I Decide Who I Am —> No Longer Jew or Jewish

IN FOCUS, 20 Oct 2025

Avigail Abarbanel’s Fully Human Essays - TRANSCEND Media Service

Plus: Republishing My Sheldon Adelson ‘Obituary’

My birth certificate clearly shows Israel’s ‘racialisation’ of Jewishness. The word ‘nationality’ is euphemism for race. Israel cannot use the word ‘race’ in today’s world. The birth certificate of a Palestinian citizen of Israel says ‘Arab’ next to nationality, and it lists ‘other’ for anyone else born in Israel.

14 Oct 2025 – Caitlin Johnstone has just published another excellent piece, this time about Donald Trump’s links with the vile Adelson couple, and the way they used their money to influence him and US politics. It reminded me of the Adelson ‘obituary’ I published on Mondoweiss shortly after his death. I thought I’d republish it here, because what I say in that article, which I have already said in many essays, is important to repeat over and over again. Israel is our enemy, and you need to know your enemy if you’re going to neutralise its influence and the damage it does.

I wish to offer an important clarification to the original article. I have been very clear in recent years that I do not identify as Jewish. What makes me ‘Jewish’ is simply what the state of Israel declares on my birth certificate. Historically, Jews were people who followed the Jewish religion. In Christian-dominated Europe hundreds of years ago, anyone who followed this religion was registered as a Jew by authorities. Jews tended to marry other Jews because the religion forbids ‘marrying out’, and conversion to Judaism is uncommon. (Even converting for the purpose of marriage, whilst not explicitly forbidden, is discouraged. Those wishing to convert must do so for the sake of the religion itself, not for secondary benefits like marriage).

As centuries passed and modern science, driven by white colonialism, became obsessed with racial classification, the distance between religion and race collapsed entirely. ‘Race science’ embraced the notion of ‘Jewish blood’, as did Jewish circles themselves. To be fair, this phenomenon isn’t unique to Judaism. Many people still believe that being born into a Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, or Hindu family marks you permanently as that identity, regardless of personal belief or practice. Similarly, many continue segregating humanity by the thoroughly debunked concept of race — despite humans being 99.9% genetically identical — irrespective of whether anyone actually practises any religion.

I was never religious and never liked Judaism, which seemed to me overly legalistic, harsh, and antithetical to my instincts as both a woman and a human being. Whilst still in Israel, I took some units in Jewish religion at university specifically to understand what repelled me about it. My studies validated every one of my instincts. I could now not only understand, but articulate to myself and others precisely why I reject Judaism and cannot relate to it.

Growing up in Israel in the 1970s, I experienced a society heavily segregated between the religious and the ‘secular’. The religious, regardless of sect, have always viewed secular Israelis as inferior, degenerate people devoid of values. We could only become worthy if we accepted Judaism, made ‘a return’ (חזרה בתשובה), and began living according to Jewish law. Israel has changed dramatically since then. Religion has successfully infiltrated the military and every part of Israeli society. Even Israel’s ostensibly secular prime ministers, including Netanyahu, have always pandered to religion, feigning faith. Netanyahu is utterly devoid of religious conviction, but securing power requires the political support of Israel’s ever-expanding and increasingly dominant religious establishment.

DNA testing revealed my ancestry is entirely from the Iberian Peninsula (with 0.9% Neanderthal). Some distant ancestors probably observed the Jewish faith, but faith cannot be transmitted genetically. Faith is faith; DNA is something else entirely. What Israel declares on my birth certificate reflects its racist perception of Jewishness — a notion belonging to primitive 19th-century white colonialism and its bogus race science, neither of which belong in the 21st century.

I am not Jewish because I do not practise Jewish religion and do not have any affiliation to it. There is no such thing as ‘Jewish blood’ — there is only human blood. Please keep this in mind when you read my Adelson ‘obituary’ below. In that article, I refer to myself as ‘Jewish’ for the purpose of the article. But this is how Israel defines me, not how I define myself. Whilst our identity is influenced by family, upbringing, culture, and society, a truly mature person arrives at an inevitable point in their development when they choose their own identity and the values they hold. Israel tried to control not just my identity, but the scope of my empathy — teaching me who deserved my care and who didn’t. They failed. No one has the right to tell me who I am or who I should extend my empathy to. I decide who I am — not Israel, not anyone else.

