongside for decades, before you regurgitate the social media and pop culture fetishization of “From the River to the Sea,” recognize that it is a literal call for Jewish genocide. These ignorant and reductive chants and posts are alienating our spirit and breaking our hearts.