Writing on Jewish life, Israel, relationships and resilience
Seth Eisenberg writes regularly for The Times of Israel. The essays below are grouped by theme so you can find the one that fits the conversation you're about to have. Every link opens the full essay at The Times of Israel.
Making Israel's case
How Israel is heard in America and the West, and what a more honest, more relational case would sound like.
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.
How Israel Can Make Its Case to a Skeptical America
The old case, the new audience: here is what you have seen, here is what we owe, here is why the alliance still matters, and here is the future we are prepared to build.
Watching Netanyahu Make the Case — to an America That No Longer Exists
New polling shows the firewall Israel built on the American right is quietly cracking.
A Model Ally Still Needs a Moral Story
Strategic cooperation is real and historic. It is not, by itself, a reason people will keep caring.
When Allies Disagree: The Conversation Israel and America Still Need
America has a right to restrain Israel when Israeli actions affect American interests. Israel has a right to speak for itself. Both can be true.
What JD Vance Gets Wrong About Israel
Israel is deeply grateful for American support. But support does not erase history, sovereignty, or Israel's right to speak for itself.
Jewish Power Is Not a Scandal
We learned from the St. Louis that goodwill is not a policy. We learned from the Holocaust that silence is not neutrality.
A Response to Nick Fuentes's Claims About Jews and Israel
Answering conspiracy with evidence, and contempt with clarity.
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.
Separation Is Not Justice
A boycott cannot build coexistence. Ed Miliband's speech deserved a serious answer; his policy deserves a firm rejection.
At home and in community
Parenting, partnership and Jewish communal life since October 7.
American 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.
When Couples Are Arguing With History
Jewish and interfaith couples are fighting about schools, safety and whether to stay. The arguments are really conversations with the past.
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.
Peace Begins Within: Healing Ourselves and Each Other
Peace within means taking responsibility for our inner emotional lives, so we can extend compassion to others.
Peace preparation
An ongoing series on the emotional, relational and narrative work that political agreements cannot do on their own.
The Emotional Work Peace Agreements Cannot Do
Genuine repair requires honest acknowledgment, real accountability, and a shared commitment to a future worth choosing over a past worth avenging.
The Politics of Making Others Weep
Grief and grievance are not the same. A peace agreement cannot, by itself, transform the emotions of parents who have buried children.
The Grievance Economy
How modern media and algorithms turn grievance into a system, and what “media preparation” would mean as a pillar of any future peace.
Diplomats Can Sign a Ceasefire. Relationships Keep the Peace.
The capacities that help couples and families survive conflict are also capacities societies need when peace is fragile.
Trapped in the Stories of Palestine
What healing requires when a people's story has been organized around a wound.
The Apology Israel Still Needs
A true public apology names the harm, accepts responsibility proportionate to power, and changes behavior.
Iran, negotiation and leadership
Lessons from the counseling room applied to the negotiating table.
We Keep Negotiating With an Iran That Doesn't Exist
Nine lessons the West still hasn't learned about the table in Tehran. When an adversary can make you angry, it can make you hurry.
Pressure Until the Guns Stop
Diplomacy with Iran can produce signatures. The question is whether the men with the guns are ever forced to honor them.
Netanyahu, Trump, and the Shadow of Munich
The lesson of Munich is not that every negotiation is appeasement. It is that concessions read as weakness can make postponed peace catastrophic.
Marriage Counseling to Military Strategy: Israel Needs to Say 'When,' Not 'No'
Replacing “no” with “when” signals strength without surrender and deterrence without nihilism.
The Meeting Neither Trump Nor Netanyahu Can Afford to Lose
Before Netanyahu says a word at the White House, Trump will already know the argument.
Netanyahu and Trump: The Repair Begins Beneath the Argument
Two leaders, two sets of pressures, and the work underneath the public disagreement.
From 'Best Friend' to 'Crazy': Why Trump Is Turning on Netanyahu
Can the relationship recover?
When “Close to Trump” Becomes a Liability
The 60-day clock and the September question.
Ten Key Points Netanyahu Wanted Americans to Hear in 60 Minutes Interview
A plain-language summary of the case as the prime minister made it to an American audience.
The Refusenik Refuses Again
Yuli Edelstein has spent much of his life saying no to powerful institutions. Now he is saying no to his own political home.
New essays appear first at The Times of Israel
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