My sister: Zionism is not,
as you have notoriously suggested, “creepy.”
I know that you do not believe it.
But if you’d witnessed what I have —
Jews enslaved, their babies murdered —
perhaps you’d understand.

How many generations of Jewish mothers
like the one who birthed my Moses
have feared for their children’s lives?
For how many decades, centuries, millennia,
have the Jews lacked a single home of their own
and looked back, with longing, to Zion?

But above and beyond all of that, my sister:
If you believe in self-determination for your own community
how can you deny others the same? I cannot discern
how their aspirations are any “creepier” than yours.
Please, sister, reconsider your past words
and your present ones.

Erika Dreifus is a New York-based writer and book publicist. Her next book, “Birthright: Poems,” will be published by Kelsay Books in fall 2019. Web: ErikaDreifus.com.