Testimony of a former “White Supremacist Skinhead”…

I WAS JUST GOING THROUGH SOME OLD ARTICLES THAT USED TO BE ON MY WEBSITE, and happened upon this one, from a self-proclaimed "White Supremacist Skinhead" named Rick, who - for months on end in 2006 -  initially wrote to my website to attack and harass and harangue, writing things like "Hitler was right; you guys are nothing but oven fodder! Too bad he didn't finish the job!"

My initial response to Rick was to blast him out of the water; but ADONAI caused Grace and Mercy to kick in, because people like Rick aren't "born" - they are turned into who they are, either by their parents, friends or other relatives.

Be that as it may, what Rick didn't know was that he was communicating with an old Army Sergeant - someone who was able to meet him and his beliefs head-on; and for the first few weeks of email exchanges, we butted heads HARD!

However, before every exchange with him, I asked The Holy One to help me say exactly what Rick needed to "hear" and know - and it worked!

The bottom line was, after six months of communication, Rick wrote to apologize and to let me know how my emails and website helped change his life. Below is his final email to me, which I prepared in the form of a testimony to post on The Refiner's Fire (with his permission).

Here is what he wrote:

My name is Rick and I am a former Skinhead. Before I tell you how I accepted Yeshua I will tell you how racist and evil I used to be. To understand my story you must first think like I used to. That may seem hard and incomprehensible but hate is a mindset that will control and hypnotize the mind, which is why the average human must not think this way.

But for now just imagine that everyone is your enemy and that your very survival and that of your race depends on a future racial war. Imagine that every white person who mingles with non-whites is a traitor and that sooner or later your race will decline in numbers as more traitors accept others as their equals.

Now think of yourself as a soldier for your race; you have no uniform except for your skin color and your only fellow soldiers are others who think like you. You shave your head because you think that society has defecated on you, so you shave it to purify yourself from their trash. You get swastika tattoos and other provocative images because now you are "different" and you have left society's love for material things....Welcome to my world and that of many others just like me!

When I was 15 I met a couple of "skinheads" who lived near me and I started to hang out with them. At first I just laughed at there racial jokes and their propaganda, but after a while I started to really read their material and watch various lectures from several KKK leaders. I started to dress and act like them. I shaved my head so often that I even forgot what I looked like with hair!

I got my first Nazi tattoo when I was 16. I felt so happy because I believed that I finally was accepted as a true warrior in the future race war. From then on I would shout racial slurs at anyone not like me, and I even participated in racial fights against African Americans and Hispanics who tried to beat me up.

I believed that these fights would only make me stronger even if I lost. I listened to "hate rock" and watched WWII lectures from Adolf Hitler. I would purposely go into black neighborhoods and throw hate literature everywhere just to piss them off. I even searched the web and e-mailed several Jewish websites with my propaganda.

I even did this to this Carmen Welker's website (The Refiner's Fire). But, on that day that I made the mistake of challenging her, she, to my surprise, hit me back with an e-mail about many things, including Jews and their contribution to this world.

Heck, I didn't know ANYTHING about Jews, really. I didn't even know that Leonard Nemoy was Jewish and that his "live long and prosper" hand signal for Spok was from some kind of a Jewish tradition! I also didn't know that Superman was created by two Jewish teenagers who inserted a lot of Jewish stuff into their stories. Carmen told me lots of stuff, and it showed me that I had been lied to!

That day, after leaving The Refiner's Fire website, I searched the web to see if her info was right. And it was! One day I even tried to challenge a Messianic Rabbi in Great Britian (a friend of Carmen's) who is a former Muslim - and he told me a lot about Yeshua and made me see the error of my ways. He basically confirmed what Carmen had told me and it got me to thinking.

And so, I started to read about Christ and learned, among other things, that He died for me. I never knew that before.

My beliefs before I accepted Yeshua (which is our Savior's real name) were that of the myth of the Germanic-Nordic Aryan gods. This belief was that whites are descendants from these Aryan gods and that everyone one else is inferior. After I left this stupid belief, I found out that some of the pray rituals I used to do have Occult written all over them.

