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How hard is it to talk about Israel? We asked 4 Jewish teens
(JTA) — In addition to juggling school, extracurriculars and trying to fit in, American Jewish teens have the added challenge of trying to foster a relationship with Israel in an increasingly hostile environment. Proposed judicial reforms by Israel’s far-right government and terrorist attacks and reprisals have led to a sense of crisis within Israel and its supporters and critics abroad. Discussions in America about the United States’ continued support for the state are front and center on the political stage, and teens have noticed.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency gathered four teens from across the country to talk about their relationship with Israel. Their thoughts are uniquely influenced by their experiences as American Jewish teens who are constantly surrounded by those who often challenge their support and connection to a country where many have family or friends. They are also hesitant to voice their views about Israel due to fear of backlash from critics of Zionism or being told that they are not pro-Israel enough by its fiercest supporters. An edited transcription of their discussion is below.
JTA: How would you describe your relationship with Israel?
Gayah Hampel, 15, Houston: I have a lot of family in Israel, and I haven’t been there since I was 8 years old, but I really, really want to go again. The trip was a very important part of my life, even though I don’t remember much from it. Israel’s history is very important to me, and I really want to go back to take in all the religious stuff there and all the history, because that really fascinates me.
N.Z.,15, Los Angeles (N.Z. asked that their full name not be used because they do not share that they are Jewish and are concerned about antisemitic attacks): I have some family in Israel, but I only visited there once before COVID started. I’m not totally connected to it, because I don’t really talk to my Israeli cousins a lot since they live so far away and the time zones are far. I don’t really have a huge connection to it.
Avi Wolf, 14, Cleveland: I go to a school that’s based on Zionism, and we learn a lot about Israel and Israeli history in our school. We have a ton of teachers who are from Israel, and I visit every Passover along with keeping in touch with my Israeli friends a lot, so I have a very strong connection to Israel.
Emmie Wolf-Dublin, 15, Nashville: I write a lot about Israel for my local paper. I’ve never been, but I have a lot of family there. It’s really important to have a connection to that land, and I feel like it’s definitely important to me. One thing that I’ve thought a lot about, is the whole idea: Would you go fight for your country, for Israel, if there was some war to happen? I think I would.
JTA: If you had to describe your biggest concern about Israel in one or two words, what would it be?
Wolf: Probably safety.
Hampel: The growing terrorist attacks.
N.Z.: Safety and reputation.
Wolf-Dublin: Reputation, publicity.
JTA: What do you mean when you say reputation?
Wolf-Dublin: My personal belief is that it’s not so much about Israel’s actions, but the way that Hamas and Palestine and the Palestinian Authority present them to the world. We would have a lot fewer issues on our hands if we were more careful about that and [would have] a lot more allies on our side if we made different choices in that sector.
N.Z.: Jewish people are already hated enough, especially in America, just for believing in Judaism. Having the addition of making it seem like we’re stealing this land away from Palestinians, people just find more and more ways to be antisemitic towards us and be like, “Oh, well, we have a reason.” So, the more bad things happen and the more things that get blamed on Israel, the worse antisemitic attacks will become.
JTA: Avi and Gayah, you both talked about safety. Is that safety from terrorism within the country or safety from foreign countries? Or both?
Hampel: I would say both, but mainly, what’s happening inside the country because a lot of people living in Israel are also doing the terrorist attacks and physically attacking army personnel and citizens. So [I’m mainly worried about attacks from the] inside because it’s destroying us from inside, which is much scarier than from outside.
Wolf: It’s mainly that there’s a lot of terror attacks. There are a lot of other countries, like Iran, Syria and Lebanon, who surround Israel. They’re very big enemies with Israel, and they have a lot of power, so it’s always scary for the people inside but also [Israel is] the only Jewish state in the world. It’s the one place that all Jews can go and know they’re safe. If Jews don’t have a homeland anymore, it’d be a big issue.
JTA: What is your opinion on equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism? If someone is anti-Zionist, does that necessarily make them antisemitic?
