What I Must Let you Know First...

In April 2010, I had been involved with Islam formally for about 8 months when I decided that I wanted to return to being a full-time, card carrying Jew again. The time I had spent in the Deen of Islam was beautiful and it opened my eyes to the lie of so many misconceptions of Islam and the people who follow the teachings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). It also helped me realize that I wanted to return to the lifestyle of an observant Jew (I had become Jewish in 2000) but I wanted to up the ante. This time, I was going to live my orthodox Jewish life as an Israeli citizen.

I wanted to move to Israel as soon as I could to find that perfect husband before I turned 36. Nefesh B’Nefesh, the group that helps Jews make Aliyah with Evangelical Christian donors’ money, helped me with the process. I decided to do their Go North program and to move to Tzfat. Tzfat or Safed is supposed to be the land where Kabbalah was born. Safed is said to be the land of air (air representing intellect and logic). That together with its mystical roots should be the combination that makes people more clear-headed when they live there, more open-minded, more seeing the world for its whole parts.

What I found in Safed was rampant racism toward Arabs and the Jewish Ethiopians. It was sort of like being in the deep south of America pre-civil rights movement. I was so surprised because when I was last in Safed, people were more moderate and really hippie in their ways. Now, the hippiness is merely a guise, for within people’s minds is a definitive, racist hate of Obama, and if I had heard “Drive all the Arabs into the Sea!” one more time, I was going to vomit on the Shabbat table. Religious and emotion-based arguments running amuck.

It was a shock to see how much Safed had moved to the right. I was quick to find out that this hadn’t only happened in the land of Kabbalah. It was occurring all over Israel. In a recent article by Noam Sheizaf of +972 Magazine, he states. “…we did have a series of polls in recent years which had around half of the Jewish public agreeing to a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. What I think we are witnessing now is a shift of the public to the right, following the positions expressed by Prime Minister Netanyahu.” I could have told you that 2 months ago when after being in Israel for a month, I knew that I had stepped into a nightmare of Israeli right-wing insanity.

Why is this happening now? Why do I have people that I’ve known for nearly ten years in Israel who, since I’ve come out as an anti-Zionist and left the country, say that I act like I "care more about the Arabs than your own people!” Or, “By what you say, it seems as if you don’t want Israel to exist. It’s a shame and very frightening that this is what you want for my people.”

YOUR people? I’m not part of the Jewish people any longer because I’m making it a habit now to call the Israeli government and the right-wing madness that stems from it on their shit? Wait a minute, weren’t you all drooling and pumping your fist when that whoring sycophant Netenyahu seduced Congress last week and said that only in a democracy could people (meaning Rea Abileah) speak in protest and not be harmed. All the while she was getting her ass kicked by AIPAC thugs, then dragged out and being arrested at the hospital. Don’t school me on democracy, Netti.

There are great left-wing Israelis who feel that their voices are being muted. If you don’t agree with the status quo, you can be literally shunned socially. I couldn’t take it and it hurt me, and I had to leave. I knew that the best way for me to help the Palestinians get their own state and help Israel not eat itself, was by returning to America and being a voice of reason about this conflict. I’m ready to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" by opposing them.”

I hope that you can join me in the conversation. I will start blogs but I’d like to receive questions and will try my best to let you know through MY EYES. My perspective is unique but it is also universal.