I am not a jew

reflections on the taxi ride
to Midway airport in Chicago upon leaving the
Jewish Voice for Peace conference
april 3 2017

according to the taxi driver
Israeli and jewish,
shouting with fervored hatred
over his shoulder at me
as I sit
in the back seat of his car,
I am not a jew

and he is right
and it is true

for as I accept the
well-used small glass
brimming with sweet tea
from the hands of
the brown-skinned farmer in his
fields outside Hebron
and
as we sit next to his home
demolished to rubble
by Israeli bulldozers a
week earlier
and
as we look across the bypass road
at the freshly grown houses of
settlers, glimpsing through windows
the flicker of their candles
while they recite their
Sabbath prayers
I am not a jew

and as I witness the stories of babies,
as beloved as I love my own,
stolen by an eager zionism
from newly arriving
Mizrahim mothers and fathers
told heartless lies, left
disregarded and broken
to provide human fodder for
an Ashkenazi nation
I am not a Jew

and as I stand pressed
shoulder to shoulder
at Kalandia or any checkpoint
in a crowd anxious to get home,
and
as we are made to wait for useless hours by
18-year-olds dressed up as soldiers,
boasting with the power
of the gun at their waists
and
as they casually control the fate
of old men and pregnant women
standing too long on swollen feet
I am not a jew

why would I claim this tribe
whose leaders weave a civilized silence
and distorted denials
in the name of
never again

what I would give to be a jew
once more, to lay claim to
a tikkun o’lam
beseeching me to see
the stranger as myself;
how I long to belong
to a people who care more
about who we are becoming than
a state hijacking us daily
body and soul

but the taxi driver is not finished
and his accusations reach fever pitch
as I am again and again not a jew
but also a liar and a
terrorist

captive to his rantings
as he drives on enraged
I just want to
go home
where I can be not a jew
in peace