Wolf: In the past, anti-Zionism and antisemitism were very different things before the creation of Israel, but now, in our modern times, there are Jews who are very anti-Zionist and don’t believe Jews should have Israel. If you’re not a Jew, and you’re just a person who’s anti-the State of Israel, which is the only state of the Jews, you can’t antagonize Israel or be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, even if it’s indirect.
Wolf-Dublin: I agree, and I would honestly say that denying Israel’s right to exist and denying the Jewish connection, I think Jewish connection to Israel even more so, but Israel’s right to exist too. I feel like they’re both outright antisemitism.
JTA: Have you ever experienced anti-Zionism or antisemitism against you?
N.Z.: I haven’t personally experienced antisemitism because I don’t share that I’m Jewish at my [public] school. I do see a lot of Israel-Palestine stuff online, and people are like, “get the Jews out, give it to Palestine.” We had a basketball game at this Jewish school that some of my old classmates went to a week or two ago, and they played against a non-Jewish school and they were holding up photos of the Palestine flag and swastikas and screaming Kanye West at some of the kids. It was really bad. I don’t know all the details because I wasn’t there, but I heard it was bad.
Wolf-Dublin: I live in Nashville, and Nashville does not have a big Jewish population. It’s in the south, there’s a lot of anti-Israel stuff, especially at school, but there’s also been Holocaust denial. It’s really everywhere, and I’m also really linked in the Jewish community, so I feel like it’s part of that. I had a teacher who had family in Palestine, and she got into this entire fight with me about it. She left earlier on in the year, so that was a win. I don’t understand how you can do that and still call yourself a professional. So I stopped paying attention in that class because why should I pay respect to someone who can’t respect my heritage?
Hampel: I haven’t personally directly towards me, but in seventh grade, a few years ago, when there were rockets firing every day from Hamas into Israel, like non-stop, there were Jews in my grade who were saying, “Israel is in the wrong, they need to stop attacking,” or “they need to stop attacking the innocent Palestinians.” It wasn’t directed towards me, but I still felt like they were, in a way [being anti-Zionist]. It was indirectly affecting me. I do know of Jews who have experienced antisemitism before.
JTA: How comfortable do you feel sharing your attitudes about Israel when around Jews?
Wolf: I feel extremely comfortable sharing all my opinions about Israel, regardless if it is a Jew or not. In Cleveland, most Jews believe in Israel and think the Jews should have a state. I have very strong attitudes towards Israel, and I don’t mind sharing my attitude with other Jews, even if they don’t believe in Israel or think what Israel is doing is wrong because I believe in it. There’s real history, and you can look in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible), and you can see the real claims to Israel and everything. That’s why I’m very comfortable sharing with other Jews.
Hampel: I’m extremely comfortable sharing my opinions about Israel with other Jews and also non-Jews as well because I think it’s important. I’ve noticed that there are so many people who don’t know what’s actually going on [in Israel], and the story behind it. It’s important to me that I share that history, and I share my side of [what’s happening in Israel], especially having people in Israel who are very close to me. I’m very comfortable sharing my views on Israel, for that reason. Also it’s part of my personality so even if I don’t mention it, in our friendship, you’ll most likely hear me saying something about Israel.
Wolf-Dublin: I’m sort of both. In terms of Jewishness, I’m always open to talking about that. In terms of talking about Israel with my Jewish friends, I might bring it up, but I’m not always super-wanting to. I don’t know that I generally do pose [questions]. I’m sure I’ve done it before, but with non-Jews, if somebody brought it up to me, I would not be shying away from the conversation. However, I don’t know that I would personally bring it up myself.
N.Z.: I don’t love sharing my opinion of Israel because I’m afraid I might say something wrong, and then people will come after me for it. Sometimes, when I’m not really confident in what I’m saying, I don’t like sharing my opinion because I’m afraid people will try to shame me for it, especially on something so touchy as a subject like this.
JTA: N.Z., you feel that way even around Jews?
