“I’ve Been Propagandized”: Granddaughter Of A Holocaust Survivor Says College Changed Her View Of Israel

Katherine Wela Bogen, who says she was raised in a Zionist household and is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, told viewers on TikTok that leaving her Chabad community to attend college led her to "unlearn Zionism." She says archival photographs and university coursework gave her a very different view of the region's history than the narrative she grew up with.

A Personal Reckoning

Bogen opened her video with a New Year greeting and then explained how her education shifted her perspective.

Chag Sameach! Happy New Year!

I am continuing to be a hot Jewish girl who supports Palestine, who was raised in a Zionist household by the son of a Holocaust survivor and my grandfather, who was a Holocaust survivor and still unlearned Zionism.

Archival Images and Coursework

She said that to access the kinds of textbooks and archival photographs that challenged her upbringing, she had to leave her hometown and religious community. Seeing images of thriving Palestinian towns before 1948, Bogen says, directly contradicted lessons she had been taught as a child—such as the claim that Israel was a "land without a people for a people without a land."

I had to see the pictures to realize, oh, oh, I've been propagandized much of my life.

Bogen described taking political science and history classes that covered Middle East politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestinian indigeneity. She says those courses placed the creation of Israel in a broader colonial and imperial context, linking European competition in Africa and the Levant to developments in Palestine.

Context of Postwar Resettlement

In her video, Bogen recalled the aftermath of World War II and the difficulty of resettling Jewish refugees. She argued that Western powers, constrained by their own politics and prejudices, played a central role in decisions about where refugees would be settled.

And how at the end of World War II, there were 100,000 Jewish refugees to be resettled somewhere, and the U.S., Britain, France and others did not want them.

Bogen characterized the outcome as a Western-backed project that led to the displacement of indigenous Palestinian communities: in her words, a military and colonial campaign that dispossessed people who were already living there.

Closing

She concluded by summarizing that her college studies and exposure to archival evidence caused her to rethink much of what she had been taught: "I learned that in college." The TikTok clip ties together family history, academic study and a personal shift in political outlook.