So I continued reading about Yeshua and his many works, and looking at other websites and stuff, and I read that if you die in your sins you will stand before Yeshua and you, yourself, will be responsible for ending up in hell for rejecting his FREE gift.

I always thought that Christianity was just another way to mingle the white race with other undesirables. But, then I started to believe. I would throw stuff around and punch walls and I even throw the Bible around because I thought that I would be alone if I accepted Jesus' gift.

But anyway, finally I accepted His sacrifice and started to attend a local evangelical church near my house. About 85% of the attendees of this church were African Americans - but to my surprise they shook my hand and accepted me as a fellow brother in the Kingdom of God!

Right now, I am thinking about getting some tattoos removed and trying to learn more about Yeshua and trying to figure out how to learn more about the Torah and stuff.

I now look back and think about how many people I have cursed, mocked and beat, and it makes me sick - but, fortunately, Yeshua's love will heal all wounds.

So what I write now is very important. I'm here to say to all hate-mongers and everyone else who doesn't believe in Christ: Do not die in your sins. Jesus/Yeshua's gift is paid for with His blood. What awaits us in heaven with Him is like nothing on this earth. It is not too late.

As you can see, if the love of Yeshua has changed me, it can change anyone into a better person. Good luck on your search for his love and remember that his gift to us is still available to you every day, every hour, and every minute. Do NOT waste this opportunity!

(CARMEN'S NOTE: I sent an email to Rick approximately two years later, in 2008) and, to my great relief, he told me he was still attending that church! He also said he was getting ready to join the Army, but I haven't heard from him since. Wherever he is, and whatever he's doing, I pray he is still in God's Hands!)

“Observe what I am ordering you to do”…

THIS WARNING FROM ADONAI REVERBRATES INTO OUR MODERN WORLD: "Observe what I am ordering you to do"...

EXODUS 34:5-26: 5 Adonai descended in the cloud, stood with him there and pronounced the name of Adonai. 6 Adonai passed before him and proclaimed: “YUD-HEH-VAV-HEH!!! Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [Adonai] is God, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in grace and truth; 7 showing grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving offenses, crimes and sins; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parents’ offenses to be experienced by their children and grandchildren, and even by the third and fourth generations.”

8 At once Moshe bowed his head to the ground, prostrated himself 9 and said, “If I have now found favor in your view, Adonai, then please let Adonai go with us, even though they are a stiffnecked people; and pardon our offenses and our sin; and take us as your possession.”

(vi) 10 He said, “Here, I am making a covenant; in front of all your people I will do wonders such as have not been created anywhere on earth or in any nation. All the people around you will see the work of Adonai. What I am going to do through you will be awesome! 11 Observe what I am ordering you to do today. Here! I am driving out ahead of you the Emori, Kena‘ani, Hitti, P’rizi, Hivi and Y’vusi.

12 Be careful not to make a covenant with the people living in the land where you are going, so that they won’t become a snare within your own borders. 13 Rather, you are to demolish their altars, smash their standing-stones and cut down their sacred poles; 14 because you are not to bow down to any other god; since Adonai — whose very name is Jealous — is a jealous God.
15 Do not make a covenant with the people living in the land. It will cause you to go astray after their gods and sacrifice to their gods. Then they will invite you to join them in eating their sacrifices, 16 and you will take their daughters as wives for your sons. Their daughters will prostitute themselves to their own gods and make your sons do the same! (CJB)

FOLKS, THIS IS CRYSTAL CLEAR! ADONAI is trying to warn us to stay away from evil of any kind, because evil is very tempting; it can get drag you under in a heartbeat. If you allow yourself to succumb to it - as innocent as it might seem at the time - you will, eventually come to view it as perfectly normal, and will do whatever it takes to maintain that belief...

BUT KNOW THIS: Believing something bad is actually "good" does NOT make it so! The Bible is clear on that. God provides no "gray area" when it comes to good and evil.

A note about the final Sabbath during the “Days of Awe”

A NOTE AOUT THIS PARTICULAR SABBATH in the final weeks leading toward the end of the 2026 yearly Torah cycle:

It is referred to as “SHABBAT SHUVAH”—The Sabbath of Return — which occurs during Yamim, the “Days of Awe,” which are the 10 days between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur.

