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LIVED THROUGH THIS
I Was a Zionist Until I Fell in Love
Hate is harder when we see each other’s humanity
1987My freshman year at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The First Intifada had just begun. Young Arabs with keffiyehs around their necks stood at a long table near the cafeteria’s exit, a Palestinian flag hanging behind them.
“Sign the petition! Free Palestine!”
They terrified me; I walked by as fast as I could. To me, a keffiyeh stood for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Palestinians weren’t human beings, they were terrorists. Right in front of me, in real life.
I wasn’t alone. The main student cafeteria, the Marvin Center, had its own imaginary Green Line. Arab students sat on one side, American Jews on the other. Cross at your own risk.
I was 19, born and raised in a conservative Jewish home. My dad and I often walked to synagogue, most of my friends were Jewish. I went to Hebrew school, had a bat mitzvah, read from the Torah. My best teenage memories are from my conservative youth group, United Synagogue Youth (USY).
I was also a Zionist. I spent the summer of 1985 in Israel. On Shabbat, I attended an orthodox synagogue; I participated in Gadna, the Israeli military youth…
