correction.

Hello.

No one is reading this.

I don't care.

Things have changed significantly.

Something noteworthy:

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love words. I love the dictionary. I love the way it feels to remember a new word and to teach it to someone. I take pride in my self named ever-growing vocabulary. So it is with the kind of embarrassment that shows in my cheeks that I return to this blog and read the last post, the one I wrote before heading to Israel. My apologies to the world and to myself: sometimes I am an idiot and assume the meaning of a word without checking with my dearest friend The Dictionary. 

Zionism: n. an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel

Let me say that again: I am an idiot. An idiot who supports the Zionistic cause. An idiot who is therefore a Zionist herself.  Six months ago I assumed the meaning of the words "zionism" and "zionist" by the way they were thrown around on the news, and used by sources who I would later realize were against such an idea. I thought Zionism had something to do with supporting Israel in its campaign in Gaza. I thought Zionism was violence, was physical hatred carried out by Jews wherever and whenever but mostly in Israel and mostly now. Once more: I am an idiot.

It took four months spent in Israel and an unknown number of religious youth programs and events attended during my 16 years to learn the meaning of the word Zionism. To understand that I myself am a Zionist. Don't disregard that old post if only to realize what the willingly uneducated Jewish teen can learn from what is considered the unbiased media. 

My apologies to Zionists everywhere. (or even just the two that have ever read this blog).

I believe in the right to a Jewish homeland in the geographical region which some refer to as Palestine, and others as Israel. I strongly support Zionism on paper and in practice. I hope to physically defend our right to the land in the future as a member of the IDF.

I am a Zionist.

Annoying:

Things around here have finally begun to settle down, I have finally found someplace where I am comfortable, and soon I will be leaving. It always seemed so strange to me, that I can know what I want one moment and be totally surprised by my decision the next. I am no Zionist. I do not have an ardent desire to live in Israel because a scroll I was read at an early age says that a higher being granted the land to my ancestors and the children whom they would bear. I am no Zionist. I will not shed blood for a land I have not walked upon. I am no Zionist. I am not going because I was told to. I am going to feel connected. To know that the people I pride myself as coming from really existed; to prove to myself that the lifestyle I want to adopt is worth the struggle I may be faced with. To know that the prayers, the psalms-all of the words I've been reciting weekly since i could read-all of them have a history. To understand their meaning. To know that I haven't been spewing hatred since I was six. I am going there to learn. I am going there to gain an understanding of a tradition I truly know little about. To see another part of the world-to open my eyes just a bit wider, stretch my capacity for knowledge, for understanding. I am going to see the sky-to know that the sun continues to rise in a place torn by violence and rocket attacks. To negate the myth that there are "bad guys" in a holy war. 

I am no Zionist-I am not pretending to be.