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Former Zionist Jews on Becoming Wise to the Lies
​Until now, my column has featured three books I recommend which highlight how we got into this mess. This column will be a little different. I’ll discuss a family conversation, a movie, and a book. All three are by Jews who were once Zionists and want their fellow Jews to understand how they have been lied to about Israel and Zionism.

And why do I, an Anglo-Saxon atheist, feel qualified to bring these to you? Because I was once also lied to about my country — my roots here go back to Jamestown in 1619 – and American exceptionalism. I had to move from the elementary school projects of little handmade turkeys and Pilgrims on the dining room table and the lies in the Pledge of Allegiance to understanding the barbarity of which my country is capable. So, the stories in these different media feel all too familiar.

Having made it through the myths, my hope is that everyone can do the same.

My first recommendation is a family discussion (Gaza Besieged, Jews Divided, & a World in Pain between Gabor Maté and his sons Aaron and Daniel. Gabor is well-known as a deep trauma therapist. Aaron is a journalist and Daniel is a musical theater artist.

They leave no doubt as to their love of the Jewish communities  and families of which they are a part. They all began their lives as Zionists, devoted to the cause of Israel. They are clear about the realities of antisemitism, but they are clear about how they came to understand Palestinian history and the ways in which Palestinians and Israel were misrepresented to them.

Gabor Maté, in an oft-quoted line, said, “I went to Gaza. I cried every day for two weeks of what I saw.” And that was in the early 1990’s, well before the current horrors. They have all been to Occupied Palestine.

The conversation is an hour long and worth every minute of your time.

My second recommendation is the movie Israelism, which was produced and directed by American Jews who attended Jewish schools in the United States. We see what is taught in those schools and the pressure to take “birthright” trips to Israel and even to join the IDF, Israeli Defense Forces. 900,000 young people (ages 18-26) have made birthright trips, 80 percent of them from the United States, about 20 percent of eligible Jews.

The goal of the trips is to strengthen Jews’ connection to Israel, but a few of the participants see how Palestinians are brutally treated in Israel and begin to rethink what they have been taught. They come to understand that they have been propagandized from the beginning and this movie is the story of that new understanding.

The movie has been shown in very few theaters and has had screenings at universities and other venues canceled and protested. It is available for free on The Roku Channel and Tubi TV and for a fee from the usual suspects.

My third recommendation is Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning by Peter Beinart. He is a professor of journalism, an editor of Jewish Currents and contributor to many news outlets, such as The New York Times.

This is a small book, 121 pages sans footnotes, but it packs a huge punch. Beinart explains many beliefs of Zionism and then dismantles them. He is at his most powerful when speaking about the ways in which this thinking both violates Judaism and makes Jews less safe.

To quote Beinart, “This book is about the stories Jews tell ourselves that blind us to Palestinian suffering. It’s about how we came to value a state, Israel, above the lives of all the people who live under its control. And it’s about why I believe that Palestinian liberation means Jewish liberation as well.”

And harkening back to the movie and what young American Jews have been taught in their schools, I’ll again quote Beinart speaking of his own children: “I first began writing on this subject fifteen years ago... because I feared that Jews of my generation were failing Jews of theirs.”

As you read this, the official count of slaughtered Palestinians will be horrific and, undoubtedly, greater than that count. It is well past time for all of us, Jewish or not, to demand an end to the ongoing Nakba in both Gaza and the West Bank by both Israel and its partner, our own government.

Please understand that Donald Trump’s plan to create a resort over the bodies of those buried beneath the rubble is akin to building a casino over Auschwitz. Enough said.

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by Susan Lamont

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