Jews believe on the first of Tishri, the Books of Works and Life are opened, and ADONAI reviews our actions over the last year. On Yom Kippur the Books are closed and sealed! Those who have done well are inscribed in the Book of Life.

NOTE THAT THE EXISTENCE OF THESE BOOKS ARE AFFIRMED BY MESSIAH YESHUA!

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is (the book) of life. And the dead were judged from the things written in the books, according to their deeds. (AENT)

ALL SHALL BE JUDGED BY YESHUA:

Romans 14:10. But you, why do you judge your brother? Or, why do you despise your brother? For we must all stand before the judgment seat of Mashiyach! 11. As it is written: As I live, says Master YHWH, to me every knee will bow; and to me every tongue will give praise. 12. So then, every one of us must give account of himself to Elohim. (AENT)

Matthew 12:36 tells us we shall give an account for every idle word spoken – for everything we have done:

Matthew 12: 36. I say to you for every vain word that the sons of men speak,[1] they will give an account of it in the day of judgment. 37. For by your words you will be made righteous, and by your words you will be condemned.[2] (AENT

Note 1: Deuteronomy 32:21 ‑ “They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not Elohim...”

Note 2: The targum teaches that the “nephesh chayah” (living soul) in Genesis 2:7 is best understood as the “spirit of speech.” YHWH put a portion of His Spirit in mankind, enabling man to speak and create with words. Our words are being judged accordingly. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” (Proverbs 18:21).

IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS JUDGMENT DOES NOT CONCERN SALVATION; rather, a position in Heaven for those who have faith in Yeshua.

Matthew tells us that those who keep and teach Torah will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven and those who don’t will be called least…

Matthew 5:17. Do not think that I have come to loosen the Torah or the Prophets. I have not come to loosen but to fulfill them through proper interpretation.[3] 18. For truly I say to you that until heaven and earth pass away not one Yodh or one stroke will pass from Torah until everything happens.[4] 19. All who loosen, therefore, from one (of) these small commandments and teach thus to the sons of man, will be called little in the Kingdom of Heaven, but all who do and teach this will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. (AENT)

NOTE 3: “Fulfill” means to carry out or to bring to realization, to perform or do, as in a person’s duty; or to obey or follow the Commandments, as in satisfying the Commandments by obeying them, Isaiah 42:21 “YHWH is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will magnify Torah, and make him (it) honorable.” Isaiah 42 reveals the work of Mashiyach; we have full prophetic assurance that Mashiyach would never annul Torah; rather he magnified Torah and wrote Torah upon the hearts and imaginations of his people. Y’shua carried out (fulfilled) the prophecies regarding Mashiyach. He carried them out, made them happen, just like he performed Torah which was his duty and obligation as Mashiyach; otherwise he would not have qualified to be Mashiyach ben Yoseph.

NOTE 4: Isaiah 40:12-25; 2 Samuel 23:1-5; Deuteronomy 30:11-20

PAUL GIVES FURTHER INSIGHT INTO THIS PROCESS— revealing that no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Messiah Yeshua.

1 Corinthians 3:11 goes on to tell us that MAN builds on the foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.  If any man’s work remains, he will receive a reward.  If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as by fire.

DURING THE 10 DAYS OF AWE WE ARE TO ENGAGE IN CHESHBON HA NEFESH:

Ephesians 5:15. See therefore, that you walk with spiritual knowledge; not like the simple, 16. But like the wise who purchase their opportunity; because the days are evil. 17. Therefore, do not lack in understanding; but understand what is the will of Elohim. (AENT)

THE QUESTION WE MUST ASK OURSELVES IS: Do our actions reflect the desires of haShem, or have our actions dimmed His Light in us?

PAUL REITERATES THIS COMMAND in 1 Corinthians 11:31 where we are told that if we judge ourselves we will NOT be judged!

“Shuva” is typically translated as “repentance”’; but it literally means “return.” So, the bottom line is that this is a period of HUMBLING for us, a time when we realize how far we have fallen short of the Glory of God … for when we draw near to God, He draws near to US!

Halleluyah! What an AWESOME ELOHIM we have the privilege of serving!

