I was Jewish

I was a Jew.
For me, Israel was the land of the great—
the lone David, surrounded by Goliaths.
It was the home I could return to
whenever the world turned me away.

Never again shunned.
Never again sneered at.
Never again expelled.
And if I was,
I could always go back to my homeland.

Israel—promised in the Torah,
the gift of our God,
the land from Dan to Beersheba.

I kept kosher,
never mixing milk with meat.
I followed the customs.
But what is it, truly,
to be Jewish?
Is it only these rules and rituals?

Now I do not know my identity.
Is it genocide in Gaza?
We were once persecuted
we called it the Holocaust.
I swore I would never again be a victim,
but I did not see I could become
a perpetrator of another’s suffering.


This is called a victory,
but it is not good over evil
it is death over life.
And there is no justice in that.

Will history be kind to us?
Is Benjamin Netanyahu
another Hitler in disguise?
There is nothing less Jewish
than making another man homeless.


Am I anti-Israeli,
or anti-Jewish?
Can I love my faith
but not its politics?
Can I be pro-Jewish
and not pro-Zionist?

Who am I?
My identity feels fragmented,
shattered,
flawed.