Thank you so much for reading and commenting! Yes, I've definitely had some painful conversations with Jewish people who conflate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism; unfortunately the most notable of those that comes to mind is with my grandma. The thing is, the more (often infuriating) conversations I have about this topic especially with people in older generations, the more clearly I can see the trauma pouring through. So much of her family was killed in the Holocaust and I think she and many people like her still see any criticism whatsoever of Israel (including its government) as a threat to a perceived home and safe haven for Jews. It's certainly not rational, but trauma reactions rarely are. And as we know through the study of epigenetics, much of this trauma gets passed along. For me, the big question these days is increasingly just about how to hold space and compassion for trauma while also maintaining accountability and holding onto a grip of a more objective and fair reality (if such a thing exists! Oy vey!).