Don’t Give Up on Israel—Argue With It

American Jews are beginning to turn their backs on Israel, and if that continues, we must ask what will remain of Jewish peoplehood when its two largest communities no longer see themselves as part of the same story.

A while ago, I read that NAZA, a documentary by Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, had won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Were you wondering what “NAZA” means? It is not actually a Hebrew word. It is an acronym for nezek agavi: collateral damage.

So, for simplicity, let us call the movie CD.

CD was made by two Israelis and is based on interviews with 24 people presented as Israeli military and intelligence personnel. It alleges that Israel’s use of AI-assisted targeting systems in Gaza contributed to civilian deaths on an enormous scale. The IDF rejects those allegations, disputes the reliability of anonymous testimony and insists that decisions to approve strikes are made by human personnel, not artificial intelligence.

These are grave claims and grave denials. They deserve scrutiny.

But that was not the conversation Israel chose to have.

The film premiered in Venice, where it reportedly received a record 25-minute standing ovation. Almost immediately, the Israeli conversation moved past the inconvenient intermediate step of watching it.

Culture Minister Miki Zohar called the film “vile,” described its creation as treason and promised to seek the revocation of the filmmakers’ citizenship—something he does not have the unilateral authority to do.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir called the film a “blood libel” and a “deliberate distortion of reality.” He ordered an examination of possible legal action against those involved and an investigation into whether classified material had been leaked.

Zamir acknowledged that he had not watched the film, did not know whom the directors had interviewed and had not been presented with the underlying claims. The IDF spokesperson likewise said the military had seen only excerpts and requested the full documentary so it could respond substantively.

That was an entirely reasonable request. It was also a little late for reason. The verdict had already been announced.

Israel, as we know, is a tranquil and understated country. There is rarely enough commotion to fill its hourly news broadcasts. So it was perfectly natural that the story kept returning: the award, the ovation, the condemnations and the latest person to offer an opinion about a film almost nobody participating in the discussion had seen.

The online comments offered a compressed portrait of the country.

First came accusations of treason, wishes for divine punishment and predictions of what awaited the filmmakers in this world and the next. Then someone committed the radical act of suggesting that people watch the film before deciding what they thought of it.

He, too, was promptly sent to hell.

Others defended the army, attacked the government, questioned the filmmakers, questioned the war and questioned one another’s right to question anything.

And so it went: fury answering fury, certainty answering certainty.

But beneath the ugliness was something important. Anyone reading those comments could see that Israel is not one opinion. It is a conflicted society being pulled in multiple directions by people with profoundly different ideas about security, democracy, morality and Jewish sovereignty.

The filmmakers are Israeli. The people condemning them are Israeli. So are those defending their right to make the film. So are the reservists, bereaved families, hostage advocates, peace activists, religious Zionists, Palestinian citizens, settlers, protesters and ordinary families trying to hold the country together.

They are all Israelis. They are all Israel.

Yet outside the country, Israel is increasingly judged as though it has only one face and speaks with only one voice: the voice of its government.

Governments represent countries, and Israel’s government bears responsibility for its decisions. Recognizing the complexity of Israeli society does not excuse the conduct of those in power. But a government is not the totality of a society. To erase the distinctions within Israel is to erase the Israelis struggling over what their country should become.

Israelis have every right to doubt the film’s claims, challenge its evidence and reject its conclusions. Yet the public discussion was not primarily about the evidence, the operation of targeting systems or the morality of warfare.

It was about punishment.

Should the filmmakers lose their citizenship? Should they face legal action? Should their sources be investigated? Should films like theirs be denied public funding?

A democracy does not prove its strength by protecting speech that flatters it. It proves its strength by tolerating speech that embarrasses and infuriates it. The answer to disputed evidence is better evidence. The answer to an accusation is an investigation and a rebuttal. The answer to a film is not denaturalization.

Israel has been imploding in five-minute intervals for years. The world ends; the news alert sounds; another world begins.

First came the judicial overhaul, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to defend the country’s democratic institutions. Then came October 7: a pogrom, a massacre and a national catastrophe. It shattered families and tore through the civil society that had been holding the country together by its teeth.

The war that followed deepened Israel’s internal divisions and transformed how it is seen abroad.

