opinion
BY NAYA LEKHT
We Are Jews Because
We Are Zionists. We Are Zionists
Because We Are Jews
n the defining spirit of our times that promotes
diversity and inclusion by encouraging
individuals to self-identify, to celebrate their will
to determine their identity — whether driven by
gender, race or religion — what has transpired at
UC Berkeley is an assault on Jewish identity.

Immediately, Jewish activist and legal luminar-
ies commented “UC Berkeley develops a Jew-
Free Zone.” And then came the popular refrain:
“anti-Zionist is not antisemitic,” followed by the
familiar mental acrobatics of having to prove that
anti-Zionism is today’s form of antisemitism or the
well-accustomed to strategy of passing the IHRA
definition of antisemitism.

It’s been 20 years, 20 years since antisemitism
arrived on college campuses, and we are no better
off. It takes a moment to refrain from viewing the
events that transpired at UC Berkeley as solely
antisemitic. Let’s put it this way: What other group is
demanded to excise an integral part of their identity
in order to participate in culture, but the Jews?
Perhaps this is a pivotal moment for the Jewish
community to point out that anti-Zionism is not simply
a modern form of an age-old hatred, but an attack
on the Jewish self and the Jews’ right to define our-
selves. It is a violation of the freedom of a people to
identify with a core component of their heritage.

It takes a moment to reframe, to move away
from a conversation about antisemitism to one
about identity. To help illustrate this, imagine
disinviting Black individuals who hold pan-Afri-
can views, which emphasize the unity of African
and black diasporas in a joint struggle. Imagine a
coalition of campus groups announcing that Black
Americans are welcome, just not the ones who
believe that they are indigenous to Africa.

This is exactly what is happening to Jews in
America, whether on college campuses and in
classrooms or during high school club rush week
and teachers union meetings, to name just a few
antisemitic hot spots. Accepting Jews who self-am-
putate their own ancestral legacy, their own indige-
nous roots, is not inclusion. It is discrimination at its
highest form and an insidious form of abuse.

Our abusers want to set the terms of how Jews
show up to the world. They maintain that we are
welcome in the form of ashes, but insist that Jews
with power, with weapons in their hands, Jews
with borders, Jews who have returned to their
ancestral homeland, are evil. And what’s worse,
they dictate to us what it means to be a Jew. And
we run, we run in circles, our heads aching from
16 OCTOBER 6, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
the mental gymnastics of having to prove why
anti-Zionism is antisemitism, our hearts confused
by the gaslighting: Isn’t Zionism a political move-
ment? Wait, what?
Ladies and gentlemen: Why do we face
Jerusalem when we pray, why do we break a
glass under a canopy on our wedding day, why
are there commandments that we cannot perform
outside of the Land of Israel and laws that can
only be performed when living on our ancestral
homeland, why did our people weep “by the
rivers of Babylon when we remember Zion,” why
must our “right hand forget its cunning if we forget
Jerusalem,” why did Yehuda HaLevi weep in the
12th century sitting in Spain that his “heart is in the
east, and [he] in the uttermost West”?
As I write this, it is 81 years since Jews were mur-
dered at Babi Yar. There, they showed up as their
full selves. At Babi Yar, Jews came as Jews. They
came to be murdered because they were Jews.

There, they had no choice — no one told them
Jews could stay home but “all Zionists of the city
of Kiev and its vicinity must appear on Monday,
September 29, 1941 at 8 am at the corner of
Melnikova and Dokhterivskaya streets (next to the
cemetery).” There, they came as their full selves;
there, they perished as their full selves.

Judging from the blood-stained annals of
Jewish history, one can praise our abusers: Jews
welcome, Zionists not. And in this tenuous fes-
tivity, we cast down our eyes and show up, but
never as our full selves. But here’s the caveat: As
my mother, who was told to “go back to Palestine”
by her Soviet Russian co-worker, says, “When they
say Zionist, they mean Jew.”
That’s why when you’re the only Jew in your
class or among friends and Israel is brought up,
everyone turns to you, Jew. That’s why when
you post “Shabbat Shalom” on your Instagram,
the likelihood that someone will comment
“#FreePalestine” is almost a guarantee. And finally,
why synagogues and Hillels have been vandalized
with the slogan “Free Palestine.”
Because when they say Zionist, they mean you,
Jew. Some will say that the struggle against anti-Zi-
onism and antisemitism is a legal struggle. All are
correct. I say this is our moment, our moment to
show up as our full selves. Yes, we pray toward
Jerusalem, yes we break the glass under the wed-
ding canopy to remember the destruction of the
Temple in Jerusalem, no we cannot cultivate land
in the Diaspora as we would in Israel, yes we say
“next year in Jerusalem” at the end of the Passover
meal (seder). We are Jews because we are Zionists;
we are Zionists because we are Jews. JE
Naya Lekht is director of education for Club Z, a
Zionist youth movement that has created a cur-
riculum on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Zionism and
antisemitism being taught to Jewish teens across
the nation.

