An Open Letter to Sexuality Professionals and Organizations

Dear Colleagues,

I knew it was coming. I’ve been watching this profession — the one I’ve devoted the last thirty years to — become increasingly antisemitic. I’ve been watching people who pride themselves on progressive values ignore historical facts to support hateful ahistoric narratives, extol terror as “resistance,” and champion fundamentally anti-progressive movements.

It shouldn’t have been a huge surprise when professional organizations like AASECT refused to immediately issue a statement publicly condemning the terror and sexual violence of October 7th in Israel without equivocation and that when they finally said something in November (which was a whole lot of nothing except moral equivalencies and big words without substance), they couldn’t even spell antisemitism correctly. I guess it wasn’t really shocking when the “Believe All Women/Me Too” people didn’t really believe all women — demanding more and more evidence even when there were videos and the actual testimony from the monsters themselves. And it definitely wasn’t shocking when I read an email subject line on a sexuality educators’ listserve I am on that stated: “There is no room in the sexuality professions for Zionism.” They might as well just say: “There’s no room for Jews.” (Despite the fact that many of the founders of our field were Jews.) Oh I know what you’re probably thinking: Jew and Zionist are not synonyms. Well, Zionism is the belief that Jews should have self determination in their homeland, that Israel has the right to exist. 95+% Jews support these statements. (Note: This isn’t the first time people tried to claim Judaism and Zionism weren’t linked. It’s an old form of antisemitism. The Soviet Union was quite effective (deadly) at trying to separate the Jews from the “Zionists” in order to neutralize the Jews. “Don’t hate me. I’m the good one. I’m just Jewish.” We call this: left wing antisemitism. But really, doesn’t it matter? It’s just Jew-hate.)

But let me just put it out there so that there is zero confusion. I am a proud Zionist. My Zionist values inform all of my work: my belief in self-determination, human rights, living and thriving with dignity, and safety. And I’m not alone. Many people in this sexuality field feel the same as me. I know this because they write to me. They share their stories with me. Many are too afraid to speak up for fear of cancellation or backlash.

I have no fear of this. I know what happens when we don’t speak up. I’ve seen this film before. Let me explain: If you know anything about me or my work, you know that I don’t take things lightly. I fight back. And the skills that have made me a fierce champion for sexuality education, someone who has gone up against the biggest opponents of sexuality education both publicly and privately, make me a fierce advocate for Zionism. I will never let people malign us or our ancestral homeland. Jews are a people, an ethnicity, a tribe, and Judaism is also a faith. Jew-hate is more than religious hate. Jews are impacted by antisemitism regardless of how or if we practice Judaism. And we cross all modern racial categories. We don’t fit neatly into one box. Not all Jews look like me — in fact, most do not. And yet, despite the world’s obsession with us, we are only .2% of the global population.

Look, this is going to be long and I want you to continue reading. But if you can’t, here is what you’re going to learn:

1. It is anti-progressive to tell a Jewish person what is or is not antisemitic.
2. Historical revisionism is anti-progressive.
3. Not condemning rockets indiscriminately fired at Israeli civilians is anti-progressive.
4. Ignoring the stated calls for Jewish genocide by Hamas is anti-progressive.
5. Deliberately misusing the word “colonization” or “occupation” to fit your narrative is anti-progressive.
6. Ignoring the breathtaking range of racial and ethnic diversity among Jews and Israelis is anti-progressive.
7. Supporting Islamist groups (particularly when you’re in the sexuality field) is anti-progressive (and absurd).

Okay, still reading? Awesome.

I’m a proud Zionist with a history of fighting for human rights. I find it grossly offensive for someone who is not Jewish to tell me who I am and what is or is not antisemitic (particularly when they attempt to justify their statements by using fringe groups of token Jews to do so). I know Jew-hatred in my bones. I had pennies thrown at me as a child. As a teen, I visited Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau to mourn the victims of the Holocaust and people (adults and children) lined up and spit at me. I get notes and comments wishing for my death every single day including a recent one: “Too bad Hamas missed you.” I know exactly what antisemitism is. (And please, spare me the “Arabs are Semites, too” line. Semitic is a linguistic term; antisemitismus was a word created by Nazis to legitimize Jew-hate. And antisemitism has no hyphen!)

