01
Understand before you explain
Know the history, the geography and the arguments well enough to answer the question actually being asked — not the one you prepared for. Understanding is also what lets you say, honestly, what is hard.
For the pro-Israel community
Israel is worth explaining. Start by listening.
Practical guidance for talking about Israel with the people in your life — at the dinner table, at work, across the fence, with your own kids — without losing the argument or the relationship.
The approach
A relationship problem as much as a messaging problem
Most of us were handed talking points. Few of us were taught how to have the conversation. This site draws on decades of relationship education — the skills that help couples and families stay connected through hard disagreements — and applies them to the hardest conversation many of us are having right now.
02
Connect before you correct
When a conversation becomes a contest over who is right, connection usually loses. Reflect back what you heard before you respond. Empathy does not require agreement; it is what makes disagreement survivable.
03
Say what is true, including what is hard
Credibility comes from congruence: what you say matches what you believe and what the other person can see. Acknowledging Palestinian suffering, Israeli failures or your own uncertainty does not weaken the case for Israel. It is what lets the case be heard.
04
Leave the door open
One conversation rarely changes a mind. A relationship that survives the conversation changes many. Aim for the person to want to talk with you again.
From the essays
“People rarely change how they feel because someone argues harder. They change when they feel heard, when trust is rebuilt, and when the story they are being told connects with something they recognize as human.”Seth Eisenberg, Israel's Global Image Crisis is Also a Relationship Crisis, The Times of Israel
Conversation guides
Who are you talking to?
Each guide names what is really being asked, offers opening lines, and shows what to say instead of what we usually say.
All conversation guides →
Family
Around the family table
The cousin who is furious at Israel. The parent who is frightened for you. The sibling who has stopped talking about it at all. How to keep the table whole.
Read the guide → FriendsThe friend who has seen things online
They are not lying and neither are you. How to talk about what each of you has seen without turning the friendship into a fact-check.
Read the guide → WorkThe colleague
Boundaries, professionalism and the moments when silence is not an option.
Read → NeighborsThe neighbor who asks
Someone with no stake in the fight genuinely wants to understand. Don't waste it.
Read → ParentingYour teenager or student
Raising kids grounded in worth rather than wound, in a time that presses toward fear.
Read →Hard questions
The questions you will actually be asked
What each question is really asking, what to acknowledge, what to say, and where legitimate criticism ends.
All questions →
01“Isn't criticizing Israel antisemitic?”
02“Why do American Jews care so much about Israel?”
03“Isn't what happened in Gaza a genocide?”
04“What about the occupation and the settlements?”
05“Why can't there just be peace?”
06“Do you support everything Netanyahu does?”
07“Why should America keep supporting Israel?”
08“Isn't Zionism colonialism?”
Today in the Israeli press
Know what Israelis are reading before you talk about it
The latest from The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Ynetnews, Israel Hayom, Maariv and JTA. Refreshed through the day.
Essays
Recent writing at The Times of Israel
Israel's Global Image Crisis is Also a Relationship Crisis
People rarely change how they feel because someone argues harder. They change when they feel heard, when trust is rebuilt, and when the story connects with something they recognize as human.
Read at The Times of IsraelAmerican Jewish Parents, Don't Raise Frightened Jews
Name the fear without making it the identity. Tell the whole story of Jewish history, not only the chapters of persecution.
Adam Brody, Compassion Does Not Require Joining This Chorus
An open letter challenging the idea that using the word “genocide” has become a prerequisite for caring about Palestinians.
On Tisha B'Av, Let the Shared Home Survive the Argument
Jewish memory does not ask us to erase disagreement. It warns us not to destroy the bonds that allow us to survive it.
About
Seth Eisenberg, Editor
Seth Eisenberg has spent his career at the intersection of Jewish life and relationship education, working throughout the Jewish community and with individuals, couples and families to strengthen the emotional skills that sustain connection across difference and adversity.
He writes for The Times of Israel about emotional literacy, trauma, resilience, parenting, and what it means to raise the next generation grounded in worth rather than wound — and about how those same dynamics of trust, broken agreements and accountability play out between nations.
Beyond the conversation
Write the letter. Call the office. Find your people.
Private conversations change minds one at a time. Letters to the editor and calls to Congress change what the people in power think the public believes. Both matter.