As a Jew, I understand that the root of violence in Gaza is oppression

I am a proud Jew who believes in Judaism beyond Zionism, and who believes that everyone deserves to live in peace, including the Palestinian people. I am also a Jew who grew up in a Zionist home in Buffalo, N.Y.

As a child, I remember plunking spare change in the metal Jewish National Fund box on my kitchen windowsill, intending to send those coins to Israel, where I thought that my money would help plant trees and build a stronger Jewish state.

I understood how important it was to give tzedakah, or “charity”; however, now I know that this money was used to plant forests that covered the ruins of Palestinians’ homes. Zionism, the agenda of the Israeli government — which differs from the religion of Judaism — was woven throughout the Hebrew school I attended, and learning these principles was as natural as learning about community care or environmentalism.

My mother grew up as one of the few Jews in Chambersburg, Pa., and fell in love with the idea of Israel as a homeland. She has told me many times how she would walk home from school to the antisemitic taunts of her classmates. My pain burns alongside hers as I see how alive these memories still are for her. Her Hungarian father worked hard to give his family a safe life, and had his passport stamped with swastikas in the late 1930s, risking his life to get his siblings out of Sátoraljaújhely and settled into small towns throughout Pennsylvania.

My father, a Dominican doctor, grew up under the Trujillo dictatorship in a multigenerational home in La Vega. When he fell in love with my mother, he also fell in love with Judaism through his love for science and questioning.

We are a proud family of survivors who believe in strength, family, respecting warning signs, and moving toward the possibility of a better future.

I know that my parents’ investment in Zionism was in good faith. They wanted their children to know peace and to understand that there was a homeland waiting for them in Israel, full of freshly planted trees and away from the violence of those who didn’t respect them. It is a terrible irony for me that this “gift” of a homeland came at the price of taking land from Palestinians who wanted the same thing for their children.

It is possible to hold two thoughts in tension. I love my parents, and I don’t want this gift.

To be clear, I don’t condone the taking of innocent life. Regardless of what many people believed Zionism was, the ultimate impact of this ideology has been oppression and conflict. The Israeli government may have just declared war on Hamas, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and the United States’ complicity in that oppression — are the source of this violence.

For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy, with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege, and daily humiliation.

Like many Jews of my generation, my thinking on these issues has changed dramatically in the last 16 years. I have found more direction since joining the Philadelphia chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Through direct action, events, and conversations, I’ve gotten clear on my belief that we all deserve liberation, safety, and equality.

We all deserve liberation, safety, and equality.

Inevitably, oppressed people everywhere will seek — and gain — their freedom. The only way to get there is by uprooting the sources of the violence.

My parents and I agree that all life is holy, but struggle to find a middle ground on this issue. My belief is that the unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars flowing from the U.S. enable and empower Israel’s apartheid actions.

In addition to being a pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist Dominican Hungarian Jew, it may not be surprising to hear that I am also a trauma therapist. I teach my clients about trauma-informed care, which includes coming out of my own freeze state and into thoughtful responses to human suffering. It includes separating out the false binary of a victim/perpetrator narrative and instead seeking ways to empower choice, voice, and freedom.

Through many years of struggle and dreaming, my family passed down the will to survive and thrive. I understand that to be silent on Palestine is to be complicit in the erasure of a people who also deserve to survive and thrive.

Rebecca J. Alvarez is a queer mixed-race trauma therapist and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace.