I just refuse to let politics flatten every story. Anything I say, we’re told we’re hiding a nationalist project. I’m a Jew. I’m Lebanese. I’m a Rabbi. I’ve studied my people’s history. I’m steeped in both cultures because both shaped each other. That’s not apolitical. It’s textured. I believe in Jewish sovereignty, not as a reaction to modern states, but as something ancient and continuous. It’s in our Tora, our laws, our liturgy, our language. It’s why I speak the way I speak. I’ve never hidden myself here. Or anywhere. But I’m not constructing some elaborate myth. I’m describing an atmosphere. One where even mentioning Jews from Arab lands (read, Islamicate) without the right performance of disavowal is enough to draw backlash. Where rigorous, serious work gets buried because people are afraid. Where fear is thick enough to shape policy before anyone says a word. That’s not theoretical. That’s a social reality. I’ve had students and professors alike tell me the same thing. It’s why I turned down Columbia for my master’s, even after being offered a scholarship. My mentor warned me it wasn’t worth it, not for this topic. You say I’m attributing intent. I’m describing what actually happens. Maybe the boycott movement is about institutional critique. But in practice, as an obvious byproduct, it empowers those who go beyond institutions. To individuals. To cultural memory. To silence. You say I’m smuggling in politics “under the guise of heritage.” But that’s the problem. That Jewish stories, especially from the MENA, can’t stand unless they serve someone else’s narrative. In either direction. When I said there’s an “enduring contempt for Jewish presence,” I meant presence. Not ideology. Not state policy. Just the discomfort so many feel when Jews speak in our own voice, without apology, without translation. That’s not nuance. That’s coercion. You want to talk intent. I’m talking atmosphere. The temperature in the room. The quiet calculations people make when they say: “This is beautiful and important work, but maybe we shouldn’t promote it too loudly.” As I said before: Not everything needs to be filtered through your anxieties. Some of us are just living what we’ve inherited. “Tora ṣiwa lanu Moshe, morasha Qehillath Yaʿaqoḇ.”