By Anonymous

I was scrolling through Instagram when Haverim’s most recent Instagram post befell my eyes and I felt shock echo through me as fear crept into my throat. As a Jewish student, it felt as though they were speaking directly to me, telling me that my classmates shared the same bigoted beliefs as the anti-Jewish propaganda of the Dark Ages.

However, while scrolling through their post, I realized what scared me wasn’t the zine,  a 40 page informational pamphlet about COVID safety and colonial resistance, but Haverim’s post itself. The post felt tonally akin to one from a conspiracy theorist on Facebook that I would laugh at, sigh at out of disappointment for the incompetence bred in echo chambers (then turn off my phone while balancing the humor and hopelessness that I’d be swimming in).

What I do think is harmful about that zine is that it lacked context for our campus and was easily twisted to apply historically antisemitic stereotypes. A lot of modern antisemitism feels sly in nature and microaggressive in application — tropes about wealth or media control slip out more often than one would think — so as Jews, we are of course weary when we see things like this zine that can so easily tie into perennially applied stereotypes.

I won’t venture to say whether or not the anti-semitic connotations that can be applied to this zine were intentional or not, because I didn’t author it. However, they were palpable, clearly, because people picked up on them. I personally didn’t pick up on them nor am I convinced that they’re anywhere near explicit, but people did and that’s indisputable. 

But what I can do is refer back to the zine, which I have read in its original form, and iterate what it didn’t say. The zine did not blame the creation of COVID-19 on the Jews or even the Israeli state like Haverim stated; rather, the zine cited the virus as a tool implemented by colonial powers to aid in existing oppression and genocide. Nowhere in the zine were the Israeli and American governments credited with the creation of the virus. 

What was posted by Haverim is terrifying, and actually works to make the zine seem scarier than it is, in an almost eminently dangerous type of way, but that’s because they want to scare you. They want you to believe that your peers on these campuses believe in a Middle Age antisemitism.

Why? I’d guess it’s because continuing to support Israel on these campuses is an isolating thing. As a result, they’re willing to resort to any means necessary to bring other Jewish people into their fold. Convincing them that in order to be true to their families and ancestors, they too need to remain steadfast in their support of Israel. Again, this is not to negate real antisemitism that has and continues to occur on these campuses, but labeling a zine “antisemitic,” with the primary argument being that “zionism is central to Judaism,” only fosters an even harder environment for Jews on this campus! 

That’s because Zionism no longer means what they think it means; the term itself has become a cypher. It doesn’t have concrete meaning, it contains multitudes — whether that be because of the different waves and forms of it or through personal interpretation. For a large part of my life, I even would’ve considered myself a “Zionist.” Perhaps it is my own religiously rooted understanding of the land and desires for a robust and all-encompassing Jewish community that I had historically applied to the word “Zionism.” It acts as a slogan of statehood, and one can impute to the slogan whatever moves them most, but ultimately the nuances of what determines an identity of nationalism is permeable. Conflating something that has such a malleable and easily weaponizable definition with Judaism is actively dangerous.

As a proud Jew who grew up celebrating Shabbat and deeply honoring my faith, I was more offended by the Haverim post than I was by the original (kind of confusing) zine. The post itself, not the zine, was the thing applying the name of Judaism to disparaging acts of violence, like medical neglect and the weaponization of a virus, as a tool in an ongoing genocide. Even if you’re somebody who is hesitant to apply the words occupation, genocide, or apartheid to Israel’s actions this year, you can also recognize Haverim is the one using Judaism/Jews as synonymous with the oppressor. Even if you just think of this as an asymmetrical war, Israel is the more powerful and objectively oppressive force. Even if you look at Israel as the asylum country for Jews expelled from the rest of the Arab world, that doesn’t mitigate Israel’s role as the perpetrator of violence historically.

Let me reiterate — not Jews, but Israel. I know that the knee jerk reaction to that sentence from someone who authored the Haverim post would be that Israel and Jews should be interchangeable notions — which I believe is the dangerous notion that will propel antisemitism on our campus. While there is a huge overlap in identity, and a lot of Jews may identify with Israel, blurring the line between Israel and Jews is actively dangerous. There is a palpable anger and pain directed at Israel for political, not religious, reasons. So why would Haverim, an organization supposedly dedicated to calling out antisemitism and making Jewish students feel safer, make a post absolutely conflating the violence being perpetrated by the Israeli state with Jews?

Not only is Haverim blurring the line between the state of Israel and being Jewish in a way that puts Jewish students at risk of feeling uncomfortable on campus, but in my opinion, they are desecrating the name of Judaism in doing so! That to me feels viscerally unholy and sacrilegious. Judaism is beautiful and wonderful, so why would they frame it as interchangeable with something as ceaselessly violent as occupation? The destruction of Palestinian hospitals is not Jewish. Aggressive and relentless bombing campaigns that lead to mass murder are not Jewish. The demolition of Palestinian schools is not Jewish. Checkpoints and blatant apartheid, even if that word you refuse to use, is not Jewish. Risking the lives of Israeli citizens being held in Gaza is not Jewish. 

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain…You shall not murder…You shall not steal…You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor,” (Exodus 20:7-16). The Lord will not hold you guiltless, Haverim. Dramatic, I know, but I just had to double down on the morally righteous tone of it all. I am deeply offended by the perpetuation of the notion that the atrocities are not only being committed in the name of Jews, but that those within the community who take a stand against the Israeli war machine are rebuked as “bad Jews.”

As someone who has spent the last year unlearning my entire upbringing when it comes to Israel, I had trouble separating the vehemently anti-colonial (and in turn, anti-Israel) sentiment that exists in groups on these campuses from anti-semitism. I grew up in a space where Israel was forcibly entrenched in my Jewish identity, so I felt my identity was under attack every time Israel was condemned. When I could no longer shelter myself from the reality that the fascist Israeli government wasn’t the only thing fundamentally wrong with the country, I was able to understand that people’s anger wasn’t directed towards me, or my family, or the notion of my people feeling comfortable somewhere for the first time in history. Rather, it was towards the bloody foundation and continued unspeakable violence perpetrated throughout the 75-year-long occupation. We had projected different definitions onto the slogan of Zionism. Haverim is purposefully making this distinction harder to realize.Haverim is trying to fearmonger their way into the favor of Jewish students and they’re preying on a sensitivity to antisemitism to do so. Antisemitism is real, but calling it out where it’s not just makes it harder for people to acknowledge the reality of it. Haverim is upholding this idea in which without Zionism there is no Judaism, but that just isn’t true. We should find unification in faith, rather than fear. The fact that I’m not putting my name on this out of fear of feeling uncomfortable in religious spaces that are co-opted by vocal Netanyahu sympathizers is messed up. Judaism is ours, not yours, Haverim. I don’t like what you’re doing and I don’t like that you’re feigning heroism while you do it.