Zionism Is Social Justice

I’m a licensed clinical social worker.
I’m an Orthodox Jewish woman.
I’m a trauma therapist.
And I’m a Zionist.

For some, these identities might seem contradictory. But for me, they are inseparable—each woven into the fabric of who I am and how I move through the world.

This July, as America marks National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, I find myself reflecting on a painful irony: in a month meant to uplift the voices and needs of marginalized groups, Jews—one of the oldest oppressed peoples in history—are being spiritually and psychologically gaslit for asserting our right to safety, identity, and home.

Let’s name the reality: in many progressive and therapeutic spaces, Jews are asked to pass a loyalty test no other group faces. We’re told we can belong—if we denounce Zionism. If we disavow our historic, emotional, and spiritual connection to the land of Israel. If we amputate a core part of ourselves to make others comfortable.

That’s not healing. That’s assimilation dressed up as inclusion.

Zionism Is Not a Political Platform—It’s a Trauma-Informed Response

Zionism, for me and many others, is not about governments or parties. It’s not about exclusion or erasure. It’s about survival. It’s about continuity. It’s about coming home.

Zionism is a direct response to millennia of trauma—expulsions, inquisitions, pogroms, blood libels, forced conversions, and genocide. The State of Israel was founded in 1948, just three years after the Holocaust, because the world had shut its doors to Jews fleeing extermination.

My own family would not be alive today without Israel.

As a trauma therapist, I teach clients that safety is the foundation of healing. And yet, so many clinicians and activists today extend safety to Jews only if we shed our full identity. That’s not trauma-informed care. That’s conditional acceptance. And it harms.

We’re Indigenous—Not Colonizers

The Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel. The Romans renamed Judea “Palestina” in an attempt to erase us. But we never left. We prayed facing Jerusalem. We ended every Passover with “Next year in Jerusalem.” We mourned the destruction of our Temples as recent history.

To call us colonizers is to deny our history, our rootedness, and our pain. It’s a form of erasure no therapist should tolerate.

Inclusion That Excludes Jews Isn’t Inclusion

No one asks Tibetans, Kurds, or Ukrainians to reject their identity to be part of justice spaces. Why are Jews the exception?

If you believe in collective liberation, you cannot exclude the Jewish people—who’ve faced near-annihilation more than once—because our story complicates your narrative.

If your idea of healing asks Jews to be quiet about their Zionism, it’s not healing. It’s gaslighting. It’s retraumatization. And it’s wrong.

To Heal, We Must Be Whole

In therapy, we talk about integration—making space for every part of the self. For Jews, that includes Zionism. It includes the prayers for return, the songs of exile, the whispered dreams of safety. You cannot separate the Jewish soul from the longing for Zion.

You cannot demand our silence and call it allyship.

Zionism Is Not the Problem. Antisemitism Is.

Zionism isn’t a threat to peace. It’s not racism. It’s not a colonialist weapon. It’s the lifeboat we built after the world watched us drown.

It’s the yeshiva boy learning Torah in safety. The survivor naming a child after one who was lost. It’s a people declaring, “We are still here.”

We Jews have a right to define ourselves, just like every other group. We don’t need permission to survive. We don’t owe anyone our silence.

A Call to Courage

To my fellow Jews: Stop apologizing for surviving.
To our allies: If you say you love us, let us be whole.

Zionism is not a litmus test. It’s a lifeline.
And I, for one, will not let it go.