How does a Diaspora Jew Get to Feel OK?

With great difficulty I would say. Although many of us may lead comfortable lives, the life of a Diaspora Jew is mostly uncomfortable. Being part of any minority group requires constant questioning as you try to keep thinking, educate your children, preserve your culture and not fall into victim or oppressor roles. Furthermore, how one expresses one's identity is forever changing depending on where one lives and the changing contexts of a particular country. For instance, I would wear a Star of David in England because it states that I am proud to be a Jew and I will not be rendered invisible as a Jew. If I wore a Star of David in South Africa, it would mean to most Muslims and possibly others, that I am a Zionist and that I support the actions of the state of Israel.

Harvey Jackins

Jewish Oppression
As I say in my article about the Russell Tribunal, I used to be an anti-Zionist. That was until I met Harvey Jackins, the leader of Re-evaluation Counselling (RC), who understood the nature of Jewish oppression and who, together with Jews belonging to the RC Communities developed a draft policy on Jewish Liberation. He had observed during his radical youth, that Jews tended to take up two positions: 1) we joined left-wing organisations and fought for everyone else's liberation except our own or 2) we tended towards ghettoisation within our own communities. The key distress we carry is one of isolation and we do not expect to have allies.

We have played a role historically, in which we sought to be of use to the ruling class, thereby gaining some short-lived security until that class became threatened and then proceeded to use us as scapegoats so they could maintain their position. This centuries-old pattern continues to this day - in the relationship Israel maintains with the United States.
National Liberation and Israel
Harvey Jackins insisted that the establishment of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people was the culmination of our struggle for national liberation. And that as such, it had a right to exist. Unfortunately, it was done at the expense of the indigenous people who, at the time, emerging from colonialism, were just beginning to forge a national identity of their own. It seemed possible then, in the early 70's, that the occupation of the West Bank would not last long and that both national liberation movements might come to some agreement and co-exist.

My Journey
With the alliance of Harvey Jackins whose thinking I respected, and a very diverse community backing the Jews within RC, I slowly changed my attitude though it wasn't easy. It involved owning my Jewish identity and starting to feel that I had a right to exist. This was complicated by my also being a white South African, (another kind of interloper on already occupied land), albeit living in England.

Anti-Semitism exists in almost every country - even in those where there are hardly any Jews. However I don't know of  any Jewish communities that are currently facing severe repression or are threatened with annihilation. The last major Jewish community confronting ongoing state oppression was in the Soviet Union in the late 80's and early 90's. Maybe it's time for a reassessment of the Law of Return which gives every Jew the right to live in Israel? This is one of the questions the Russell Tribunal raised for me.

In August 2011 I heard Benjamin Pogrund (a famous South African news editor and journalist, now living in Israel) give a talk on whether Israel is an apartheid state. He made a clear distinction between the democratic state of Israel which he supports, and the occupation of the West Bank which he opposes and considers at least as oppressive as apartheid South Africa. I was very taken by this argument until I heard the evidence at the Russell Tribunal. The rights and privileges which are not accessible to the Palestinians living inside Israel are more severely depriving than Benjamin Pogrund  was willing to acknowledge. In addition, it does seem that large swathes of Israeli society do not intend for the occupation to end.

So, once again as a Diaspora Jew, I have to rethink my position on Israel - the two-state solution and the law of return etc. It won't be decided by me, but a Diaspora Jew has to declare a viewpoint on these perplexing issues. Even considering questioning the existence of Israel as a Jewish state feels life-threatening to me as a Jew. How much more so for a Jew who lives in Israel?