(Edited from notes borrowed from Rabbi Burt Yellin, Congregation Roeh Israel, located in Denver, Colorado.)

Prayer shawls, fringes, and the name written across Yeshua’s thigh when he returns on that white horse….

WANNA LEARN SOMETHING MIND-BLOWING? Take a look at this little article concerning prayer shawls and fringes, mentioned in the Bible!

Many people don't realize that Yeshua wore a prayer shawl, or “tallit,” in Hebrew. Whenever a Jewish person's "outer garment" is mentioned in the Bible, that is exactly what is being referred to. (Many English Bibles designate it as a “mantle.”)

We can see examples in the Bible where tallits were worn by the prophets Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha. King Saul tore Samuel's kah-naf m'il-lo - the corner of his cloak (I Samuel 15:27). Saul recognized Samuel because of his tallit (I Samuel 28:14).

And, remember the lady with the issue of bleeding in Matthew 9?

Traditional interpretation of her actions has been that of a desperate woman who wanted healing so badly that she defied the laws of impurity to touch the hem of Yeshua's garment. The actual Aramaic word was not “hem” but “edge” which referred to the “borders” or kanaf of “garments” (beged), which is where “fringes” or “tassels” (Hebrew: tzitzit) are placed (Numbers 15:38, 39).

Yeshua, like all other Torah observant Jews, wore a tallit with tzitzit as a reminder to do the Commandments of YHWH, and not seek after what is right in one's own eyes. The Hebrew kanaf is also found in Malachi 4:2 “...with healing in his kanaf (wings)...” Wings refer to the tallit; they are not actual "wings." See also Zechariah 8:23.

NOW – BE READY TO BE AMAZED, concerning “the Name of God supposedly being “written” or “tattooed” on Yeshua’s thigh in Revelation 19:

Keeping in mind that the aforementioned tzitzit are the specially knotted ritual fringes or tassels attached to the four corners of Jewish garments, such as a tallit (prayer shawl) or a tallit katan, tzitzit are also connected to the 613 commandments.

IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER:  Torah commentator Rashi declared that the number of knots on a tzitzit (in its Mishnaic spelling) has the value of 600. When doubled over, each tassel has eight threads and five sets of knots, which totals 13 - for a grand total of 613. This concept reminds tallit wearers of all Torah commandments.

The above way of tying the knots is done by the Ashkenazi Jews, whereas the Sephardic Jews tie the knots in a way that causes them to spell out the Name of YHWH.

Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value; consequently, the knots of the tzitzit on the four corners of a tallit spell out the name of YHWH/Yahweh!

SO … WHEN YESHUA RETURNS AS “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (or, more precisely “Master of Masters” - Revelation 19:11-16), there will actually be nothing “written,” nor any kind of “tattoo” on his thigh, as many Bible versions translate it; rather, the tzitzits of His tallit will hang/fall across his thigh when He returns to earth sitting atop a white horse!

Revelation 19:12. His eyes (were) like a flame of fire, and on his head (were) many diadems; and he had names inscribed; and the name which was written on him, no one knew, except himself. 13. And he was clothed with a vesture sprinkled with blood; and his name is called, The Word of Elohim. (1) 14. And the army of heaven followed him on white horses, clad in garments of fine linen, pure (and) white. 15. And from his mouth issued a sharp two-edged sword, that with it he could strike the nations; and he will rule the nations with a rod of iron; and he will tread the wine-press of the wrath of Elohim Almighty. 16. And he has upon his vesture and upon his thigh the words written: King of Kings, and Master of Masters. (2) (AENT)

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Perhaps for some, a terrifying vision of Y’shua! But, this proves that when he went “into heaven” he became “the Word” just as when his spirit was revealed “out of heaven” as the Word of YHWH.

(2) Aramaic “malka d’malka mara maraota” translated, “King of Kings and Master of Masters.”

WOW!  Do we serve an AWESOME ELOHIM, or what?

Are you miserable?

PERSON AT A BAR CLINGING TO A BOTTLE: "Here I am again mixing misery and gin, feeling down, empty, lonely and blue. I lost my love, I lost my job, nobody likes me. I feel like ending it all."