The maligning of our people and the place we come from — antizionism — is inherently antisemitic, woefully misinformed, and anti-progressive. It is the denial of the history of the Jewish homeland. It is the denial of Jewish connection to the land. It is a movement of double standards and lies masked as “social justice.” Zionism is a radical decolonization movement. It is the first time people indigenous to the land (Jews are from Judea) have gone home with ancient language and customs. Zionism is embedded in our Biblical texts: Moses bringing Israelites back to the land after we were taken by Egyptians as slaves to build the pyramids is Zionism. The Maccabees (a small group of Jews who went up against the Greeks) fighting colonization and assimilation (the Hanukkah story) is Zionism. Jews coming back to the land of Israel after the Romans took us as slaves to build the Colosseum is Zionism. Praying to the temple and saying “Next year in Jerusalem” at our Passover Seders in the Diaspora is Zionism. The list goes on and on. The concept of political Zionism — which has nothing whatsoever to do with Palestinians — developed in the 1800s when Jews were being slaughtered all over Europe. Look up the Kishinev pogroms. I dare you.

Zionism is a response to violence and the real threat of Jewish genocide. It’s a desire to return to our home because it was the only safe place. Still is, by the way, and I say that, despite the fact that in the two and half weeks that I was in Israel volunteering and offering support, hundreds of missiles were been fired at civilian communities. Sirens blaring all across the country. Just after the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, I had to seek shelter listening to the boom of the Iron Dome intercepting missiles fired indiscriminately at Israeli civilians. Hamas doesn’t care who gets killed. In fact, their rockets often fall on Gazans. Doesn’t sound all that progressive does it?

How do you have peace with people whose stated mission is your death? Read the Hamas charter if you can stomach it and tell me if those are the progressive values you fight for.

Some of you will probably tell me that this is “resistance.” Not only is that the epitome of “words being violent,” but it also means you need a history lesson. The concept of Palestine is colonial. When the Romans expelled most of the Jews from Judea they renamed it Syria Palestina. It was an effort to humiliate the Jews by renaming the land after their worst enemy at the time- the Philistines. Today’s Palestinians have nothing to do with Philistines. In fact, the people who now call themselves Palestinians once refused to be called this word — they were “Arabs,” most of them from Transjordan. It was only in the 1960s, when the concept of Arab Palestinians was formed. It was a rebrand created by Yassir Arafat, the leader of the terror group, the PLO.

But Jews were always on the land. There is archaeology, DNA, thousands of years of history. And you will never be able to say that a mosque constructed on top of the retaining wall from the Second Temple (which was destroyed by Romans in 70 CE) was there first when it was built at least six centuries later. Sorry. Inconvenient facts are still facts. Archeology doesn’t lie. Were other people on the land too? Yes. But if you’re looking to apply myopic American racial binaries to the land of Israel, you can’t. The majority of people in Israel would be considered a person of color using today’s lens.

And here’s another in inconvenient fact: Gaza wasn’t occupied. Israel left Gaza in 2005 for peace and left a thriving community with agriculture and infrastructure. The minute the Jews left it was all burned to the ground. Jew-hate is a helluva drug. Nothing like starving your people because you’d rather see the Jews dead, build terror tunnels, and steal all the aid. And Egypt has a blockage on Gaza. They are literally building a reinforced wall as I write to prevent the people of Gaza from entering Egypt. If you rail against Israel — which until October 7th allowed thousands of Palestinians the opportunity to work in Israel — but say nothing about Egypt, then your Jew-hatred is showing. You should do something about that.