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I



feature story
Area Synagogues Begin
to Make Better Use of the
Great Outdoors
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
Temple Brith Achim
members in King of Prussia
now gather for the Sabbath
in this fi eld behind the
building. Photo by Jarrad Saff ren
O utside of Har Zion Temple’s entrance on its west end, there’s a small
fi eld of grass. When you walk by, the area doesn’t look like much.

Th ere are three benches along the perimeter, but that’s about it.

Yet over the summer, the pocket park became a weekly feature of syn-
agogue life. In previous years, the Penn Valley congregation would hold
Shabbat services there in the warm months, according to Cantor Eliot
Vogel. But only about 10 people would show up.

In 2022, though, attendance increased to an average of 30 members per
week. Or, as Vogel put it, that number represented an increase of 200%.

“You have the opportunity since COVID to be inside or outside,” said
Andrea Robbins, a Har Zion member for 64 years. “You can enjoy the
peaceful landscape. It enhances our campus life.”
Har Zion’s pocket park is like many outdoor spaces at synagogues
around the Philadelphia area: It’s now being used a little more than it
was before. It’s a trend that’s diffi cult to quantify, but shul leaders seem
to know that it’s there.

During the pandemic, congregants used virtual and outdoor spaces
to still gather while protecting themselves from the airborne virus. And
much like the virtual space, the outdoor one might remain a feature of
synagogue life beyond the COVID situation.

Right now, that desire manifests itself in small ways, like an increase
from 10 to 30 people at summer services in a patch of grass. But such
gatherings and activities are happening all over.

At Congregation Kol Emet in Yardley, Rabbi Anna Boswell-Levy
hosted the annual Tashlich service on the fi rst day of Rosh Hashanah.

Pre-COVID, congregants would throw their pebbles and bread crumbs
into the water, to represent “casting off ” sins, and be done in 15 minutes,
the rabbi recalled. But this year, the event lasted two hours.

“We also ate,” Boswell-Levy said. “Th ere was a potluck lunch aft er the
Rosh Hashanah service.”
For years, Temple Brith Achim in King of Prussia has used nearby
Lower Perkiomen Valley Park for the occasional Shabbat service, accord-
ing to congregant Mark Hager, who joined in 1985. Most of those were in
the summer when the weather was warm. But during the pandemic, the
community began gathering in the park for winter Shabbat services, too.

More recently, it has not even needed to go to the park. Temple Brith
Achim members are just walking out their back door and using the fi eld
behind their building. It’s a long fi eld that slopes down into a small for-
est, more than enough space for a Shabbat service.

“We also have Wi-Fi out here, which gives us additional capabilities
we can use,” Hager said.

Also for years before the pandemic, the temple would hold weekly
Havdalah services, marking the end of the Sabbath, inside its sanctuary.

But for the last two years, it has held them outside with fi re pits.

“Th e campfi re Havdalah has become a regular kind of thing we’ve
been doing, and that’s a lot of fun,” said Rabbi Sharon Forman-Toll, the
synagogue’s educational director and a member for 38 years.

As Boswell-Levy explained, the pandemic showed how resilient Jewish
communities could be in their desire to still come together. And in using
the great outdoors to gather, they connected with the Earth and the nat-
ural world again. No longer were they taking it for granted.

Geoff Goll, one of Boswell-Levy’s congregants at Kol Emet, agrees
with his rabbi. Goll, 54, joined the temple in 2010. He said the congre-
gation did not do much outside before COVID — maybe gardening or
building the Sukkah each year, but that was it.

During the pandemic, though, as the community used parks, patios
and parking lots to get together, Goll had a few realizations. Th e fi rst
was that they were spending way too much time inside before.

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