Supporting Zionism does not help Jews. Nobody is going to send a Mossad agent or the IDF overseas to help Jews who’ve received death threats or physical harm. Not only that, but the neocolony in the Middle East may well be the unsafest place to be a Jew today. How, one might ask, can somebody support Jews? I have a few suggestions:

Learn

Learn about Judaism. If you come from a predominantly Christian nation, you may be tempted to think that Judaism is simply Christianity without the Nazarene messiah, but that is an oversimplification. For many Jews, Judaism is primarily about doing things: praying daily, keeping the Sabbath, studying the Torah, adhering to the kosher diet, and more.

Some Judaists are more lax about these actions than others. In Europe, North America, and Oceania there are three denominations of Judaism, from least lax to most lax: Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. Concerning Orthodox Judaists, there is an excellent series of videos on the Hasidim that you can watch here. In Afrasia, Judaists do not divide their faith like this.

Learn about Jewish history. The ancient Jews consisted of Pharisees (the ancestors of modern Judaists), the Sadducees, and the Essenes. The Hebrew Bible (often called the ‘Old Testament’, though Judaists consider that impolite) can be considered the most logical place to start regarding ancient Jewish history, but you need not take every claim at face value. For more recent scholarly consensus, you can consult a book like Atlas of Jewish History. For centuries, Jews lived in a spot in the Middle East called the Kingdom of Israel, which constantly fell under occupation from the surrounding empires, resulting in Jews struggling to make sense of their fate.

Personally speaking, one history that I found especially interesting and helpful was R.G. Price’s The Gospel of Mark as Reaction and Allegory, which goes into ancient Jewish history and culture to determine the author’s likeliest motive for writing the Gospel of Mark. Judaists have a long tradition of self‐blame which persists to this very day, and I think that this was a custom that Mark’s author, who was probably a Jew, inherited.

Learn about Jewish customs. Jews have their own calendar, they have their own languages (most famously Yiddish or Hebrew, but also many others), they have their own holidays, and other conventions. You may have noticed elsewhere that I tend to say ‘Jewish cultures’ rather than merely ‘Jewish culture’, and that’s because there are many types of Jews—Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Judeo‐Arabs, &c.—who have their own customs. The number of customs to learn may be intimidating, but learning the ones of the Jews closest to you should suffice.

Respect

While this sounds obvious, what may seem respectful to us can feel disrespectful to others. I should know. Rather than giving you some terse advice like ‘don’t be antisemitic’ (I hope that I don’t need to tell you that one), here is some advice that is more specific:

Avoid cultural appropriation. This may seem tricky given how broadly the phenomenon is interpreted, but if dozens of Jews tell you something is cultural appropriation, then it is. One example of this would be Christianized Seder meals: Christians attempting to hold their own Passover meals because of Christianity’s Abrahamic origins. If you ask Judaists theirselves what they think of this, I predict that 90% of them will find these celebrations questionable at best and deeply offensive at worst. That is certainly not to say that Christians (or anybody else for that matter) cannot attend Jews’ Passover meals, but attempting to hold your own (especially without Jewish supervision) is not the way to do it.

If you are religious, do not proselytize. Educating others about your beliefs is fine if they explicitly ask for it, but if I were still a Christian, I would prefer to believe that the same god who endowed me with reason would not subject peaceful people to everlasting punishment simply for turning down my savior’s offer (which might have been less exclusive than it looked). Likewise, asking Judaists what they think of J.C. would be like asking Christians what they think of Muhammad, and if you tell Judaists that J.C. was/is Jewish, the politest response that you’ll get is a simple ‘good for him’. If I were Christian again, I would prefer to leave the unbeliefs of others in G‐d’s hands.

I did not write this simply to address Christians, though. Here is some more general advice: if you are around people whom you either don’t or barely know, be careful with your sense of humor. I once attempted to amuse a Jewish acquaintance by quoting an antisemite who said ‘For a Jew, nothing is more offensive than the truth’ and then reading off a list of mundane facts to him, like a square has four angles and water boils at 212℉. While others saw what I was doing, he didn’t and since I was (mostly) a stranger to him he misinterpreted my joke and took offence. Fortunately for me, he was forgiving when I explained to him what I was doing. Others may not be. Please don’t make the same mistake that I did.

Respect Jewish customs. If Judaists do not want to work on Saturdays, don’t pressure or force them to do so anyway; many Judaists would rather give up their jobs, even the most comfortable, than violate the Sabbath. If you would like to offer Judaists food, familiarize yourself with kosher and make sure that it qualifies.

This is not to say that you must approve of every Jewish custom. Many of us find, for example, circumcision extremely questionable. The good news is that many Judaists do, too. My recommendation is that such issues should preferably be left to other Judaists to handle, and not to us. Traditional Judaists are less likely to value the opinions of outsiders, especially if they don’t know them.

Good Jewish causes that you can support include Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and Never Again Action. They’ll appreciate donations as little as one dollar. If you can volunteer for them, that is even better. Research organizations and movements before you decide to contribute to them. Certain ones like the ADL, even if they have good intentions, tend to cause more harm than good and should be ignored.

Lastly, don’t push things too much in the other direction when you meet Jews. In other words, don’t fetishize them. While there are no doubt some Jews who find celebrity treatment flattering (at first), most of them would find a stranger’s obsession with them alienating or outright disturbing, so it is best not to act too excited. Act natural.