******************Essay I needed to write for Governor's School. I actually ended up quite liking it. Lemme know what you think!************************
The idea of a homeland for the Jewish people has influenced me profoundly. Israel came about in a macabre way, taking the blood of six million Jews to sign its declaration, and 20,093 more to keep it alive. Yet the nation still stands. What it has had to do to survive is more drastic than any nation still in existence today and Israel is a mere 62 years old. But its existence has forced me to think. It has created a dynamic tension within me, being Jewish, as I try to reconcile my views of what a Jewish nation should do and the facts of what it has done.
Over the span of its existence, Israel has been involved in seven wars and is constantly in the news for its skirmishes with Palestine. When I hear nothing but bad things about Israel from all sides; TV newscasters, newspapers, acquaintances and opponents of my homeland, it forces me to research. As Israel is my homeland, it is an extension of me, and I have a knee-jerk reaction to defend it, no matter what they’ve done. But when I hear that the Israeli army bulldozed an entire refugee camp, I begin to wonder. I have to think, “Do I still support what they’re doing? Can I defend a country when I don’t agree with their military policies?” and I have to search for both sides of the story, and I have to search for objectivity within myself.
I cannot afford, as a modern Jewish teenager, to look at Israel through an emotion-tinted glass, and yet, as a modern Jewish teenager, I cannot help but to be emotionally involved. I am grilled more than any other person that I know about my views on Israel, simply because it as seen as an extension of the Jewish people, and in a way they are right. I feel that our homeland should create policies and employ military tactics and engage in foreign relations all in line with Jewish principles. When it seems to me that they do not do so, I get conflicted. Why have a Jewish homeland when it will not act in accordance with what is best for its people and the people around it? What should Judaism say on the matter? Are they in the right or wrong? Is there a gray area? All these questions swirl around my mind, and when I dig deeper, all I find are harder questions. In questioning Israel’s policies, I am questioning my faith. In one breath, the Torah says “Thou shall not kill”, and in the very next it instructs us to wipe out every inhabitant of the land that opposes us. As I wrestle with these questions, I realize that my faith is just as conflicted as I am, and that there are no answers; only better questions.
The idea of a Jewish homeland has affected me on many levels, from my daily conversations, to my thoughts before I go to bed, to a continuing inner monologue pondering the facets of right and wrong and self defense and slaughter. It has taught me to think critically, even when my heart screams to do otherwise. But most of all, the idea of a Jewish homeland has forced me to question, and I think that is the best thing that we can ever hope to ask of an idea.
