By Andrea Tucci,
It has been nearly a year since the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, which claimed the lives of 1,139 people. Nearly a year since Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza began, resulting in over 42,000 deaths, including nearly 16,500 children.
And yet, the United States continues to provide Israel with military support and diplomatic protection, allowing it to repeatedly cross American “red lines” and plunge the broader region into conflict.
For decades, Israel has been a key U.S. ally, and the stark contrast between Washington’s responses to Israel’s war on Gaza and Russia’s war on Ukraine is plain to see.
Strategic, economic, and geopolitical factors play a role, but there are also emotional, historical, and cultural reasons, with a well-established industry in the U.S. devoted to cultivating strong support for Israel, particularly among Jewish Americans.
Made before October 7, the critically acclaimed documentary Israelism begins with the all-singing, all-dancing Mega Event in Jerusalem, organized by the Birthright Israel Foundation, which offers free trips to Israel for young Jews worldwide.
At the heart of the documentary are Simone Zimmerman, a Los Angeles native who attended Jewish school and lived in Israel on a scholarship, and Eitan, another American, who joins the Israeli army after high school.
Photo: Simone Zimmerman
Zimmerman, early in the film, shares drawings she made as a child that reflect her love for Israel, a sentiment deeply ingrained in her upbringing.
Eitan, too, saw Israel as his homeland and joined its army out of a desire to defend it.
But both these young Americans undergo a transformation. In college at Berkeley, Zimmerman initially defends Israel in campus debates, but her perspective shifts after hearing Palestinian accounts of their families being bombed in Gaza or being mistreated at checkpoints. Faced with these stories, she realizes she cannot dismiss the reality of life under Israeli occupation. “There was silence,” she reflects, as many in her Jewish community were afraid to confront the difficult questions about Israel’s actions.
She visits the West Bank, meets Palestinians and Jews who share her evolving views, and finds herself at odds with her childhood community, even being labeled an “antisemitic Jew.”
For Eitan, the journey is even harsher. Serving in the Israeli army, he is stationed in the occupied West Bank to protect settlements—home to 700,000 Israeli settlers, according to the UN, with at least 60,000 of them being Americans. He witnesses the harsh realities of the occupation, including the beating of a young Palestinian in custody. “It’s just one of many stories from my time in the army,” he says, admitting it took years to come to terms with his role in it.
Erin Axelman, the director of Israelism, shares her own awakening. As a young person, she found learning about Jewish oppression painful, but Israel seemed like a beacon of hope. That changed when a high school teacher asked her if she knew anything about Palestinian history. Encouraged to read works by Palestinian and left-wing Israeli historians, Axelman discovered the Nakba, ( Nakba -The Catastrophe happened in the year 1948 with a violent the displacement and land dispossession of approximately 750.000 Palestinians) and realized she had missed a crucial part of the story.
Israelism also contain interviews with American Jews in USA that totally support Israel, as well as Palestinian voices like Baha Hilo, a tour guide from Bethlehem, and Sami Awad, director of the Holy Land Trust, who share the story of the Nakba.
Today, many young American Jews refuse to turn a blind eye to Israel’s actions, especially as the U.S.-backed Israeli military continues its campaign in Gaza and in the Middle East. Pro-Israel organizations may be the loudest, but they do not represent the entirety of our community,” says Axelman. More and more American Jews are declaring “Not in my name” in support of equality and justice for all who live between the “River and the Sea”.
Israelism is a journey into the light, into the truth.
The time for change is now.
