I’m not a particularly good Jew. I eat shrimp and oysters, the only thing that draws me to the synagogue on Shabbat is the promise of my grandmother’s Persian cooking afterwards and if I skip a candle (or five) on Hannukah, it doesn’t keep me up at night. Despite these blatant transgressions, I am still a Jew and proud to be one.

But in every culture, there are inexcusable crimes. Sins that, if committed, alienate you from your people. One such sin is the act of betrayal. My ‘betrayal’ against the Jewish culture was picking the wrong side in a war. I stand against my people when I disagree with some of Israel’s decisions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So whenever the conflict is brought up in classrooms, I try to keep quiet. Despite being one of the few people in the room willing to see Palestine’s perspective, I shy away from the topic because my people will look at me as a traitor to the homeland. A Jew who doesn’t disagree with Palestine is seen as a Jew who is against Israel.

According to an article by Joel Beinin, professor  of Middle Eastern History at Stanford University and Lisa Hajjar, University of California, Santa Barbara professor of sociology, four wars have been fought between Israel and its Arab neighbors over the Jewish territory since Israel’s creation in 1948. These wars, as well as other conflicts, have turned large portions of Jewish and Muslim communities against each other.

“You dare not side with your family?” I imagine my grandmother saying as the ghormeh sabzi turns bitter in my mouth, knowing that I could never show my face in her apartment again. I live with the fear of being ostracized by my loved ones for having one conflicting opinion.

But the nation of Israel is not my family. My family is who I sing “Fiddler on the Roof” with, the people whose Bar Mitzvahs I celebrate, the community that I love. This community is what being Jewish means to me, not automatically siding with Israel. Yes, Israel is the cultural Mecca of Judaism, but it’s also a country halfway across the world whose politics I do not always agree with. My identity should be what I define it as, not what my culture expects of me. 

I’m not a particularly good Jew. I can’t read Hebrew, I think most things are better when they’re wrapped in bacon and it won’t ruin my day if my kippah falls off of my head. There are many things that make me a bad Jew. Disagreeing with Israel shouldn’t be one of them.