In this op-ed, Hannah Karp, a 19-year-old Smith College student and member of IfNotNow, an organization that says they "seek to end American Jewish support for the occupation," explains a moral crisis they are facing as a member of the Jewish community concerning Palestinian rights.

My favorite part of Hebrew school was when we talked about tikkun olam, or repairing the world. Walking into my synagogue, it was always at the tip of my tongue. My favorite day of the year was Mitzvah Day (“mitzvah” means commandment, or more colloquially, good deed). I would knit hats for needy children, paint flowerpots for cancer patients, and stack the shelves of our local food pantry. At the age of eight, I decided I wanted to start my own initiative and collected toiletries for the battered and homeless women at the Rosie’s Place shelter in Boston. Every year I would stand at my table, with my huge Rosie’s Place sign behind me, and then my parents and I would drive into the city to deliver the donations personally. For me, this is what it meant to be Jewish: doing our part to heal the world.

But for the adults in my life, to be Jewish in America also meant supporting Israel unquestioningly and uncritically. It came into my classes as Zionist leaders of yore were celebrated and “drilled into my brain,” in the words of my Hebrew-school teacher. I was assigned project after project on Israeli cities and technological advancements, and we celebrated Israel Day with Dead Sea mud and falafel.

Once I got to college, I realized certain information had been omitted. Exposed to new information from peers and academic studies, I started to question all the narratives I had been fed in my Hebrew-school bubble and learn about the horrific truths of life under occupation for Palestinian people. I began to see a reality in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship that went against Jewish values of justice and liberation I had been taught: the one where the Israeli government robs Palestinians of some of their most basic human rights. I felt betrayed by the community I loved and trusted the most.

My Jewish leaders had told me that Israel was the size of New Jersey and you could float in the Dead Sea, but not that millions of Palestinians were under military occupation by one of the most advanced military forces in the world. They didn’t tell me about the checkpoints and arrests, or the house demolitions that punish families for the crimes of relatives, or the electricity and water shortages in Gaza courtesy of Israeli bombs, which come in retaliation to rocket attacks but often end up causing a disproportionate amount of destruction and casualties.

As I was uncovering all the violence and what many deem human-rights abuses that had been hidden from me for so long, I had to make a choice that many young Jewish people are making every day right now: Do we let the pain and suffering of Palestinians continue in our name, or do we fight to end our community’s support for the occupation, standing by our values of freedom and dignity for all?

When I heard about the United States’ decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would erode the possibility for Palestinians and Israelis alike to have self-determination over the holy land and live in harmony, I was terrified. But not because President Donald Trump made a decision that broke with years of precedent and undermined the potential for humanity, peace, and self-determination in the region.