I was born in 1980, which means I grew up in a world where Zionism was assumed, not explained. I remember watching Exodus on VHS, writing letters to Soviet Jewry, seeing Rabin and Arafat shake hands on the White House lawn, and lighting candles during the first Gulf War while gas masks sat waiting in Israeli classrooms. Israel was central to Jewish identity. It was a miracle, imperfect but ours. Zionism wasn’t something you had to apologize for. It wasn’t something that required a trigger warning.
But that’s not the world my kids are growing up in. They’re not watching Exodus—they’re watching TikToks that call Israel a colonial oppressor. They’re not writing letters to refuseniks—they’re seeing influencers post maps of the Middle East that erase Israel entirely. And they’re not learning about Zionism through family stories—they’re learning about it through 15-second clips, emotionally charged infographics, and peer-curated moral outrage.
They are growing up not only post-October 7, but post-truth.
And so I ask myself daily: how do I raise a Zionist in this world?
By Zionist, I don’t mean someone who supports every Israeli government. I don’t mean someone who never questions or critiques. I mean someone who believes the Jewish people have both the right and the need for a sovereign homeland in our ancestral land. Someone who understands that Israel is not just a place, but a promise. That Zionism is not a political position—it’s a civilizational posture.
Raising a Zionist in 2025 is not like it was in 1995. Back then, we were handed Jewish identity like a family heirloom. Today, our kids have to choose it—and defend it. We’re not just teaching history. We’re cultivating resilience. We’re raising kids to love something that much of the world now labels evil.
That starts with honesty. If we want our kids to own their identity, we can’t give them edited mythology. They need to know the truth about Israel’s founding and its faults. They need to understand the complexity of 1948, the tragedy of 1967, the consequences of Oslo, the trauma of the intifadas, and the heartbreak of October 7. But they also need to know that complexity does not cancel legitimacy. That being complicated is not the same as being immoral. That having moral struggles does not disqualify our people from safety and sovereignty.
Our kids deserve the full story—not a sanitized version, and not the slanderous version currently dominating the algorithm. They need to hear that Jews didn’t show up in 1948 with foreign flags—we returned to a land where we’ve had continuous presence, memory, and prayer for thousands of years. They need to learn about Herzl and the pogroms and the Holocaust, yes—but also about Ethiopian aliyah, Mizrahi refugees, Soviet Jews, and queer Israelis marching in Tel Aviv. They need to know that Israel is not just a reaction to tragedy—it’s an expression of peoplehood.
Because that’s really what this is about: peoplehood. One of the hardest things to teach in this era is that Judaism is not just a religion. It’s a people, a shared fate, a 3,000-year-old chain of memory, belonging, and responsibility. That’s what Zionism affirms. It says we are more than individuals with ancestry—we are a nation with a home.
And that message cuts against the grain of everything our kids are being taught. They’re told to “speak their truth,” to define identity as self-expression, to see nationalism as suspect and rooted in oppression. But Jewish identity isn’t self-made—it’s inherited. It’s something we are born into, and choose, and wrestle with. And Zionism isn’t about supremacy—it’s about survival. About safety. About sovereignty with soul.
Of course, we must raise Zionists who care about justice. Who are willing to critique, to challenge, and to advocate for an Israel that reflects our highest Jewish values. I don’t want my kids to be Zionists because they’re afraid not to be. I want them to be Zionists because they love the Jewish people and feel responsible for our collective story. Because they’ve visited Israel, or prayed toward it, or stood at a Holocaust memorial and understood why it must exist. Because they understand that Jewish safety isn’t theoretical—and that the alternative to sovereignty is not justice, but vulnerability.
Jewish education in a post-October 7, post-truth world cannot just be about defending Israel. It has to be about cultivating rooted, joyful Jewish identity. It has to give our kids a language of pride—not just survival. We can’t outsource this to day schools or youth groups. It has to be embedded in our homes, our conversations, our rituals. We have to model what it looks like to hold complexity without losing connection. To love something enough to stay in relationship with it, even when it disappoints.
And we have to model courage. If we’re afraid to say the word “Zionism” at the Shabbat table, how can we expect our kids to say it in the dorm room or on the picket line? If we flinch every time Israel comes up, they’ll learn to keep quiet too. But if we speak from a place of grounded pride—if we teach them that Zionism is not shameful, but sacred—they just might stand up straighter.
I know it won’t be easy. TikTok isn’t going away. The propaganda is slick, emotional, and relentless. But we don’t have to win the algorithm. We just have to win the living room. The classroom. The campfire. The long car ride. The bedtime conversation that turns into a heart-to-heart about Jewish destiny.
I still believe we can raise Zionists in this world. Not defensive ones. Not doctrinaire ones. But wise, brave, thoughtful ones. Zionists who love their people, who understand the stakes, who refuse to be defined by other people’s ignorance.
Zionists who know the land, the story, and the struggle—and who say, “Yes. This is mine.”
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