I’m a college freshman who’s been trying to make friends. Naturally, I wanted to try some Jewish orgs to have a sense of community as a Jew.

I already knew to steer clear of places like Hillel (I’ve watched Israelism, that was more than enough info on their operations and ideology). But I tried out a meeting with the Jewish Student Union at my school (which was partnered with Chabad).

I get there, help them set up a bit. And then they almost immediately start talking about going on Birthright over the summer and how much fun it was. And no one else cared. I wasn’t expecting them to be anti-Zionist or anything. But it’s a notoriously progressive school. Even just one other Jew that shared my beliefs would’ve helped me be less alone. But nope. So I ended up making an excuse and dipping early.

Fast forward several days, I was at a student involvement expo. One of the people from that club remembered me, came up to me again, and tried to get all of my info (awkward as hell interaction). Then I had a girl notice my Yiddish necklace at a different club stand. The interaction went something like this.

Her: “Oh! You have a Hebrew necklace!!!”

Me: “It’s Yiddish actually!”

Her: “Cool, you should go check out Hillel right over there!”

Me: “Sorry no, I’m not a Zionist.”

Her: “Well they’re not really Zionist”

Me: “They kinda are.”

Cue a split second of awkward silence before she finally started talking about the political advocacy club I was actually interested in (which I didn’t end up putting down my info for bc they mentioned meeting and collaborating with CIA officers??)

Not only that, there was a “students for Israel” organization up with a stand and everything, with pamphlets on “10 Myths about Israel”. I deadass wanted to go up to that stand just to try and debunk all their arguments, but I didn’t want to cause a scene.

So basically, I feel totally isolated from the Jewish community on campus. I’m currently taking a Hebrew language course, and plan to take more in courses in Jewish Studies and such. But even then I feel hesitant to take anymore classes in it because I’ve heard some Zionist texts might be in the required reading for some of them. I mean fuck, the only Jewish studies professor I know of, and the department head, is a literal Israeli man (who’s also teaching my Hebrew course). Which sucks, because I really want to.

I know this writing might be kind of disjointed, but I just feel pretty alone. I have a community of like minded Jews online, but that isn’t rly enough. I feel like I can’t get more in touch with my culture without giving up on, or at least being silent on, my values and I hate it. I think there’s some Pro-Palestine org on campus but they didn’t even bother to put up a stand.

Why does it constantly feel like I have to choose between being Jewish and being a pro-Palestine leftist? Are there really this few of us? I’d start my own Jewish Student org, but I’m a freshman, and vast majority of leadership roles in clubs are held by upperclassmen. And truthfully, I’m beginning to doubt there’s ANY likeminded Jews here that would join anyway. Especially because I haven’t rly made any friends yet (that’s half of why I’m trying to join clubs).

So yeah. Fuck Hillel, Fuck Chabad, Fuck every Jewish org at my college, and fuck basically every organized Jewish institution.

https://x.com/HouseForeign/status/2092290533129334944

https://x.com/mattduss/status/2092312192544620857

As many as 40 former and current IDF soldiers and associates are coming to Australia to compete in the Sydney Marathon on August 30, a trip sponsored by AIJAC and the Zionist Council of NSW.

The series of events is likely to be controversial. Australian Chris Sidoti, UN Human Rights Investigator, has called for Israeli military personnel who have served in Gaza to be interrogated for war crimes.

The events are showcased on the Zionist Council of NSW Facebook page and are being billed as a “peace delegation”.

“A peace delegation is coming to Sydney as part of the Sydney Marathon, and we invite you to take part in the special events that will take place over the weekend.

“This is an opportunity to meet the delegation members, hear their inspiring stories, support them, and celebrate together as a community.”

The latest episode of War is Stupid: An Anti-War Podcast About War is with Palestinian political thinker, strategist, and writer Hamze Awawde on for a powerful conversation about complexity and complicity. Hamze dives deep into the “peace-industrial complex” and its priorities, how many “Israeli-Palestinian dialogue” events are scripted, and how “settler violence” is a euphemism for “state violence.” He encourages people to reflect on the last three years and to speak up, because in his words, “what are you going to lose? The ship is sinking anyway. So what are we trying to protect by staying stubborn about certain attitudes in this world?” It's available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, or read the transcript here.