N.Z.: Even around Jews, especially. I feel like talking about this kind of stuff would be even more awkward because if I don’t share the same views as them, I feel like they’d be like, “Oh, well, are you trying to say you’re antisemitic or something?”
JTA: How comfortable do you feel sharing your attitudes about Israel when around non-Jews?
Hampel: I’m comfortable sharing my views about Israel with non-Jews. I personally don’t want to bring it up myself, like Emmie said because if they do disagree with me, I don’t like starting arguments. It’s not something that I seek to do, and so if it becomes an argument, and I started it, that doesn’t sit with me right. However, if it comes up, I will definitely, definitely not back down, and I will defend my opinion.
Wolf: I also feel very comfortable sharing with non-Jews, but as opposed to what Gayah said, I feel comfortable bringing it up. I don’t mind if someone wants to argue with me about Israel or its attributes. I would obviously want to make sure to show the proper facts, but I feel very comfortable and confident with non-Jews because it’s the Jewish homeland, and I want to fight for what I believe in.
N.Z.: I guess if I’m really, really being pressured to share my opinion, I would, but it’s definitely not something I’d bring up because I don’t really like getting into fights about such touchy subjects.
JTA: Some of you said that you don’t want to express your attitudes about Israel, because you’re worried about starting fights. Has that happened to you?
Wolf: I’ve definitely gotten into arguments, but it has been with Jewish people. It was very interesting because they were talking about stuff, but I could tell it was from the news, but the media was twisting it. It’s like, “Israel attacks the Gaza Strip and fired a missile at an apartment building.” Yeah, it’s true, but they were just doing it after Hamas had killed a bunch of their civilians.
Hampel: That has happened before. It started not as a conversation about Israel, but it morphed into that, and it was very disappointing to me because it was such a twisted version of Israel that I definitely had not seen before. I definitely don’t believe it at all, any bit of it, and it was also with a Jew.
JTA: To change topics slightly, what have you heard about Israel’s new government?
Hampel: To be completely honest, I do not follow Israeli politics. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I just don’t. It’s more important to me to know about the events that happen, the dangers that happen, I want to know of that, or the good things that happen too, but the politics, I don’t keep up with that at all.
Wolf: I’m pretty involved in the politics and everything. In our Hebrew class, we had a whole week, just learning about the Israeli government, how it works, and my teacher presented to us all the political parties during the election. We learn about it, some good, some bad, and I know there’s a lot going on in the media. It’s kind of hard to get the correct sources since I’m not living in Israel.
N.Z.: I really don’t keep up with politics in general, but I haven’t heard anything about the new Israeli government at all.
Wolf-Dublin: I’m not very happy about it. I’m pretty into politics in general, but I definitely don’t agree with 90% of the things they’re doing. There’s a bill on drag queens in Tennessee right now that’s probably about to get passed that will outlaw anybody performing in drag. That’s the kind of thing that’s alarmingly similar [in Israel, whose new government includes opponents of LGBTQ rights], and I can see that happening in Israel, and that’s not something I want to see.
JTA: Emmie, you’re seeing trends in Tennessee that are similar to what the new Israeli government is proposing?
Wolf-Dublin: Everybody can have their own opinion, but I have a lot of issues with the current government, and I have a lot more issues with what they’re doing with the judicial system.
JTA: Where do you get your info about the Israeli government?
Wolf-Dublin: Either from my dad or just reading.
JTA: Among the political issues that you think are most important. Where would you rank Israel? This can be compared to hot-button issues, like reproductive rights, the economy, immigration, climate change, LGBTQ rights and concerns about democracy. Where on that list, would you rank Israel?
Hampel: I would say for me that it’s pretty high. I wouldn’t say it’s the highest, but it’s pretty high for me, because even if I wasn’t Jewish, Israel produces a lot of things that everyone uses and has so many inventions that we all use. It’s important to keep that safe, and it’s still a democracy. That’s very important in today’s society. It’s not at the top of my list, but it’s pretty high up.
N.Z.: I’m not really a political person, so it’s not really the top thing on my mind, but it’s definitely an issue that I read up about every now and then.
