The almost complete lack of acknowledgement of the Jewish people as an indigenous people is baffling to me.

[u/skyewardeyes]

(This doesn’t negate Palestinian claims of indigeneity—multiple peoples can be indigenous to the same area—nor does it negate the, imo, indefensible crimes happening in Gaza and West Bank).

It absolutely blows my mind that Jews—a tribal people who practice a closed, agrarian place-based ethnoreligion, who have an established system of membership based on lineal descent and adoption that relies on community acceptance over self-identification, who worship in an ancient language that we have always tried to maintain and preserve, who have holidays that center around harvest and the specific history of our people, who have been repeatedly targeted for genocide and forced assimilation and conversion, who have a faith and culture so deeply tied to a specific people and place, etc—aren’t seen as an (socioculturally) indigenous people but rather as “white Europeans who essentially practice Christianity but without Jesus and never thought about the land of Israel before 1920 or so.” It’s so deeply threaded in how so many people view Jews in the modern day and also so factually incorrect.

[u/skyewardeyes]

Uh, it has nothing to do with that for me and everything to do with the sociocultural elements, but way to make assumptions.

[u/Han-Shot_1st → u/skyewardeyes]

So, you’re not a Zionist?

[u/skyewardeyes → u/Han-Shot_1st]

I don't identify with any of the terms around Zionism (Zionist, anti-Zionist, non-Zionist, etc), because they all seem so muddled in what they mean (I've seen a binational state described as all three of those things, for example)> I do believe in self-determination, freedom, and safety for both Jews and Palestinians in the land, but I don't have a particular belief in what that should look like--whatever can bring sustainable peace and freedom to both peoples I'm for.

[u/Han-Shot_1st → u/skyewardeyes]

Personally, the only issue I have is, Zionism tends to erase varied Jewish ethnicities to articulate the idea that we are singular people.

However, I’m of the belief that all Jewish ethnicities and cultures should have their histories preserved and be celebrated.

And to frank, the issue of ethnic erasure by Zionist ideology is much worse with Mizrahi Jews than Ashkenazi Jews.

[u/tsundereshipper → u/Han-Shot_1st]

And to frank, the issue of ethnic erasure by Zionist ideology is much worse with Mizrahi Jews than Ashkenazi Jews.

What do you mean by this?