Zinzy's website

I see an acquaintance in the street, a person I’ve met once before. They and Anja have known each other in passing for decades. “Here’s Zinzy”, they say to their partner, “I met her at the thing.”

The thing was a premiere for a documentary about a Dutch 70s solidarity movement of Jews who helped Soviet Jews escape a life of exclusion and discrimination. I had been at the thing with Anja and my delightful mother-in-law, who likes to recount the time she went to Russia to save the Jews from the Soviets.

“You had that great question then, remember?” the acquaintance says. I do remember. Their answer at the time had been “you may be interested in the workshop I’m giving on how to defend Israel”. My question that evoked it:

“How can I help people refrain from antisemitism in their critique of Israel?”

I suspect Anja was the only one in the room that night who understood what I was asking. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s nice to feel fewer eyes looking at the only Black person in the room, but I feel this random encounter in the street is an opportunity to correct the original misinterpretation.

“I don’t know many people who are appreciative of Israel right now” I say, “but I’m bothered by how easily people mix antisemitism in with their political criticism”. The acquaintance turns to their partner.

“Ah yes, she’s in a woke bubble.”

Their face didn’t display disgust per se. Rather, what I read was the toxic optimism a conservative Christian mother may deploy when telling her gay son that she doesn’t hate him, just what he does. I’m not enough of an activist to have strong feelings about the word “woke”, though I’m aware of its meaning changing over time.

“I don’t know many Jews who are appreciative of Israel right now”, is what I should have said. It’s true, but saying that would be like outing someone.

As the world topples evermore upside down, far right politicians deeming themselves protagonists in the fight against antisemitism, I’m fascinated by the divergent meanings of the word “Israel”.

I know people who consider it home even though it needs a good Konmari. I know people who think it was a horror show from the start. I know people who signal their virtue with it. I know it’s a country I would have wanted to visit one day, but now I don’t know if I ever will.

To me, Israel is an iteration of self-determination that isn’t necessarily doing many people much good right now. To me, it’s not proof that self-determination is bad in itself, or that Jews uniquely don’t deserve it.

To me, it is the home of our dear Uncle Eli, who seems really quite disappointed he didn’t choose to leave earlier, back when there were still flights going.

To me, Israel is the culmination of unresolved Western guilt; a falsely designated safe zone that alleviates non-Jews globally from combatting our own antisemitism here, on our land, where our Jewish neighbors live, too.

To me, that is what it means to be woke: to seek, perpetually, to be less of an asshole.