For many American Jews, especially younger ones, the accumulated weight has become unbearable. They see the devastation in Gaza. They hear Israeli ministers use language they find indefensible. In classrooms and workplaces, Israel has become not a source of Jewish connection but a moral indictment they are expected to answer.

Some have created distance. Others have stopped talking about Israel. Still others no longer see a place for it in their Jewish identity.

Recent polling points to a real generational divide. Younger American Jews are less likely than their parents and grandparents to consider support for Israel central to their Jewish lives. They are more critical of its government and less willing to relate to Israel through the institutions and language of previous generations.

We must take this seriously without treating it as inevitable—or forcing young Jews into a false choice: defend everything Israel does or turn their backs on it entirely.

Israel is not one minister, prime minister, coalition or military campaign. It is also the people marching for democracy, the families demanding accountability, the reservists asking difficult questions, the journalists uncovering uncomfortable facts and the citizens fighting for another political and moral future.

Turning away from Israel means turning away from them, too.

This does not mean American Jews should defend the indefensible, remain silent about Palestinian suffering or treat every criticism as antisemitism. It means refusing to surrender Israel to its most extreme voices. It means understanding engagement not as endorsement, but as responsibility.

The greatest danger is not that young American Jews will criticize Israel. Criticism can express connection. The danger is that they will cease to care enough to criticize.

The young Jew arguing with Israel is still in a relationship with Israel. The young Jew who has fallen silent may already be leaving.

Yesterday was the right time to begin a genuine conversation between Israel and the Jewish diaspora. Today, we are already late.

That conversation cannot be another public-relations campaign in which Israeli officials explain while diaspora Jews listen, donate and defend. It must be open enough to include Gaza, the occupation, the hostages, October 7, antisemitism, democracy, grief and the future of Zionism.

Israelis must listen to how their country’s actions affect Jewish life abroad. American Jews must recognize the complexity of Israeli society instead of reducing millions of people to the government acting in their name.

Neither community needs the other to be silent. Both need the other to be brave.

Connecting the next generation of Jews to Israel may be the most important task facing Jewish peoplehood today. That connection will not be preserved through guilt, enforced loyalty or demands for automatic defense. It must be built through education, Hebrew, culture, history, encounters with Israelis and the freedom to argue without being exiled from the Jewish conversation.

American Jews should not turn their backs on Israel. They should turn toward it—clear-eyed, morally serious and prepared to ask difficult questions.

Jewish peoplehood has never depended on unanimity. Jews have argued across countries, languages and centuries. Argument is not a failure of Jewish unity. It is one of the ways Jewish unity survives.

The controversy over NAZA could have begun with a screening, followed by the evidence, rebuttals, arguments and moral reckoning.

Instead, Israeli officials rushed to condemnation before the film had even been seen.

American Jews should not respond to Israel’s refusal to listen by walking away from the relationship. And those responsible for Jewish life must not stand by while a generation quietly leaves.

This is a call to every Jewish educator, rabbi, funder, philanthropist, communal leader and supporter of Israel: Reconnecting the Jews who are turning away is our greatest calling now.

Educators must teach an Israel complex enough to be real—neither a flawless national myth nor a country defined only by its worst decisions. Funders must invest in sustained relationships, serious learning, Hebrew, travel and spaces for honest disagreement, not merely in campaigns intended to produce more effective defenders.

Jewish institutions must make room for anger, doubt and moral discomfort without treating them as disloyalty. We must stop asking young Jews to choose between their conscience and their connection to Israel. If we force that choice, many will choose their conscience—and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Those turning away are not necessarily lost. Many believe there is no honest place for them inside the relationship. Our task is not to shame them back into the room. It is to build a room worthy of their return.

The next generation is watching—not only what Israel does, but whether the Jewish world permits an honest conversation about it. If we want that generation to remain connected to Israel and to Jewish peoplehood, we must offer something more meaningful than silence on one side and abandonment on the other.

Jewish peoplehood cannot survive if Israel and the next generation of Jews give up on one another.

We must give them the courage—and a reason—to remain in the conversation.

The work should have begun yesterday. For the sake of Israel, the next Jewish generation and Jewish peoplehood itself, it must begin now.