ME: "My friend, I hear you, but I'm going to be brutally honest, and tell you something that will shock you: You need to force yourself to snap out of that train of thought, because it's holding you hostage!

"Hear me when I say God is trying His best to reach you right now, and you're not paying the slightest bit of attention. You need to make the decision to quit choosing to remain in this rut that you're in. It's YOUR life and YOUR rut, and no one else can make the decision for you.

"In order to do that, you've got to make a conscious decision to let go of the past things that have been dragging you down! Let go of whoever or whatever has caused you misery, and DECIDE to begin again.

"I'm telling you this because I speak from experience. My life turned completely around the evening I asked God for help, as I was living one of the darkest moments of my life. He heard me, and I've never been the same!

"If you want a real and positive change in your life, ask God right here and right now, to change your life and help you turn things around according to HIS Will. Stop doing what you've always done, because that will only bring you back here to this same ol' rut.

“Instead of getting drunk or high in some lonely bar or back alley, buy a Bible and get into God's Word. Get to know Him, cling to HIM instead of a bottle - and He will change your life! You'll be a brand NEW you - someone you can be proud of!

"The key is for YOU to be WILLING to make the effort to take that first step that will lead you toward the rest of your life."

(This message is courtesy of The Refiner's Fire.)

Ever noticed the powerful words contained in Deuteronomy 29?

Let's check it out:

Deuteronomy 29: 9 Therefore, observe the words of this covenant and obey them; so that you can make everything you do prosper. (CJB)

Yeshua echoed the words above in John 17: 3 And eternal life is this: to know you, the one true God (his Father whose name consists of the Hebrew letters Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey, in English, the letters YHWH, also spelled as Yahweh - see Exodus 3-13-15), and him whom you sent, Yeshua the Messiah.

One cannot "know" YHWH unless one actually obeys His commands and lives according to His will!

Please read on.

Deuteronomy 29: 10 "Today you are standing, all of you, before ADONAI your God - your heads, your tribes, your leaders and your officers - all the men of Isra'el, 11 along with your little ones, your wives and your foreigners here with you in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water.

Note who was also standing before YHWH: The "foreigners"...those who had not yet accepted YHWH and His Torah! They too stood before Him to hear what He was telling Israel! YHWH's message was for ALL to hear. Just like in Numbers 15:13-16 when He reiterated four times in a row that ALL who accept Him as God MUST obey His Torah! Obedience to His "forever" commands was never, and will never be an option....

In Deuteronomy 29:13-20 we see Moshe (Moses) telling his people that YHWH's covenant and oath were made with everyone who believes in Him; not just with those who were standing before Him on the day He uttered these words. (Please note how He kept telling His people (paraphrased), "Obey Me; obey Me; obey Me - and if you've messed up, repent and return to Me!):

Deuteronomy 29: 12 The purpose is that you should enter into the covenant of ADONAI your God and into his oath which ADONAI your God is making with you today, 13 so that he can establish you today for himself as a people, and so that for you he will be God -as he said to you and as he swore to your ancestors, to Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov.

14 "But I am not making this covenant and this oath only with you. 15 Rather, I am making it both with him who is standing here with us today before ADONAI our God and also with him who is not here with us today.

16 For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we came directly through the nations you passed through; 17 and you saw their detestable things and their idols of wood, stone, silver and gold that they had with them. 18 So let there not be among you a man, woman, family or tribe whose heart turns away today from ADONAI our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Let there not be among you a root bearing such bitter poison and wormwood.

If Deuteronomy 29:14-15 somehow slipped by you, please read it again. YHWH was making His oath not only with those standing before Him, but with all future generations of those who have accepted Him as their Elohim! (Remember, as believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, YOU are part of Israel - Halleluyah! He made this oath with YOU: Obey Him and all will go well with you; disobey and you will be cursed....)

Deuteronomy 29: 19 If there is such a person, when he hears the words of this curse, he will bless himself secretly, saying to himself, 'I will be all right, even though I will stubbornly keep doing whatever I feel like doing; so that I, although "dry," [sinful,] will be added to the "watered" [righteous].' 20 But ADONAI will not forgive him. Rather, the anger and jealousy of ADONAI will blaze up against that person. Every curse written in this book will be upon him. ADONAI will blot out his name from under heaven.

