Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/shanichabansky/)
To reduce the situations of Yosef Salamseh and Freddie Gray into “black vs. white” is to erase both historical context and what’s actually happening today. Not to mention the fact that it is demeaning towards both Ethiopian-Israeli and African-American populations. They are different people who are struggling with very different issues.
Remembering the pain of the Palestinian people would not need, in any way, to diminish the pride one might feel when remembering the birth of Israel. In fact, doing so would be a powerful display of one of my favorite aspects of Jewish history and culture: the embracing of contradiction.
I refuse to bow to the pressures of ethnocentrism. Now is the time to turn to each other for moral support.
When it comes to how Israel responds to attacks, message received: fight first, think later. But a look into alternative Israeli media sources revealed a reality even more troubling than Israel’s possible retaliations against its neighbors. In moments like these, in which a nation’s drone strikes, mortars, and missiles are juxtaposed with thoughts, words, and actions of an individual, I must take a deep look at my own choices, and I must ask myself: What am I doing?
I do not believe that American Jews have to accept the direction that Zionism has taken, just as I don’t believe that we have to accept the idea that Jewish history is only interesting in terms of its marginalization, oppression, and trauma. But I also do not believe that we should simply throw up our hands and allow Israel’s turn toward the Right define what a Jewish democratic state looks like. So despite the despair, I choose to throw myself heart-first into reclaiming Zionism in the hopes of transforming Israel into a tolerant, progressive society.