This article was produced as part of the New York Jewish Week’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around New York City to report on issues that affect their lives.

Raised in a family of liberal Democrats, I once considered myself an activist. I still remember the pride I felt when my parents took me to my first protest when I was 10: the 2018 March for Our Lives gun control demonstration in New York City.

Since then, I’ve supported or marched for a range of progressive causes, including LGBTQ rights, abortion access and climate action. But things changed when the war between Israel and Hamas began. I found it disheartening to watch as an increasing number of left-leaning activists — such as Angela Davis and Judith Butler — incorporated anti-Zionist rhetoric into their work. As a result, I started declining my parents’ invitations to protests, worried that I would be confronted with people calling for Israel’s destruction.

My parents’ experience at an April Hands Off! rally in Bryant Park confirmed that fear: They encountered people wearing shirts reading “Disarm Israel” and holding signs that said “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — which many Jews, including myself, interpret as a call for Israel’s destruction. My parents felt deeply uncomfortable marching near these protesters, as they did not want to appear to endorse their anti-Israel views.

In recent years, anti-Zionism has become a trend that’s extended beyond activist groups and into mainstream political circles within the Democratic Party. My own politics haven’t changed — I still support Democratic candidates and their policies. But the growing acceptance of anti-Zionism within the left flank of the........

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