As you read your way through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, you will repeatedly see ADONAI stressing the need for obedience. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear cannot possibly miss the importance of those words, because the ONLY way to truly be holy/set apart is to live according to YHWH's Divine Instructions...

An Open Letter to Antizionist Jews

An Open Letter to Antizionist Jews - by Matthew Feinberg

Dear Antizionist Jews,

You know our history. That is what makes this letter harder to write.

You know what happened when Jewish safety depended on rulers, governments, majorities, movements, and neighbors who promised that this time would be different. You know how often Jews were told that acceptance was available so long as we were the right kind of Jews, sufficiently assimilated, sufficiently quiet, sufficiently willing to distance ourselves from whatever aspect of Jewish life had become inconvenient to the surrounding society. You know how quickly tolerance could become suspicion, how suspicion could become accusation, and how accusation could become permission.

And yet you have chosen to participate in a movement that increasingly repeats some of the oldest accusations against Jews while insisting that the target is something entirely different.

You call yourselves antizionists. You insist that your opposition is political rather than antisemitic, and you often describe it in the language of anti-colonialism, anti-racism, human rights, or universal justice. You point to your Jewishness as evidence that the movement cannot possibly be hostile to Jews. After all, how could antizionism be Jew-hate if Jews themselves participate in it?

But Jewish participation proves only Jewish participation.

Jews can be wrong about Jews. Jews can repeat libels about Jews. Jews can lend legitimacy to movements that are hostile to other Jews. Being Jewish does not make an ideology harmless, and it does not give any one Jew the authority to dismiss what other Jews are experiencing.

That matters because antizionism is not simply disagreement with Israeli policy. It is not opposition to a prime minister, a government, a war, a settlement, or a military decision. Jews can and do argue fiercely about all of those things. Antizionism makes a much larger claim: that Jewish collective sovereignty itself is illegitimate.

Once you make that claim, you are no longer arguing only about what Israel does. You are arguing about what Jews are allowed to be.

Zionism is an expression of Jewish peoplehood. It begins with the proposition that Jews are not merely adherents of a religion scattered randomly across the world, but a people with a history, language, homeland, collective memory, and political will. It holds that Jews possess the same right other peoples claim for themselves: the right to organize politically, defend themselves collectively, and determine their own future in their ancestral homeland.

Once you declare that Jewish collective political existence is illegitimate, you have decided that Jews, uniquely, may not exercise a right you recognize in other peoples.

That is the singularity of the demand.

Your role inside the antizionist movement is therefore not incidental. Your Jewishness carries special value there. You are quoted, elevated, invited onto panels, circulated on social media, and held up as proof that hostility toward Zionism cannot possibly be hostility toward Jews. When Jewish students say they feel targeted, when synagogues are protested because of their relationship with Israel, or when Jewish institutions are treated as legitimate political targets, someone can point to you and say, "Look, Jews agree with us."

That should make you uncomfortable, because your presence is often used not simply to express dissent but to invalidate the Jews warning that something is wrong.

Selecting the Jews who agree with a movement while dismissing the Jews who do not is not evidence of respect for Jewish voices. It is evidence that some Jewish voices are more useful than others.

And this is not a new dynamic in Jewish history. There have always been Jews who believed the hostility surrounding them was caused not by Jew-hate but by the behavior of other Jews.

Sometimes the supposedly unacceptable Jews were too religious. Sometimes they were too visible, too separate, too national, too unwilling to assimilate, or too insistent on remaining a people rather than becoming merely private practitioners of a faith. The condition changes. The bargain does not.

Today, one of those conditions is Zionism.

You can be welcomed, praised, and held up as courageous, but often only so long as you are willing to condemn the Jewish collective loudly enough. You may be accepted as a Jew, but not as a Jew who believes Jewish peoplehood includes national rights. You may speak as a Jew, but your Jewishness becomes especially valuable when it can be used to reassure others that their hostility toward Zionists has nothing to do with hostility toward Jews.

I would ask you to examine that role more carefully.

