Am I a Monster for Loving Israel First?

Elul is the month when Jews are commanded to take stock. Each morning, the shofar blasts not as background music but as a piercing summons: return to your most authentic self, strip away illusions, and confront what you would rather avoid.

This year, as the war between Israel and Hamas grinds on, my Elul reflection circles one relentless question:

Am I a morally bankrupt monster for supporting my friends and family—Israel and the Jewish people—over the faceless strangers of Gaza?

Since October 7—when Hamas stormed across the border, murdering entire families, raping women, burning homes, and kidnapping Jews and their neighbors with a brutality not seen since the Shoah—this question has haunted me. It follows me into synagogue, into the classroom, and into the quiet moments when I hold my son and wonder about the world he will grow up in.

The Pull of My People

Judaism is not only a faith. It is a people. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh — all Israel is responsible for one another (Shevuot 39a). My grief for Israelis murdered or taken hostage is not abstract compassion; it is kinship. They are my family.

And here lies the point too many dodge:

Zionism is not a 19th-century add-on. Zionism is Judaism’s peoplehood made visible in the modern world.

The dream of return is not Herzl’s invention. It is Isaiah’s: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established…” (Isaiah 2:2). It is Jeremiah’s: “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries…and bring them back to their folds” (Jeremiah 23:3). It is the Psalmist’s: “When the Lord returned the captives of Zion, we were like dreamers” (Psalm 126:1).

Each year Yom Kippur ends with the final Shofar blast and the eternal call: “Next year in Jerusalem!” Three times a day, Jews across centuries have prayed the Amidah: “Gather us in peace from the four corners of the earth, and bring us upright to our land.”

These are not poetic flourishes. They are Judaism itself.

Debate borders, governments, policies? Absolutely. But to reject Zionism wholesale is not “just another Jewish opinion.”

Rejecting Zionism is rejecting Judaism—our covenant, our history, and our very being.

Family Argument or Family Denial?

I welcome disagreement within Jewish life. Some want Israel to embody justice more deeply. Others rage against its politics or policies. These arguments are family arguments — vital, even holy.

But there is a chasm between family argument and family denial.

To say “I want Israel to be better” is one thing.
To say “there should be no Israel” is something else entirely.

That is not disagreement. That is abandonment.

Anti-Zionism Without and Within

Antizionism without a hyphen is antisemitism. Full stop. It demands that Jews alone surrender their right to self-determination. It singles us out amongst all peoples. It is anti-Jewish bigotry dressed up as “justice.”

Anti-Zionism with a hyphen — Jewish anti-Zionism — is no less corrosive. It is the fantasy that erasing our peoplehood will buy acceptance in the non-Jewish world.

But history has answered that fantasy. Rome destroyed Judea and renamed it Palestina. Spain expelled us in 1492. Europe ghettoized us and later sought our extermination. Even in modern democracies, Jews remain “the other.”

Self-erasure has never saved us. It has only deepened our vulnerability.

The Elul Work

Elul demands honesty. And the truth is: I cannot mourn all deaths equally. My heart breaks first for my own people. That is not moral failure. It is covenantal loyalty — the same loyalty that drives a parent to save their child before a stranger’s.

The Torah commands: “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:16). Who is my neighbor? First, my family, my people, my covenantal community. From there, compassion can extend outward.

But Elul also demands clarity. Loyalty must not harden into cruelty. Love for my own must not blind me to the image of God in others. I do not rejoice in Palestinian deaths. I do not deny their humanity. But I will not apologize for placing Jewish survival first.

The sin is not in loving Israel more than others. The sin is in abandoning Israel.

Toward the Days of Awe

Soon, we will chant Unetaneh Tokef: “Who will live and who will die; who by fire and who by water; who by sword and who by beast.”

This year those words are not metaphor. They are funerals. They are hostage posters. They are headlines from Israel and Gaza alike.

When I pray them, I do so as a Jew whose loyalty is unashamed, as a Zionist inseparable from Judaism itself.

Anti-Zionism — whether shouted by our enemies or whispered by our own — is a sin against Jewish existence.

This is my Elul teshuvah: to embrace loyalty without apology, to declare clarity without fear.

Zionism is not optional. Zionism is Judaism. To deny it is to deny our covenant, our history, and our future.