"My Not So Trendy Zionist Identity" Spoken Word Poem
Talia Bodner’s spoken word performance at the Z3 Conference 2024 captures the anguish of confronting relentless waves of hate. Yet, woven within her words is a call for resilience, unity, and hope. This fight goes beyond survival—it’s about identity, courage, and building a strong, unbreakable ark for the Jewish people to navigate together. A must-watch for anyone committed to the future of Jewish peoplehood.
About Our Speaker:
Talia Bodner is a student from the Bay Area studying in the Joint Program with Columbia University and The Jewish Theological Seminary. She is majoring in Jewish Gender and Women’s Studies at JTS and Political Science at Columbia. Talia is the PR Chair for Columbia’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel and she is a Hillel Engagement Fellow and involved in multiple Hillel fellowships. Talia spent a gap year in Israel on Young Judaea Year Course, where she interned in the Knesset and volunteered teaching English to Israeli-Arab students in Tel Aviv. Talia is also a writer, and has performed spoken word poems at the November 2023 March for Israel at the National Mall in DC and at the World Zionist Organization’s 2023 Conference on Informal Education and Leadership in Jerusalem. She is also a blogger for the Times of Israel.
Video Transcript
Sometimes when I awake, it still feels like yesterday, even as weeks and months have slipped away. Sometimes, it still feels like I'm stuck in that day. As day after day, the sun rises and sets, but everything stays the same. When the only change I feel is the walls I've built, growing higher and higher to lock my broken heart away from the world.
I used to bear my heart like armor, wield it like a blade, until it shattered under the weight of so much hate unfurled. Because the world showed me evil like I had never seen before. Not just lurking across the globe on some far off shore. No, the evil, it came right up to me, knocking on my door. And I spent so long standing in its way, trying to push it back to where it hid before.
But I'm not sure how much longer I can do it for. I used to grab my flag and stand in the middle of campus when the protesters came to shout and cause an uproar. I used to stand side by side with friends who swore they would never stop fighting until the end of this war. But I look around now, and the crowds are no more.
And I think back on the year, and I wonder, I wonder, What was it all for? Will our cries echo in silence forevermore? Or hammer our brains like the ravens nevermore? For it seems nothing has changed. The blood, it still flows in streams. Our brothers and sisters locked so far away, we can't hear their screams.
And every night that passes, I awake to more broken dreams. How can we ever fight this tsunami when each time it pulls back it's only gathering speed and there's hardly a moment to breathe between the crashing of the sea. If all you have are some buckets and a friend or two or three there will never be a way to drain this flooding beachside.
And still we try to fight this rising tide but no matter how high we build our walls, the hatred smashes through our windows filling our halls. It seems to me, there is no end we can guarantee. There will always be people in this world with whom we disagree. Someone will always get caught in the crossfire and the debris.
From Amsterdam to Berkeley, there will always be a city from which we will flee.
So, how do I keep fighting when everybody around me has lost their way? When it looks to be Sodom and Gomorrah, but in the modern day. But this time, there will be no divine display of wrath and might to push this darkness away. It's up to us to keep working to pave a new way. We must stand our ground and live to fight another day.
Because already, we see these strangers sneaking away back into the shadows where they hid before. And it is now that I know at least one thing for sure. We stood all year long because we have something to stand for. We fought all year long because we have something to fight for. And what do they have to show for?
Broken promises and empty chants? Calls to action that just serve as their distraction. A cause they thought mighty, but only for a fraction of a moment. Until the shiny, new, cool, hip tragedy they all stood for got old, too. and boring and tiring. My flag was never a fad. It was my cape, both my armor and my blade, my weapon against hate.
My identity was never about the scarf that I wore. It was true to who I am in my soul, in my core. This fight isn't about a country, or a government, or an army, or a people. This fight is for me. It is in my neshama, the innermost part of my being. Now is not the time for fleeing. But maybe, if this tsunami isn't receding, we need to be seeing a different approach.
If this water continues to encroach and push us into the dark, I think it's time that we build an ark. Take our weapons and our swords and let them find a new mark. Shape this world and our lives into something stark and new. An ark for me and for you. Find our allies, use our strength as the glue to secure us a shelter to ride this wave through.
We will never make it if it's every Jew for himself in a solo canoe. But together, together we can build something no one can undo. Together we can build an arc for our people until we pull through. We have big role models to live up to. And it's long overdue. But we do have the strength. And we do have the might.
And we do have the courage to continue to fight. Because we will not go silent into the night. We will not be made to flicker out like a light. This world may not be black and white. But for this life, we do have the right. For our home, for which we continue to fight.
Thank you.
