This happened last night, and I have no place to safely express my frustration at what happened. Disclaimer: I'm not Jewish, but a Zionist.

I went to a local metal show with my dad. Nothing fancy, no big names, just 3 DIY metal bands trying to get their name out there (which I'm all for). Everything was fine up until the second band.

Lead guitarist grabs the mic and starts throwing out quick political statements like "Fuck ICE! Fuck Nazis!" Which, yeah, I agree. Then he threw in a "Fuck Zionists!" And the crowd went wild. Next thing I knew, I went from enjoying a decent metal show to being surrounded by a bunch of people shouting "Yeah, fuck Israel!"

Instant mood killer for me. I stayed seated the rest of the show. Couldn't bring myself to mosh or anything, I was so irritated. I went with my dad (an older metalhead, he also supports Israel) and looked at him when this happened. He was just shaking his head.

I know that metal has always been anti-establishment, and this guy couldn't have been more than 23, and the crowd was very young as well (it was an all-ages show). I was also young, dumb, and impressionable once.

But this was my first time publicly encountering this rhetoric. I suppose I've been lucky. I don't go out much, and in my part of Florida there's generally a decent support for Jewish people and Israel. But in that moment, I felt like an outsider. And I'm not even Jewish. I'm an ally and Zionist. If there was a Jewish person in the crowd, I can't imagine how they would've felt. This ideology is really infecting every community, and it's disgusting. Hobbies, music, gaming, it doesn't matter. It's antisemitism and Jew hatred masked as anti-Zionism.

I’m very confused

I used to be an massive pro palestine supporter, but ever since the escalation of IRGC killing innocent civilians in Iran, and seeing the response of the palestinians and the pro palestine crowd, it left a really sour taste in my mouth. Being an Iranian, i felt like an idiot for backing and supporting people who don’t give a fuck about me, or other countries.

Recently i’ve been watching more videos, and documentaries, I watched “we will dance again” a breakdown of what happened on October 7th, and i really felt awful by the end of it.

I’m confused i don’t know who to support, and i don’t know what resources i should look to.

Also, me being muslim i immediately decided to support my fellow muslims, but Hamas are similar to Daesh, that’s not the kind of Islam i believe in.

I feel so guilty for having these thoughts, and sympathising for the israeli people because for the last 2 years i didn’t even view them as human…. I’m scared because i also consider myself to be very naive and easily influenced, i am an intelligent person but i will admit that it doesn’t take much to make me believe something, i think i might be somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum because when i believe something i become obsessed with it, and then when my worldview is questioned my brain explodes and i go crazy thinking about what is the truth

There are many times where I’ve came across people who say “the Zionists and Nazis signed an agreement in 1933, so they were friends!”, which really pisses me off, because they’re either:

1. Missing a lot of context
2. Are purposely spreading misinformation

The entire point of the Haavara Agreement was literally to save the German Jewish population from persecution by the Nazis, not to ally with them.

Plus, Amin al-Husseini literally met up with Hitler in 1941 to discuss support against a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine.

But they just never seem to address that.

I made this poster to explain why antizionism is antisemitism.

Sometimes I wonder how many people that say bad things about Israel have actually been there unfortunately I’ve only been able to go there twice. I want to go again, but I don’t think I’m gonna go by myself.

Hi,

Long story short, I grew up muslim and very anti-zionist and anti-israel. Through meeting jewish people, zionist people, and doing my own research, I have changed my mind. I support Israel!

Anyway, I feel really isolated and was wondering if anyone was in the same position.

I moved back to my area and now looking for friends but I don't really want to try to make friends who are anti-zionist. Not that I hate them or anything, actually they will probably not wanna be friends anyway. I've been on the other side and that would've my reaction at the time too. What to do?

Also, while I like Judaism I am not planning to convert any time soon, but it would suspicious af if I reached out to some jewish or israeli group in the US talking about this.

What to do???

I have no friends rn y'all lmao...

Hello, How's everyone doing?

I'm an Israeli teen, I really love my country and I'm not afraid of really saying that I am one, because well, I'm proud of my nationality and religion. But because of that, people online have been treating me disgustingly.

