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This Passover, call me a Zionist —and I’ll wear it as a badge of honor

Zionism has become a scarlet letter — a catch-all accusation hurled at protests, in classrooms and online to discredit rather than describe.

There’s no better time than this week to reflect on why.

During Passover, we celebrate Jews’ liberation from hundreds of years of enslavement in Egypt, followed by 40 years wandering in the desert.

That’s when the Jewish tribes adopted a political structure and received religious laws — acting as a nation even before they entered the Promised Land, today’s Israel.

It’s been the Jews’ ancestral home ever since, with roots going back more than 3,000 years, sustained by generations of Jewish life and pilgrimages to the Temple, the holiest site for Jews across the globe.

Celebrating Passover is an early expression of the Jewish attachment to a homeland that Zionism later formalized.

Julie Menin’s solid plan to fight mushrooming Jew-hate in New York

Campaigning Dems across the country are rejecting Israel to stand out from the progressive pack

Ex-student body president sues California college over alleged antisemitism

But in recent years the word has been transformed — bastardized into something hateful or violent.

Today, the label “Zionist” comes with a price.

And as a civil-rights advocate who works to combat antisemitism and protect the rights of Jewish people, I’ve been repeatedly asked whether I wish to deny that I am........

© New York Post