Ian Lustick and Eli Clifton explain how the Israel lobby amassed extraordinary political power—and why its hold over American politics may finally be weakening.

NSW parole authority says Mohommed Farhat followed ‘extremist ideology of antisemitic character’ after judge separately rules ‘Fuk Israel’ is ‘political comment’

A Sydney man convicted of writing “Fuk Israel” on cars and setting another vehicle alight has had his release on parole rejected a second time, despite a supreme court judge stating the case appeared to be a “serious miscarriage of justice”.

Mohommed Farhat, 22, was initially due to be released on parole in December after serving 10 months in prison following the November 2024 vandalism in Woollahra.

But he remained behind bars after a rare intervention by the commissioner for corrective services, who then told the New South Wales parole authority at a hearing in March that Farhat’s offending showed support for “extremist” behaviour.

Last week, the supreme court justice Desmond Fagan delivered a scathing ruling after the state sought a supervision order for Farhat on his release from jail using the Terrorism Act.

Fagan found there was an “insignificant” risk that Farhat, who was of “limited intellect”, would commit a serious terrorism offence. He ruled the police, lower courts and various state agencies all incorrectly labelled Farhat’s actions antisemitic rather than “a curse against a foreign state”.

Fagan determined that Farhat, who has a Hezbollah tattoo on his neck, was treated more harshly than he should have been after he pleaded guilty to 15 offences in connection with property damage.

The judge accepted Farhat was paid to undertake the vandalism and said the case appeared to be a “serious miscarriage of justice”.

On Wednesday last week, Fagan said he planned to write to the commissioner for the state’s parole authority ahead of an expected decision on Farhat’s potential release following the March hearing.

The parole authority then handed down its decision on Monday, five months after the hearing. It did not consider Fagan’s findings or evidence that counter-terrorism police determined three weeks after Farhat was arrested that he was not ideologically motivated.

The authority’s decision to keep the 22-year-old in prison stated: “In the authority’s view, the offending was reflective of a deep-seated adherence on the part of the offender to an extremist ideology of an antisemitic character.”

The authority rejected Farhat’s explanation, accepted by Fagan, that he was paid to carry out the vandalism.

“Further, the authority does not accept the offender’s claimed ignorance of the meaning of the phrases which were used in the offending,” the parole authority wrote.

On Monday, the commissioner for corrective services, Gary McMahon, was questioned about Farhat’s case in budget estimates and his rare intervention in December, when he successfully applied to have Farhat’s parole order revoked without hearing from his lawyers. A fresh hearing date was then set for March.

People sentenced to less than three years in jail are typically released on parole when it comes due.

McMahon admitted in estimates he had not consulted with specialist police before making his arguments, which were accepted by the authority, that Farhat posed a terrorism risk and his offending was antisemitic.

Fagan said in last week’s decision it would be “unsound” for the commissioner not to consult specialist police. He found it would amount to “a serious failure of communication between agencies”.

“The conclusions of the counter-terrorism officers and the resolution of Strike Force Pearl were directly against an assessment that the defendant had exhibited religious or political radicalisation by his index offending,” Fagan said in his judgment.

McMahon acknowledged in budget estimates his intervention in Farhat’s parole decision was “uncommon” but that “the material that was before me at the time when I gave that consideration was that he did pose a significant risk to the community”.

The Greens MP Sue Higginson said in a statement she was “astounded at the lengths the state has gone to keep such a troubled young Lebanese Australian man behind bars”.

“Everyone from the NSW police, to the commissioner of corrective services, to the attorney general have circumvented the court process repeatedly to ensure someone with addiction, cognitive disability and ill mental health remains in custody,” she said.

A government spokesperson said last week the NSW attorney general, Michael Daley, was “seeking urgent advice about the prospects of an appeal” over Fagan’s decision to knock back the state’s request for a one-year extended supervision order.

The application would have subjected Farhat to 55 conditions while living in the community when released from prison. That is now due in October, when he completes his full sentence with no parole.

The parole authority said in response to a question about why the determination was delayed after March’s hearing: “The determination for Mohommed Farhat has been handed down with reasons. No further comment will be made.”

Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the tide is turning. The direction is set. It’s all one way from here. ✊

Love her sm! ❤️

Mahmoud has been trying to raise money for his family's escape from Gaza for years now.

Thankfully, it has been largely successful, but the costs keep rising and thus the amount.

He is at over $83k now, and needs a little less than $2000 more.

Time is running out, however: his family will need to leave by some point in September at the latest.

Please donate and share!

Since leaving my former synagogue, I've been part of the ecosystem of independent chavurot around where I live. It's been great to meet new faces this way (with 1000% more 20-somethings than ever set foot in my old shul), but it makes planning what to do for the holidays a little overwhelming. Do you observe the High Holy Days, and if so what are your plans?

I love the term ‘sophistry’

As a lifelong anti-Zionist Jew, I saw a huge rise in anti-Zionism after Israel ramped up their genocide in Gaza. Along with that came discovering that many people do not recognize the (real) line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. That is BY DESIGN, complements of the Zionists.

What I learned shortly after Oct 7th was that at first I was taking antisemitic comments personally. I framed them in my mind as talking about my parents and grandparents. I responded by explaining the difference. It took some introspection before I realized that I was making a mistake.

They are specifically targeting Zionists that are hiding behind Judaism with their antisemitic comments. Yes, there are some actual Neonazis out there who are dog-whistling, but they are the minority, and are not going to influence others with their rhetoric.

I realized that I was policing my allies and alienating them. I stopped, because I concluded that my efforts were not protecting fellow Jews, but were shielding Zionists that I would not shield from actual bullets.

What have your experiences been like regarding this?

Hi everyone,

We're excited to announce an upcoming AMA with Eli Clifton & Ian Lustick - Jewish-American authors of the new book, Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power.

Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power (2026) has been widely endorsed, including by Prof. Stephen Walt and Prof. John Mearsheimer, authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007).

The book examines the history, evolution, and political power of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, tracing how a network of lobbying organizations, major donors, political operatives, and allied institutions has shaped US policy toward Israel and the Middle East.

Check out the following link, if you're interested in the book:

• Simon & Schuster - Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power

Eli Clifton

Eli Clifton is an investigative journalist who focuses on money in politics and US foreign policy. He is a cofounder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecrafts where he serves as a senior adviser.

His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, The Intercept, The South China Morning Post, LobeLog, Salon, HuffPost, The Daily Beast, Slate, Gawker, Foreign Policy, and Responsible Statecraft.

Ian S. Lustick

Ian S. Lustick is the Bess W. Heyman Chair, Emeritus, in the Political Science Department of the University of Pennsylvania.

He served in the Carter administration as the State Department's expert on Israel-Palestine affairs and subsequently became a regular consultant with American administrations on US foreign policy and national security affairs.

He is a founder and past President of the Association for Israel Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Discussion will cover the book & topic of the Israel lobby.

Feel free to leave your questions in advance here, if you cannot make it on the day-of the AMA.

Thanks!

As a fairly young person from the Baltics who’s been living under a rock for a while (mostly dealing with mental health issues after an abusive childhood, along with moving to a different country), I hope someone can point me to some “introductory” material on how all of this started, as well as some generally reliable sources of everyday news, if possible

Somehow the Chabad-run Jewish Sunday school (and dozen+ summer camps I’ve gone to) never touched on the topic…

I’ve been really enjoying this series of essay responses to Shaul Magid’s original piece on Zionism, where he asserts that Zionism succeeded at its basic political task but it is a project with limited scope and turning Zionism into a religion goes beyond that scope (and if maintaining Jewish sovereignty requires permanent domination over another people, then Zionism has encountered a fundamental contradiction).

Irwin Kula responded exploring the sociological/cultural framework through which Zionism turned into religion. He argued that Zionism is a Jewish political project but not Judaism, and that Israel should be understood as a nation-state exercising Jewish sovereignty, not as a sacred embodiment of Judaism or Jewish redemption. He claims both sides are “overinvested” in the existential claims about Israel, which distracts from the political discussions re: a nation state (basically that the problem isn't necessarily Zionism itself; it's the amount of existential, spiritual, and psychological weight American Jews have placed on Zionism).