Jew-hate has never remained frozen in one vocabulary. Jews were once accused of controlling governments, manipulating money, possessing divided loyalties, conspiring through hidden networks, and exhibiting a particular cruelty toward non-Jews. Today, remarkably similar accusations circulate about "Zionists." The Jew who supposedly controlled governments becomes the Zionist lobby controlling governments.

Jewish money becomes Zionist money. Divided Jewish loyalty becomes suspicious allegiance to Israel. The secret Jewish conspiracy becomes the Zionist network manipulating media, universities, and foreign policy. Old accusations about Jewish cruelty reappear as claims that the Jewish state is uniquely bloodthirsty.

The nouns changed. The accusation did not.

You should recognize this pattern. You know what a blood libel is. You know what conspiracy theories about Jewish power look like. You know why accusations that Jews secretly manipulate political institutions carry historical weight. Your Jewishness should make you more alert to those patterns, not less willing to see them simply because the word "Zionist" has replaced the word "Jew."

Libels also have consequences. They make mistreatment feel justified. Once Jews, or Zionists, are portrayed as uniquely dangerous, conspiratorial, or cruel, excluding them can be presented as self-defense, harassing them as activism, and violence against them as resistance.

Demonization changes what people believe they are permitted to do to the person or group being demonized.

That is one reason Zionism matters so deeply to so many Jews. Zionism was the Jewish decision that Jewish survival should no longer depend entirely upon someone else's goodwill. It emerged not from paranoia but from experience. Jews received rights in Europe that later disappeared. Jews became citizens in Middle Eastern and North African countries from which many later fled or were driven. Jews participated in universalist movements that promised old ethnic hatreds would become irrelevant, only to discover that Jews could still become the exception.

You may believe that history no longer requires Jewish sovereignty. You may believe Jews would be safer or morally better off if Israel were dismantled and replaced by another political arrangement. You are entitled to make that argument. But you cannot reasonably ask the rest of us to forget why Jewish sovereignty was built in the first place, or treat our refusal to surrender it as evidence of moral failure.

You know what it means that there is a Jewish state capable of taking in Jews who are threatened elsewhere. You know what it means that Hebrew is again a living national language. You know what it means that Jews have an army whose purpose includes defending Jewish lives rather than waiting for another government to decide whether Jewish lives are worth defending. You may reject the political conclusions other Jews draw from those facts, but you cannot pretend they are meaningless.

Nor should you ignore the asymmetry in what antizionism asks of Jews. Many nations have governments that behave badly. Many have disputed borders, histories of war, minority conflicts, military abuses, or policies worthy of condemnation. Yet the proposed remedy is generally to change governments, policies, borders, or institutions. With Israel, the demand so often becomes something more fundamental: the state itself must cease to be Jewish, and Jewish sovereignty must end.

That is the singularity of the demand, and your participation does not make it less singular.

I am not asking you to stop criticizing Israel. I am asking you to distinguish criticism from a movement that treats Jewish collective existence as the problem. I am asking you to look closely at the language used around you, the accusations being repeated, the institutions being targeted, and the role your Jewishness plays in making those things appear respectable.

Ask yourself whether the people applauding your Jewish voice would value it as highly if you defended Jewish sovereignty. Ask whether you would still be considered brave if you challenged a conspiracy theory about Zionist money or power instead of endorsing it. Ask whether your Jewish identity would remain equally welcome if you told the room that antizionism can function as Jew-hate.

Most of all, ask why your Jewishness becomes most useful at precisely the moment it can be deployed against other Jews.
There is a difference between dissent and providing cover. There is a difference between arguing with your people and helping others deny your people's rights. There is a difference between criticizing Israel and lending Jewish legitimacy to a movement that increasingly treats Jewish sovereignty, Jewish institutions, and Jews who refuse to renounce Zionism as morally suspect.

You know our history. You know how Jew-hate changes language while preserving old accusations. You know how often Jews have been told that they could earn acceptance by separating themselves from other Jews.

That is why I am asking you to look again at the movement you have joined and the role you are being asked to play inside it.

Not because you must agree with me.

Because you should know what to look for.

Sincerely,
A Zionist Jew