How I changed my mind about the Zionist narrative

For much of my young adulthood, I was fully invested in the Zionist enterprise, dedicating my personal, professional, and communal life to supporting my people. I was also intensely invested in fixing the patriarchal aspects of my culture, believing fully that my culture is inherently worthy and fixable.  

During those years, there was no room in my head for questioning the entire foundation, for looking too closely at how the outside world perceives us. I wasn’t there yet. It took me a long time, maybe too long. For that I am remorseful, but I’m also working on what my friend Eva Dalak calls “compassionate self-forgiveness”.

As I’ve learned, it’s not easy to unpack your own personal history so critically. How do you face the discovery that things you were taught as righteous and “good education” were actually forms of indoctrination and manipulation for the sake of power, tools to justify systematic oppression, dehumanisation, and even killing an entire population? This has not been an easy journey. But here I am.