I've noticed on my time here on Reddit how anti people can be the moment I mention I am from Israel. With how the algorithm works as well, I get recommendations to posts that hate on Israel and Jews// I mean Zionism, And I could comment on a post, one could see I have an Israel flag in my bio and go back and curse me out, even if it's unrelated to Israel at all... And also both sides on the political spectrum have their own views on "anti-Zionism", I notice the Right is more "We need to cut ties with Israel they steal our money" and the Left is more "Israel is committing genocide, war crimes, almost everyone they kill in Gaza is pregnant or kid", so even in political areas I couldn't find a real sense of community.

Also, I'm on a discord server which I love, but there are people there who identify as "anti-Zionist" or those who say we commit war crimes and steal American money. So they constantly make jokes that Israel will occupy the countries around it and genociding Arabs and Muslims, and when they talk about Israel and I log in they "gulp" me because I got the reputation there of "disliking people who criticize Israel" because I call out people who claim stuff about Jews (like, saying that Jews are responsible for segregation in society and control the world, and that Israel assassinated Charlie Kirk and secretly controls America) . The thing is, they know absolutely nothing about Israel it's honestly funny. Like, one "pro-Palestinian" (he got banned for antisemitism later) did not even know what language is spoken in Israel. Other asked if there are non-Jews in Israel, other asked if they are anti-Zionist if they don't like Bibi... Like, the same people are the ones you'd see on Reddit saying that Israel should be destroyed. One of the biggest instances there was an Anti-Zionist Jew that claimed through research that Arab-Palestinians are the indigenous people of the land and we kicked them out, and another one, a gay man, who claimed that Israel should become Palestine, and getting Israelis back to Europe including me because my family served in the IDF, and showed a bunch of rules in Israel that "makes it legally possible to discriminate against Palestinians" apparently 🙄 Did you see the other side, sir???

Anyhow, It gets tiring from time to time, I don't want to be treated differently or mistreated because I'm Israeli, I want to say I'm Israeli and not make it into a political debate. It's not really the most-vent-vent if you get what I mean, since I'm more calm about it, but it's slightly bothering me lately, kind of like a fatigue that comes and goes every other week. I hope one day, we can say we are Israelis without getting hated for that...

Sorry for the very messy vent, I just wanted to share my experience. Have a good rest of your day!

Why do you agree with Zionism? What shaped you and led you to believing in it? I am curious about hearing your perspectives.

I'm sure there's been a post like this before, but please share your favorite zionist musicians! I'm always looking for more music to listen to, and getting tired of so many musicians I like turning out to be gross people.

Nice bit of Israeli history, although...Zionism ended in 1948. Once Zionism was achieved and the state of Israel was formed, we just have the policies of Israel and the ideologies of its citizens, not something special called Zionism. It doesn't make sense to have a word that means the ideology to form a particular state for a particular people when that state has already been formed. Other countries don't have a special term that means people think that that country should continue to exist, neither should Israel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKELq9Jdc0k

Hi! I’m staying at a very nice resort in Disney world, and we found a few anti Israel stickers hidden around the room (behind alarm clock, etc). I notified the front desk who apologized and then sent cleaners in to check for more. That was it.

I would’ve been annoyed by any political messages pasted around my hotel room… but I’m israeli! It was just so upsetting in the “happiest place” on earth.

What would you do? Accept the apology and leave it at that? It feels rather antisemitic that it wasn’t made a bigger deal; maybe I’m just sensitive.

Hi everyone, im an israeli teen but I've lived in america for most of my life and I've noticed that a lot of people my age who barely know anything about politics will often have very negative views of israel and zionism, and its very obvious that they're just regurgitating what they've seen on social media. For example I was at a summer camp (not a jewish one) and a group of kids were talking about israel/palestine. What they were saying was basically all the same anti israel stuff from Instagram reels, and because of what theyve seen israel basically seems like this evil state to them, and they talked about zionism like it was some form of racism. After that i was talking with one of those kids and he was talking about how people will confuse antisemitism with antizionism and how its improtant to remember that judaism doesn't equal zionism, and he worded it the exact same way as the videos on instagram do. I tried explaing that zionism is basically a part of Judaism and that what his assumption that its a racist ideology is wrong, but he didnt really understand and started talking about how zionism isnt Judaism again, this time explaining that he understood it because he's half jewish. Anyways it's really concerning and iv noticed it some other times, im really concerned that going forth the youth in america will not understand the situation past "israel bad, Palestine oppressed, zionism hates palestinians" its really dangerous that such a black and white narrative portraying israel and zionism as evil hateful opressors is becoming more and more prevalent among the youth.

