Remember when I said age is a factor regarding how informed a person is? About how life experience, world experience, education, and biology all play a role in how you process information and come to conclusions? https://www.tumblr.com/a-very-tired-jew/746376840485257216/youre-not-as-informed-as-you-think-and-age-does?source=share Well I have seen some token "Good Jews" exhibiting this exact thing as of today (04/20/2024).

Fig. 1. User (Early 20s) claims Zionism is antisemitic, repeats Bund talking points, and repeats the genocide claim.

Fig. 2. Same user says they needed to deprogram from indoctrination.

Fig. 3. Same user as above claims elder Jews (read: Jews that are older than them) are indoctrinated. These are the most egregious examples that this Good Jew has with another Good Jew in this particular discord (you know which one). What we see in Figure 1 is the same Bundian philosophy that got Jews betrayed and killed in the USSR. It's the same philosophy that we have tried over and over again with the same results: Jews tortured, killed, and exiled by the larger goy communities we thought we were accepted in. I would hazard a guess that this young person is not aware of the Dreyfus Affair or other issues in "Liberal" societies that led to Zionism.

In Figure 3 this same person states that older Jews are indoctrinated and in Figure 2 states that they needed to "deprogram" from their "indoctrination". They posit that the reason young Jews are anti-Zionist is because they haven't been indoctrinated yet and/or have deprogrammed themselves from their childhood. However...this is typical teen/young adult behavior where they're "Fighting the narrative" and lashing out at the perceived "status quo of indoctrination". I've heard these words for years, hell I said them myself. But because this person is under 25, around 22/23 from my understanding, they simply don't have the experience or education to really understand what they're talking about. Yes they are Jewish. But the points I made about age in my other post still stand. The likelihood that they have the world and life experience is very slim. Add in that they use inflammatory language that is often associated with the current batch of young antisemitic activists and...well...you get the picture. But let's talk about the greater implication here. This is one glaring example in a discord. There are more throughout our own community. There are young Jews who are screaming at their elders and repeating talking points that they heard on tiktok, social media, and at protests*. The very same protests where they will hear chants of "Gas the Jews", "Hitler was right!", and so on. At what point do they realize that even if they care for innocent lives (which I have yet to see anyone besides outright racists and bigots call for actual genocide) that allying themselves with antisemites who would kill them in an instant is a bad idea? In part, I think it has to do with Westerners distrusting their Democratic governments as we have seen them repeatedly drop the ball on issues. They yearn for a revolution against the status quo because the future is bleak (and trust me, as an ecologist I understand climate anxiety and as a millennial I understand that and so much of the other shit too). But this yearning to have meaningful change in their own country has been coopted by terrorist organizations bent on killing Jews. That energy around positive activism and meaningful change has been manipulated by an organization that has been caught on tape saying they would manipulate these very people to bring about their violent intent. And here's the thing...many of us elders have gone through that very same phase of rhetoric. I remember being an edgy anti-Zionist myself when I was a teen and young adult (I was of the Bundian philosophy as well, and yes I had grown up Reconstructionist, there's a lot to unpack there for a later time). I remember thinking my elders were brainwashed and just scoffing at their retorts. I remember thinking that they had just fallen for the propaganda and needed to open their eyes. As I got older and became more educated, as well as had more world experiences and reached certain biological milestones, my views changed. Not because I became more conservative, but because I was no longer an emotional, hormonally driven young adult who thought they knew more than others. There's a saying in academia that goes something like "In undergrad you think you know everything, in masters you realize you were woefully uninformed, and in your doctorate you realize you don't know shit about anything." But if you tell them that, they just say it's Hasbara (propaganda) because those same orgs have told them it is. Only hindsight and time will let them go beyond their surface level reactionary reasoning and see the bigger picture. They think they've been deprogrammed, but in reality they've fallen for a different manipulation that will use their good intentions to do harm.

*This is reminiscent of young LGBTQ+ behavior where the young queer kids are yelling at their elders, telling them they don't understand, and the elders are warning them about something dangerous. The youngins then come back and cry "why didn't you warn us?" to which they respond "you didn't listen".