On Faith and Paranoia

Yes, two posts in one day!

Those of you who know me in real life know that my approach to converting to a particular religion is turning into more of a forty-years-roaming-the-wilderness as opposed to something that is recognisably structured and to the point.

Some of this has to do with my moving to a different city for six years and not getting on with the teacher and the rest is a complicated mix of health issues, rota clashes and an unhealthy dose of self-doubt and whether or not I'm a fake, desperate for persecution in some way, or undeserving. I'm trying to be kind to myself on this.

I have been trying to convert to Liberal Judaism for some years. Alongside this, I have been trying to learn Hebrew. The additional studies also include an understanding of Judaism, history of the people and some of the additional complexity, for example the Israel context.

Let me set something straight for people: I am a Zionist, in the sense that I believe in the ethos and context behind the need for the Jewish people to have a country in which they can determine their own future. I also believe in the right of Israel to exist.

What I will now elucidate for you are a few other points:

I do not believe that Israel should be only for Jews.
I take all religious writings from a socio-anthropomorphic viewpoint (I.e I see the stories as explanations of how the world came to be, rather than G-d-given)
I also take the view that religions can and should evolve with the times.
I believe that everyone living between the river and the sea are entitled to full citizenship, recognition, human and civil rights. The end.
I believe in calling out everyone who commits atrocities or imposes restrictions on civilians, regardless of which side they are on
I believe that you need to read widely on various viewpoints, because in the middle is the actual truth. I also know that everyone sees things differently. And believe we should listen to each other

Anyway, that's that. I'm now off the subject of Israel for the rest of this post.

Nothing brings home to you the fact that you have lost white privilege more than the first time you experience prfoiling, aka loss of your privilege. I experienced this when I was told, via a friend, that I was "Worse than [the] Jews, because I wanted to be one". This came from someone who had just converted to Islam. Do I take this as representative of Islam and Muslims in general? No I don't. I have good friends of all faiths and no faith. Then there was the time that when standing withy community and waiting to go on a march, we were approached by the SWP and handed leaflets relating to Israel (sorry), which we politely declined. The diatribe we were treated to was appalling. Why had we been approached? The sign we had clearly indicated we were a liberal jewish community.

Then there was the time I had death threats on Twitter, which I treated with the derision they deserved. I saw it as a right of passage.

But things piss me off. People who call me a genocidal, baby-killer. People who say Jews should have to swear allegiance to their country of citizenship. People, like on a Vice video, calling for the genocide of Jews. Or the charmers who stood across from a synagogue in Charlottesville on Saturday and intimidated the congregation to the point they evacuated, taking their Torah scrolls with them. The people who think Jews overplay the Holocaust and shouldn't be included, because we make it all about us. People who think we shouldn't commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day and have the nerve to insist there is onlya focus on Jewish dead of WW2. People who shut you out or shout you down because you don't agree, 100%, with them.

When you see police on the door of your High Holy Day services, or armed police outside synagogues aboard, or advised not to put up a mezuzah it is hard not to be cross. And sometimes, scared too. Hard not to be when someone rides their bike hard at you on the pavement and yells "Jew" at you when they see you wearing a Magen Dovid. I do feel a sense of paranoia every time I hear of another anti-Semitic incident, especially in the U.K.

 Yet people persist in insisting that anti-Zionism doesn't equate anti-Semitism. To those people I would suggest that they need to learn more about Zionism. Which, as a political movement, has more than one interpretation. Also that if you equate most of a country's population of Jews as "Zionist" without asking them if they think just that, then you're profiling, which is, ipso facto, anti-Semitism. SORRY.

My faith is my faith. I'm still learning about it. But I don't understand the hate. I'll call out assholes for being just that too.

By the way, I learned this year that members of my extended family (not blood relations) died in the Holocaust. And, but by grace of G-d, some of my beloved family members would not be here now if they hadn't made a different decision. That is a tough thing to take on board. And upsetting.

As in all things, learn more. Ask questions, but please avoid assumptions. Please.