Wolf-Dublin: I don’t know that I have a clear ranking. I don’t think I could clearly rank it, but I would say it’s important, but its politics are only as important to me as a citizen of the world and not so much. Its existence is important to me.
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The post How hard is it to talk about Israel? We asked 4 Jewish teens appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tu B’Shvat, Conscious Eating, and the Jewish Call to Return
Orange trees in Israel’s northern Galilee region. Photo: פואד מועדי / Wikimedia Commons
Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish New Year for the Trees, is often celebrated simply: fruit on the table, blessings over figs and dates, and a nod to nature in the middle of winter. For those who do things a bit more lavishly, a ceremony or seder is conducted.
But at its core, the holiday of Tu B’Shvat is far more than a seasonal celebration. It is a day that offers a profound Jewish teaching about food, responsibility, and the possibility of return.
To understand that teaching, we have to go back to the very first act of eating in the Torah.
In the Garden of Eden, God gives Adam and Eve permission to eat freely from nearly everything around them. Only one boundary is set: there is one tree that is off limits. When Adam and Eve cross that boundary, the result is a rupture of faith between humans and God, which results in a series of other ruptures between humans and the earth — and humans and themselves.
One of the great Chassidic masters, Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen (1823-1900), suggested that the problem was not simply what they ate, but how they ate: without awareness, without restraint, and without consciousness. They consumed, rather than received.
Five hundred years ago, the kabbalists of Tzfat transformed Tu B’Shvat from a technical agricultural date into a spiritual opportunity. They taught that the world is filled with sparks of holiness, and that our everyday actions, especially eating, can either elevate those sparks or bury them further. This lesson has recently been discussed by the Jerusalem-based educator Sarah Yehuit Schneider.
Eating, in Jewish thought, is never neutral.
When we eat with intention and gratitude, we participate in tikkun olam, repairing the world. When we eat mindlessly, we reenact the mistake of Eve and Adam from the Garden of Eden.
The holiday of Tu B’Shvat invites us to try again.
There is another detail worth noting. The Torah’s first description of the human diet is explicitly plant-based: “I have given you every seed-bearing plant and every fruit-bearing tree; it shall be yours for food.” That diet, which was given in Eden, does not end with humanity’s exile from paradise. For generations to come, until after the great flood in the time of Noah, that diet continued in a world already marked by moral compromise.
On Tu B’Shvat, when Jews sit down to a table of fruit, we are quietly returning to that original vision of eating plant-based food that sustains life without taking it, nourishment that reflects restraint rather than domination.
That idea feels especially urgent today.
Our food choices now affect far more than our own bodies. They shape the treatment of animals, the health of the planet, and the sustainability of our food systems. Eating “without knowing” is something that carries grave consequences, which are all too visible in our society.
To observe conscious eating today means asking hard questions: Who is harmed by this choice? What systems does it support? What kind of world does it help create?
In my work as a rabbi and educator with Jewish Vegan Life, I encounter many Jews grappling with these questions, most of whom possess a desire to align their daily choices with enduring Jewish values of compassion, responsibility, and reverence for life.
Tu B’Shvat reminds us that Judaism does not demand perfection, but it does demand awareness. It teaches that repair is possible, not only through grand gestures, but through daily choices repeated with intention.
Redemption begins when a person makes a choice to eat their meal consciously. This is what the seder on Passover is for and what it reminds us of, and the same holds true for the seder on Tu B’Shvat.
The custom to eat fruits on Tu B’Shvat, the choice to have a seder or ceremony, reminds us of the consciousness that we must approach all of our meals with. On Tu B’Shvat, we are being asked to reconsider how we eat, how we live, and how we might take one small step closer to the world as it was meant to be. It is, after all, according to the Mishna in tractate Rosh Hashanah, one of the four New Years of the Jewish calendar.
Rabbi Akiva Gersh, originally from New York, has been working in the field of Jewish and Israel education for more than 20 years. He lives with his wife, Tamar, and their four kids in Pardes Hanna. He is the Senior Rabbinic Educator at Jewish Vegan Life. https://jewishveganlife.
