During Veida 5780, after a long-fought verbal battle with my many contenders - ok, maybe it was only me running - I was voted in as Editor for the Young Zionist. An odd achievement considering a year ago I probably would not have even thought of this role as a possibility. In fact, a lot has changed in the past year. I was never really a writer, never felt that associated with expressing opinions through the form of long passages of text. But alas, now I do. So, what happened?
Well, the answer is fairly simple. Summer 2019, I get a text from Joel (the previous editor) asking if I wanted to write for the printed issue of the Young Zionist. With a bit of persuading from some more FZYniks, I wrote an article. It wasn’t an overly complicated article, on the topic of voice, as was the theme. I enjoyed writing it, and my friends said they enjoyed reading it. Over the next few months I wrote a couple more articles in which I ditched the semi-serious tone of my first article to go with a more comfortable approach for me: satire. During this time, Joel asked if I wanted to be comment section editor, I accepted, and a few months later here I am as Editor.
There’s so much I can say about how the Young Zionist has affected me. I can talk about my improvement in writing, my confidence and so on, but if there’s one point I want to highlight it’s the accessibility to a platform. I had a place to share my work; something I was proud of could be revealed to the world. With the help of Joel, I had a platform to improve and for me, that’s what the Young Zionist was: an opportunity to become the best I could be.
And hopefully this is what the Young Zionist can become to you. If there’s anything I know for sure, it’s that people in FZY are interesting people, and this does include you. In February, while at Veida, there were several open spaces and round tables, and at each one I heard so many different people give so many interesting opinions, each of which could definitely be written down in the form of an article. You have an ability to write and I, for one, would love to see it.
In my first article, I ended with the words “your voice is a superpower: use it.” This applies to your words too. I can’t wait to read all your articles.
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