The Blogs: A Critical Conversation

Israeli Jew: How can you criticize Israel?

American Jew: How can you not criticize Israel?

Israeli: You’re an American Jew who doesn’t live here.

American: You’re an Israeli Jew who doesn’t live here.

Israeli: You aren’t sitting in a safe room waiting for the bombs to stop falling or hearing day after day the names of young IDF soldiers who will never come home again.

American: You don’t have protestors telling you to go back to Poland.

Israeli: You aren’t getting on a bus wondering if the next passenger to step down the aisle is a terrorist with a bomb.

American: You aren’t riding on a NYC subway while pro-Palestinian protestors shout “Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist,” or getting firebombed in Boulder, CO, or being shot to death if you work for the Israel embassy in DC.

Israeli: You have no connection to the land except for your prayers—and your prayers won’t help anyone until you see the world from our perspective.

American: You have no connection to us except for your prayers—and your prayers won’t bring us any closer together until you see the world from our perspective.

Israeli: You send your dollars as if we’re just another charity.

American: You accept our dollars as if you’re just another charity.

Israeli: You want peace but don’t serve in the IDF to fight for peace.

American: You want peace but won’t accept our suggestions for how to make peace, just the weapons and money we send you to defend yourself.

Israeli: You live in a world without fear while fear is our companion 24/7.

American: You are not the only one living in fear.

Israeli: You don’t understand the mindset of the Palestinians. You think they want peace as much as we do when really all they want is to return to the land they lost in ’48 and for us to leave.

American: You don’t understand the mindset of the Palestinians. You think they don’t want peace as much as we do.

Israeli: You think peace will come with a two-state solution but for them it will only come when we are gone and they have one state for themselves.

American: You think peace will never come so why bother trying to seek it.

Israeli: You are naive, innocent; we are realistic, battle-tested.

American: You are cynical, myopic; we are hopeful, optimistic.

Israeli: We live in two different worlds—you in a world where you have to hide your Jewishness while we live as Jews, openly and without apology, under threat of extermination.

American: We live in two different worlds—you in a world where you are constantly worried about another Holocaust, while we live in a world where we have the freedom to choose to be Jewish or not.

Israeli: We have only our tiny land—you have an enormous country.

American: We have a large land, true, even if it feels lately like we’re unwanted guests here.

Israeli: For some Israel is like a ghetto that the world put us in, for others it’s our paradise, a land of milk and honey promised to us centuries ago.

American: For some Jews Israel is a destination, a holy place to visit, for others a vacation spot, but also a source of inspiration for when we need to be inspired in our life as Jews.

Israeli: For some it’s like a prison with no way out, the borders are closed.

American: For some, it’s a haven, a refuge, a homeland.

Israeli: Who are we? Who are you?

American: Who are we? Who are you?

Israeli: What do we have in common?

American: What makes us different?

Israeli: Are we part of the same people?

American: Are we still one people?

Israeli: Are we tribes still bickering centuries later with one another?

American: Are we still uncertain about our future, our purpose here on earth, our goals as Jews, as human beings?

Israeli: Both of us want peace but we have different ideas about how to achieve it.

American: Maybe God is listening to our prayers, watching over us, and maybe he’s not.