As a young Jewish girl growing up in Tehran in the 1980s, Tabby Refael was forced to wear a hijab, chant “death to Israel” on a daily basis and run for her life from Iraqi missiles.
She fled the country with her family and was granted refugee asylum in the US in the 1990s, and today is an award-winning columnist for The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.
“I don’t take this moment for granted,” said Refael, moderating the first panel discussion on day two of Hadassah’s Inspire Zionism symposium focused on Zionist women of color. “I can tell you that if I was back in my homeland right now doing this kind of Zoom, I would be putting my life at risk.”
Refael was joined by panelists Amy Albertson and Leah Soibel, who spoke about the challenges they face representing Zionism in their own communities. All three are on the list of Hadassah's 18 American Zionist Women You Should Know.
Albertson catalogs her experience as a Chinese American Jewish woman on social media and says she shares proudly about her Zionism, but it isn’t always easy. “Especially in America, there is that assumption or that stereotype … of the white-presenting Ashkenazi Jewish person, and I’m not that,” Albertson said. “In communities where I‘m not known, there’s often that initial questioning of, who are you? Why are you here? And it can be uncomfortable.”
“In America, as a Jew, among non-Jewish Hispanics, I’m white. As a Hispanic in the Jewish community, I’m seen as a person of color,” said Soibel, founder of Fuente Latina, which ensures accuracy in Spanish-language reporting on Israel, the Jewish world and the Mideast.
While she often wears many different hats, “when October 7 happened, the Jewish Zionist hat I think came to the forefront because the spotlight got turned on us in a way that I don’t think we ever imagined that it would,” said Soibel, who spent the last two weeks on the ground in Israel with the media.
While Alberton and Soibel are expressing their Zionism through the lens of their ethnicities, Craig Dershowitz practices another form of self-expression, one of his own design.
“Tattoos are another way of saying I refuse to be boxed in,” said Dershowitz, president of Healing Ink, an organization that helps wounded soldiers in Israel turn their scars into works of art.
While tattoos are often considered taboo in the Jewish community, Dershowitz said Healing Ink’s work falls into a number of “exemptions” within the Torah, including the act of making someone feel better about themselves, and has the blessing of many rabbis from Orthodox to Reform.
Kasim Hafeez uses his tattoos to express his Zionism, an unexpected choice for someone who almost led a completely different life. Hafeez grew up in England with his Pakistani Muslim family. Antisemitism was infused in him from a young age, and by the time he got to college, he was so committed to his radical and extremist ideology that he says he considered joining a terrorist group. That’s when he came across Alan Dershowitz’s book\ The Case for Israel, which challenged his fundamental beliefs and launched a period of research and reflection that led him to Israel in 2007.
“Spending time in Israel, it changed my perspective, just seeing the actual reality,” Hafeez said. When he returned, he started speaking out to his friends and community, and his life took an about-face. His first tattoo was of a blue Star of David with the year 1948 written underneath to symbolize Israel’s founding. Another tattoo features a psalm written in Hebrew.
Though he is not Jewish, the tattoos allow him to have “skin in the game” as a Zionist and Jewish ally. “It’s a commitment,” he said of the tattoos. “I can walk away because I’m not Jewish, but I’m choosing not to walk away, because this is too important.”
Zionism can mean many different things to many different people, said Destiny Albritton, national outreach director at the Israel on Campus Coalition.
“I would love to see every Zionist be proud,” said Albritton, one of three panelists addressing the topic of what Zionism means to them. “If you know who you are, and you know that you represent something positive, you know that you are on the right side of history.”
With antisemitism and anti-Zionism rising, particularly on college campuses, education is vitally important, said Stephanie Malka, an American Israeli businesswoman and Hadassah Evolve Leadership Fellow. “We have to make sure that our children have a vocabulary and have information to recognize the tropes when they come their way, and not simply accept it, not simply look the other way at the stereotypes,” Malka said.
To aid in that effort, Rayna Rose Exelbierd, an entrepreneur and motivational speaker, has mentored hundreds of teens over the last 10 years. Another of Hadassah’s 18 American Zionist Women You Should Know, Exelbierd is using her connection to Zionism “as an opportunity to educate, inspire and empower other people to take on those leadership roles.”
“There is no more fitting moment than the one that we are in right now to take back what Zionism means, build those communities, remember that inspiration that's there, and have that incredible sense of pride,” said Michelle Rojas-Tal, Hadassah's recent Zionist scholar-in-residence, who moderated the panel.
In addition to the three panels, Shy Ashkenazi presented a program on the “Sounds of Zionism,” and the symposium closed with remarks from Hadassah’s leadership and the singing of Hatikvah.
“Hadassah’s strength has always been our practical Zionism, supporting our hospitals and youth villages in Israel, and we welcome all Zionists with diverse voices to our Hadassah family,” Hadassah National President Rhoda Smolow said.
“The conversations we've had during this symposium have been thought-provoking, extremely relevant and empowering, especially during these difficult times when Zionism has increasingly become misunderstood,” Hadassah CEO Naomi Adler said. “I'm proud that we can help elevate the voices of so many smart, diverse, passionate and dynamic Zionists.”
Read more about Part 1 of our Inspire Zionism Symposium
Read more about panelists and watch our session on Israel in the media
Calling all Zionists: Join us in Washington, DC, on November 14 for a national solidarity rally in support of Israel. Register here.