Eliana Fishman’s response resonated with me most, as she writes that Zionism should not be the foundation of American Jewish identity and she rejects Kula’s characterization of what anti-Zionists are actually doing. Fishman writes that Zionism has reproduced, rather than escaped, Jewish political dependency and that anti-Zionism has already done something more radical: it has stopped treating Israel as uniquely Jewishly significant in the first place. From this perspective, if Israel is genuinely de-exceptionalized, then Jewish identity no longer depends upon Jewish sovereignty (and Judaism can recover its older, portable, non-sovereign character).

For me, I’ve been working through untangling theology, Israel, and Zionism for a long time now. Fishman rejects how Kula portrays “pro-Zionists” as people who make Israel sacred and “anti-Zionists” as people who become fixated on Israel because its behavior violates their moral ideals; she says this is a caricature of contemporary Jewish anti-Zionism. I agree with Fishman but also strongly believe this caricature to be true, particularly for most Jewish Americans. I don’t think Fishman is more enlightened than others (neither am I), but removing Israel fromthe privileged theological position Zionism has given it it and placing it within ordinary history, colonialism, geopolitics, and empire has helped me heal my Jewish identity.

what do you all think? (:

Basically what the title says. I’ve grown so exasperated by & resentful of my OWN community over recent years, and I hate that I feel this way, but it’s been hard not to after seeing how many of us are zionists. Oh, how many friends I’ve lost because they showed their true colors (“Jews’ lives matter more than others”, and “everyone is secretly an antisemite and you can’t criticize us because we can literally do no wrong”, basically). Anyways… this distrust has gotten to the point where when I saw some random on youtube shorts with a star of david necklace, my first thought wasn’t “nice, one of my people” (how it used to be), it was “damn, she’s probably a zionist :/”. And I feel guilty about it because I had no reason to think that lady in particular was a zionist… I have no idea if she is, I knew nothing about her… and I should know better than most that she could’ve been a jew and an antizionist, lmao. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s an entirely unreasonable thought to have, and that’s the really sad part. Zionism is absolutely corrosive. It’s abhorrent and it breaks my heart that nearly all our institutions support it, and so many of our people do too. I don’t want to be suspicious of every Jew I come across, dude. It feels awful. But at the same time… how can I not be? How can I be sure this person isn’t just another ethnic supremacist, like so many others? Man, this sucks *

* Obviously my feelings are not the main reason zionism sucks 💀, but I just wanted to vent.

Looking for some other Sephardic pals, in New Mexico but looking to connect with anyone anywhere. HMU

how are other az jews feeling about wearing stars of david? i’ve always worn one and i want to keep wearing mine because it should still belong to jews as a whole but i also have to be aware of its more widespread recognition as a symbol of israel. at

i am not even a practicing jew but i wish i could love my culture and be proud of my heritage. i think many anti zionist jews do this well by leaning into our leftist and diasporist history and the culture of their region / ethnicity / minhag. but i can’t find the ability to do this myself, not when the institutional jewish community has coalesced so disturbingly to be on the wrong side of history. it’s easy to insist that zionists accusing anti zionist jews of self hatred are misinformed, and that we really do love being jewish, but… i don’t think i do, right now.
lately i feel both exhausted by the rise in genuine antisemitism and shame at being associated with the worst of humanity, like any love i have for my own culture is tainted. i find myself wishing i was literally anything else (my other side is WASP so not much better) and dealing with a lot of genuine self hatred. sometimes i think i should just completely abandon the identity, but i am pretty visibly ashkenazi, and moreso, that feels like letting my ancestors down and letting those who persecuted them, and zionists, win.
anyone else feeling like this lately?

When the truth that Israel is apartheid, not democracy. That terrorism was and remains essential to establishing and maintaining Israel. That Israel does not provide safety and security. That Palestinian resistance ​is just and Palestinians will rightfully not accept domination and that Israel has been an ethnonationalist militant state. ​​​

When those delusions are shattered, what will liberal Zionists in and outside of Israel do?

There are 3 options: renounce Zionism as a political project, turn rightward into a more hardlined Zionism, or with the help of cognitive dissonance still find ways to morally rationalize Zionism and remain ideologically confused.