To the World — Please, Call Me a Bad Jew

Please –
call me a Bad Jew.
Say it in the comments in quiet conversations and to my face.

Call me a Bad Jew
because I won’t disavow my people to make you comfortable.
Because I won’t denounce Israel in the tidy, tidy terms
you’ve prepared for me.

Because I won’t bow to your binary —
Good Jew or Bad Jew,
acceptable or not.

I am not your litmus test.
I am not your redemption arc.
I am not your weapon against my family.

You want me to be the Good Jew—
the kind who grieves only what you permit,
who speaks when it’s “as a Jew”
who breaks ties with her own blood
to earn your fleeting praise.

But I’m not here for your applause.
I’m here because my great-grandmother
lit Sabbath candles in hiding,
and her mother hid from Cossacks
with Torah verses sewn into her hem.

Because my ancestors wandered the desert
with blistered feet and a promise,
and I still feel that ancient pull home
And that’s why I’m here.

So yes –
I will criticize Israel’s leaders.
I will rage over our moral failures.
I will cry out for justice and mercy
for all who suffer.

But I will not betray my family.
I will not walk away from my people.
I will not condemn the only homeland we have,
just to earn your approval.

I will never stop loving my homeland.

I am a Jew.
A whole Jew
And nothing but a Jew

Not the kind you get to curate or claim.

So please –
go ahead and call me a Bad Jew.

Because in the eyes of my community,
my ancestors,
and the children I’m raising with trembling hope,
that means I’m good.