Pride, Zionism, and the Art of Code Switching
Posted on 06/19/2026 @ 06:30 AM
28th Tel Aviv-Yafo Pride Parade - June 12, 2026, Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo courtesy of IGY - ארגון נוער גאה - איגי (Facebook)
By Mark Kravitz, CAJE Board Chair
A number of years ago, after one of my first major Jewish speeches, a close friend walked up to me with a grin and said, "Good code switching."
I laughed, thanked her, and immediately asked what she meant.
She laughed even harder.
At the time, I wasn't entirely sure I knew what the term meant.
She explained that I had spent years moving between different worlds: Jewish, professional, civic, and LGBTQ+, and had become adept at adjusting my language, references, and presentation depending on the audience.
Without realizing it, I had become fluent in multiple cultural dialects.
In other words, I had learned how to code switch.
For many LGBTQ+ people of my generation, it wasn't simply a social skill.
It was often a survival skill.
Long before I knew the phrase, I knew the feeling of walking into a room and quickly calculating how much of myself to reveal, what to say, what not to say, and whether the room felt safe enough for honesty.
Every June, America turns rainbow-colored. Banks celebrate Pride Month.
Sports teams celebrate Pride Month. Corporations celebrate Pride Month. At this point, I'm half expecting my dentist to offer rainbow fluoride treatments and my accountant to file my taxes in glitter.
Whatever one's politics, the LGBTQ+ movement accomplished something extraordinary and taught America something profound.
People who hide themselves never truly join a community. They merely rent space in it.
As a gay man, I have always found the story of the word “queer” fascinating. For many people of my generation, it wasn't an empowering word. It was a slur.
When younger activists began reclaiming it, I thought they were crazy. Then I thought they were brave. Eventually I realized they were probably right.
What those activists understood was that the battle was never really about a word. It was about who gets to define an identity.
Once you allow your opponents to define the language, you eventually allow them to define the people as well.
Communities become stronger when they decide to define themselves rather than allow others to define them.
Looking back, I realize that part of what impressed me about the LGBTQ+ movement was its refusal to surrender its vocabulary.
Instead of running away from words that had been distorted or weaponized, many activists chose to reclaim them.
It took me longer than it should have to realize how relevant that lesson was to my Jewish identity.
Since October 7, conversations about Jewish pride seem to be everywhere.
At the same time, I have noticed something else. The word Zionist seems to be quietly disappearing from certain conversations.
Increasingly, the word itself seems to make people nervous.
The first time I caught myself hesitating before calling myself a Zionist, I was annoyed with myself.
The irony was impossible to miss.
As a gay man, I had spent years admiring a movement that taught people not to surrender their identities simply because others misunderstood them.
Yet, here I was wondering whether I should distance myself from one of the defining words of modern Jewish identity because other people had distorted its meaning.
The hesitation itself felt absurd.
I have spent years visiting Israel, supporting Israel, fundraising for Israel, advocating for Israel education, and discussing Israel with the enthusiasm of someone who comes from a people that turned disagreement into a sacred art form.
As Jews, we have tried almost everything.
We changed our names, our languages, our neighborhoods, and our accents. If someone had convinced us that kale could eliminate antisemitism, Jewish mothers would have been serving kale kugel by 1937.
And yet somehow people still managed to find the Jews.
That is one of the reasons Zionism mattered- because Jews needed agency.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once observed that Jews became “the people who refused to be defined by the way others saw them.”
I have always loved that idea because it captures something deeply Jewish.
Judaism's answer has always been remarkably consistent: thank you for your input, but we will decide that for ourselves.
In many ways, that is exactly what the LGBTQ+ movement understood as well.
October 7 did not make me more Zionist. It reminded me why I was a Zionist in the first place, which I suspect was not the takeaway Hamas was hoping for.
Sometimes I think about my grandparents. I think about generations of Jews who prayed for Jerusalem without any realistic expectation that they would ever see it.
And then what was once a dream became a reality so familiar that it can sometimes feel inevitable. Of course, there was nothing inevitable about it.
It strikes me as more than a little ironic that a generation taught by the LGBTQ+ movement to embrace identity is now debating whether Jews should distance themselves from one of the defining words of modern Jewish identity.
I still code switch. So do you. So does everyone.
The ability to move comfortably between different worlds is not weakness. It is a skill.
The challenge comes when adaptation slowly becomes disappearance and we begin editing ourselves so thoroughly that we forget what we were trying to preserve in the first place.
The goal was never to walk into every room expecting unanimous approval.
The goal was to walk into every room without feeling obligated to hide.
That lesson resonates with me not only as a gay man, but as a Jew.
Because if there is one thing Jewish history teaches, it is that shrinking ourselves has never made us safer. It has only made us smaller.
My grandparents did not dream of a Jewish homeland so that their grandchildren could become uncomfortable saying the word Zionist.
Generations of Jews prayed facing Jerusalem, crossed oceans, survived pogroms, survived concentration camps, built a state, defended a state, and sacrificed for a state.
They did not do all of that so we would agree on every Israeli policy. Jews have never agreed on everything. We can barely agree on where to have dinner.
They did it so that Jews would have the freedom to stand openly and unapologetically as Jews.
Our generation has a different responsibility.
There is a difference between arguing about Zionism and becoming afraid of the word itself.
That is why I believe our generation has a responsibility to stop whispering Zion.
Jews have spent thousands of years praying aloud for Jerusalem. Whispering was never our tradition.
Harvey Milk said that hope will never be silent. Jewish history suggests something similar.
One generation spent centuries praying for Zion. Another generation somehow managed to build it. Our generation inherited something our ancestors could barely imagine and now has the responsibility to sustain it.
We can debate policies, governments, elections, and politicians for generations to come. What should never be up for debate is whether Jews have the right to stand proudly in our own story.
I am a proud gay man.
I am a proud Jew.
And I am a proud Zionist.
No code switching required.