An Obituary for Sheldon Adelson by a Former Israeli

First published on Mondoweiss, 14 Jan 2021

Sheldon Adelson has died at the age of 87. By the Israeli standard on which I was brought up, he was a proper Jew, a good Jew. He dedicated his life and vast fortune and privilege to supporting Israel. By his own admission, “I’m a one-issue person. That issue is Israel.”

Never mind how Adelson made his billions — casinos, gambling, nothing noble or virtuous. In fact, never mind any values or principles at all. Israeli Zionist indoctrination makes it absolutely clear that if you are Jewish, the only value that should matter to you is the survival of the Jewish people, your people. According to Zionist thinking, Israel, as an exclusively Jewish state, is the only thing standing between the Jewish people and another holocaust, indeed the only protection Jews everywhere have against annihilation. By this logic, the survival and expansion of Israel and its political, economic and military strength are synonymous with the survival of each and every Jew anywhere in the world. The survival of Israel is not merely a matter of political ideology or intellectual preference. Israel has always sought to inculcate it as a deeply personal goal in each and every Jew. The very identity and raison d’être of every Jew is expected to be bound up with the survival and existence of Israel as an exclusively Jewish state. Adelson was a perfect example of how spectacularly successful such education can be.

By contrast, I’ve been told repeatedly over the past two decades that I am a “bad Jew” and a “traitor” to “my people.” I have turned my back on the sacred duty, handed to me from birth to dedicate my entire life, talents, time, possessions, everything I am and have for the survival of Israel.

The irony is that I have in fact been faithful to the 1970’s socialist schooling I had in Israel, just not exactly the way it was intended. I was taught that if I had any gifts or advantages in life, I had a duty to use them for the benefit of others. To my otherwise excellent teachers, others inevitably meant members of our group. They had assumed that the extensive Zionist indoctrination we also received would take care of my understanding of whom I would consider my fellow humans.

Make no mistake. It is permissible, even encouraged, often in more educated or enlightened circles, to care about others outside the group, but only if it does not in any way compromise or negate Israel’s interests. As soon as a conflict arises between a cause, a person or a group of people you care about, and Israel’s interests, you are expected to put Israel first, even if it means abandoning your cause. You are allowed to practice being a good human being but only selectively because loyalty to Israel is the only value that really matters. I remember one piece of hate mail I received years ago from an Israeli Rabbi who said that I was a person “without values” because I had betrayed the only value that matters, the survival of my people. This is in fact the origin of the PEP (Progressive Except on Palestine) idea. Jews cannot possibly care about the Palestinian people, because Justice and human rights for the Palestinians are seen as diametrically opposed to Israel’s survival as an exclusively Jewish state.

But I am much worse than a bad Jew. I am in fact an outright enemy of Israel because I insist that we should uphold justice, equality and human rights indiscriminately, and that all humans deserve an equal opportunity not just to survive, but to develop, grow and fulfill their potential. The mere fact of caring about everyone instead of just ‘my people’ makes me an enemy to Zionism and Israel.

When I was a child, leaving Israel was heavily frowned upon. Most Israeli-born people of my generation might remember the phrase Yitzhak Rabin coined four decades ago to describe yordim, Hebrew for those who descend – the Hebrew term for those who chose to leave Israel. As if yordim wasn’t derogatory enough, Rabin called Jews who left Israel, nefolet shel nemushot, an ugly phrase translated roughly: “a cowardly human waste” or “a fallout of wimps.” Over the decades, it has become more acceptable to leave Israel, but the expectation has remained that you would still continue to somehow work for Israel and Israel’s interests from afar, even come back to fight in its wars if needed.

I see myself as a member of the human species, not of this or that group. I do not believe there are any people or groups on this planet that are more entitled than others. I believe it is precisely our tribal mindset of entitlement that we must get rid of if we want to thrive as a species, as opposed to just survive physically. I am a terrible Jew because I refuse to apply my value system selectively and submit it to the requirements or scrutiny of the tribe. I am relieved to have been able to rid myself of the toxic, sectarian indoctrination my upbringing forced on me. I am relieved that I was able to re-join the human race and share whatever I have to offer with everyone, not just a self-selecting entitled-in-its-own-mind group.

I am a bad Jew but hopefully, a reasonably decent human being. Sheldon Adelson was a very good Jew indeed, a loyal, faithful member of his group but an ugly human being. May his soul find peace.

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Avigail Abarbanel is a BACP Snr Accred psychotherapist and has been in private practice since 1999. Avigail has been an activist for Palestinian human rights since 2001. 

Go to Original – avigail.substack.com

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