But I know that words matter to this field, so here’s another phrase you might want to explore: “refugee camp.” You know those places in Gaza or Judea or Samaria that are called “refugee camps?” These are buildings Palestinians have been living in for decades. They’re not temporary housing. They’re concrete structures, not camps. It’s propaganda. And they are considered refugees because not a single Arab country has been willing to take in this population of people since they refused the UN Partition Plan in 1948. Jews accepted the plan. Arabs refused and all the Arab countries went to war against Israel and lost. The Arabs who stayed in the land of Israel, who didn’t flee or fight were granted citizenship. The ones who did were met with the shock that the countries who encouraged them to leave or fight refused to take them in. (Oddly enough, the 850,000 Jews forced to flee or be murdered in Arab countries during The Farhud were never called refugees. Wonder why?) But these “refugee camps” have become hotbeds for terror cells.

Israel is desperate to live peacefully alongside her neighbors. And many Palestinians are living in Israel. They’ve been sitting next to me at lunch. Ethiopian Jewish families have been dining next to me, too. I spent the other day cooking for soldiers with a Druze family. But I’m well aware that most of the pro-Hamas terror-apologist band of cosplay progressives have never been here to see the magnificent tapestry of people here in Israel. These are the people terror groups fire at. When you chant “from the river to the sea..” you’re calling for the elimination of all those people, too. Didn’t know genocidal rants fit into progressive values but alas, I guess when you hate Jews you twist yourself into a pretzel to make things fit.

It is the antithesis of progressive values to support an Islamist terror group. And being Islamist is not the same as being Muslim. Islamists believe in Sharia law. They throw queer people off roofs. Conduct honor killings. Murder women and children. Sex work? Abortion? Equality? Disability rights? Laughable in an Islamist territory. Meanwhile, Israel has the most breathtakingly inclusive disability communities and opportunities for all but I’m sure you’ve never researched those. But many of you had no problem screaming for more and more evidence of sexual violence when there has been plenty of it. I would respect you all more if you just came out and said you hated Jews rather than this offensive anti-feminist regressive strategy you’ve adopted.

Does war come with casualties? Yes. Israel didn’t want war. But Israelis civilians were massacred on October 7. Raped. Tortured. Burned alive. Kidnapped. Evidence abounds for all of these heinous crimes. No country would ever sit back and just take it — nor should they. Destroying a terrorist group with plans for future massacres is not genocide despite how many times you say it. Hamas’ aim however, is genocide. (Again, read their charter.) And unfortunately when terror groups put their military operations in schools, hospitals, and mosques (war crimes BTW), you know these terrorists don’t care about their own people either. They use them as human shields. Hamas used children to build terror tunnels and then killed them. These are facts, though again perhaps inconvenient because they don’t support your narrative. When Jews are murdered, these terror groups hand candy out to all the children celebrating Jewish death. Again, is celebrating the murder of Jewish innocents with sweet treats a progressive value? I must have missed that class.

One day you’ll wake up and realize that you’ve made a gross mistake. That you have sacrificed your integrity for your hatred of Jews or your desire to be perceived as “good.” But just know that until that time, I will not let up. I am relentless. I will forever fight for my people and our right to live and thrive with dignity. In the wise words of Dara Horn, “People Love Dead Jews.” I know that (until recently) many of you had no problem with Jews when we’re victims, only when we fight back. This Jew fights back.

The time for niceties is over. AASECT: your silence is shameful. Moral equivalence statements are shameful. And to the sexuality education listserves and social media accounts: time to take a good look in the mirror. You might not like what you see.

As for me, I look into the mirror daily and see the generations who came before me perched on my shoulders. But I don’t need to see them because I carry generational trauma in my DNA. I know what I fight for. And I know that my work is just.

Oh, I just received an email asking me to renew my AASECT membership. Here’s my answer: NO.

Sincerely,

Logan Levkoff, Ph.D.

Proud Zionist Sexuality Educator