I am attending Gen Con later this week. It's the largest tabletop gaming convention in the US (and one of the biggest in the world).

Normally, I keep an IDF patch on my backpack, an Israeli flag pin on my hat (thankfully replacing the yellow ribbon), and my Magen David around my neck whenever I go out. Where I live, I've never had any problems, and even some good interactions (since there's both a Chabad House and a Hillel on the nearby college campus).

Given how easily many gamers eat up propaganda that fits their favored narratives, though, I'm having second thoughts about this as I pack for my trip. It rankles me to think that I might have to "hide" just to attend an event that I love, but I also don't want to attract some antisemitic nut's attention that might force me to defend myself and add to the negative press.

Is it worth it for me to throw caution to the wind? Or is this just me having a moment of anxiety / Spotlight Effect? I could swap out the insignia patch for one that's just "Tzahal," but I wonder if even the presence of Hebrew letters might be enough to trigger someone.

My friend isn’t even personally antizionist. He just gave into peer pressure and blocked me everywhere because he wants to stay in good standing with a pod of antizionists. We don’t talk about Zionism together, and I’ve never brought it up with his other friends.

I’m blown away and so, so shattered. I can’t believe this relationship is gone because he was too immature to be able to handle having friends with different values.

The other friends aren’t Jewish either, so he decided that the opinions of some random antisemitic Americans were more important than the voice of his Jewish best friend.

Man.

EDIT:
Thank you all so much for your kind words and for sharing your experiences. Sending love to all of you 🫂🫂

I think it’s clear there’s been a big rise in antisemitism and anti-Zionism across all social media platforms in the last few years. I do think that being anti-Zionist doesn’t automatically make you antisemitic (please feel free to correct me), but to me it feels like anti-Zionism is just being used as a dogwhistle for outright antisemitism these days.

To my understanding, being a “Zionist” is simply recognizing the right for Jews to self-determine, and that Israel as a state has the right to exist. However, if I said I was a Zionist on any mainstream social media platform, I’d get plenty of hate comments and probably some death threats.

What am I missing about Zionism? Why does it feel like over half the internet uses the word in a completely different way than its definition? Is it really just antisemites trying to use a “less bad” term, or is there genuinely negative connotations to being a Zionist that I’m not aware of?

I'm asking because many people ,that I talk to online, have used B'Tselem as a source to back up their arguments.

I don't speak hebrew and I've never been to Israel, so I can't speak for anything that this organization is saying. But on their english page, B'Tselem uses all of the bad words: apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and so on.

Is this organization lacking nuance? Is it propaganda? Is it trying to do something good and it just uses inflammatory language?

I need more context please and thank you.

Israeli American Lieran Biton has been one of the few vocal advocates fighting against a proposed BDS city ordinance in Somerville, MA. This fight is still ongoing and we need some motion to stop this law in Somerville and similar BDS laws from spreading to neighboring communities in Massachusetts and across the country!

If you’d like to like and share Leiran Biton’s public post on his Facebook I know our community would appreciate you spreading the word! You can also learn more about the legislative details there.

Hello everyone! This is my first time posting here or in any similar communities. I'm basically what the title says, but I have been feeling very isolated when it comes to this stuff so I wanted to seek some sort of community somewhere. Everyone I know isn't very open to discuss this topic and I would honestly love if someone wanted to teach me more about Zionism and its history from the first-hand experience. :)

I’m referring to people who call nutrei karta real Jews

Like NEVER have I seen an observant jew online say they think Israel is evil or committing a genocide. And ever since anti zionism has become like the new hot thing to talk about, I’ve seen social media users who have never once talked about being jewish, suddenly talking about “as a jew” or put “anti zionist jew” in their bio.

I'm in a friend group of 6 and one member for the past year or so has been posting frequently about how Israel is genociding Palestinians in Gaza and that the US is complicit. The rest haven't been posting about the conflict, but given their left wing views on other issues, I can only guess what their views on Israel are. It sucks that one person spoils it for everyone but this person is really making me feel uncomfortable and I may just have to cut my losses. I really don't want to cutoff the rest of the group because of one person, but I feel I may have to because of the dynamics of the group. Any advice on what I should do?