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Jewish Survival Depends on the Existence of a Jewish State
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
“The past is never dead, it is not even past,” a quotation from William Faulkner’s novel, Requiem for a Nun, is frighteningly apt today in relation to antisemitism.
Many of us are wondering if the antisemitism we are witnessing now is comparable to the antisemitism our parents or grandparents experienced during the 1930s, almost 100 years ago.
The parallels are obvious — the hatred and demonization of Jews/Israelis (especially on social media), boycotts of Jewish and Israeli businesses and products, and the aggressive public protests that include genocidal language and target Jewish neighborhoods and houses of worship.
There are also the increasingly common violent physical attacks on Jews, including murder, often carried out to coincide with Jewish festivals and religious observances.
There are also differences, of course.
Nothing like the 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripping German Jews of their rights, and designed to separate Jews from German society, have been enacted anywhere. But this point may not be as comforting as it sounds, because today, the most antisemitic countries in the world are not in Europe. They are in North Africa and the Middle East and, with the exception of a few thousand Jews remaining in Iran, these countries have virtually no Jews left to threaten. A majority of those Jews who once resided in that part of the world, and their descendants, are safe in Israel.
The existence of a Jewish State is the primary difference between the Jewish predicament today, and the situation that existed in the 1930s.
An episode such as that of the S.S. St. Louis, when 937 Jews fleeing Europe before the outbreak of World War II were denied sanctuary and sent back to almost certain death, would never happen today.
The Évian Conference is another example of Jewish powerlessness during the 1930s. Held from July 6 to July 15, 1938, representatives of 32 countries met in the French spa town of Évian-les-Bains to search for a solution to the Jewish refugee crisis precipitated by the intense antisemitism unleashed by the Nazis.
The conference achieved very little, and today the Évian conference is widely believed to have been a cynical ploy to deflect attention away from the refusal to raise US immigration quotas, or even fill existing quotas, to save Jews.
With the exception of the Dominican Republic (in the end, only a little more than 700 Jewish refugees found sanctuary there), no country agreed to accept Jewish refugees.
In a shocking example of indifference to Jewish concerns, representatives of a number of non-governmental organizations, including several Jewish ones, could observe but not participate in the proceedings. Golda Meir, an observer representing the Jewish Agency in Palestine at the Évian Conference is quoted as saying, “I don’t think anyone who didn’t live through it, can understand what I felt at Evian — a mixture of sorrow, rage, frustration and horror.”
In April 1943, American and British representatives met in Bermuda to discuss what to do with the Jewish refugees, both those liberated by the Allies as the war progressed, and those who might still be alive in Nazi-occupied Europe. The venue, Bermuda, a remote location in the midst of World War II, was chosen to minimize press coverage.
As in the case of Évian, no Jewish organization was allowed to participate. At the time the conference was held, there was no doubt about the full extent of the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Yet, once again, nothing was achieved. As in the case of the Évian Conference, the Bermuda Conference was a public relations event, and not an actual effort to protect Jewish lives.
All of these events — and hundreds more throughout history — emphasize the importance of a sovereign Jewish state for Jewish safety and survival. But what really makes this point stand out is a history that is often overlooked; the role that Mandatory Palestine played in saving Jews from the Holocaust.
Aliyah numbers show that despite restrictions limiting Jewish immigration imposed by British officials, and widespread opposition to Jewish immigration by Palestinian Arabs, approximately 200,000 to 250,000 Jews, mainly from Germany and Eastern Europe, were able to find sanctuary in the Mandate during the 1930s. How many more would have been saved had there been an independent Jewish state?
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
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Did the Bondi Attack Actually Change Australia?
Grandparents of 10-year-old Matilda, who was killed during a mass shooting targeting a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday, grieve at the floral memorial to honor the victims of the mass shooting at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jeremy Piper
The Bondi terrorist attack on December 14, 2025, changed Australia.
But in many ways, it also didn’t.
The shock of watching a murderous rampage unfold at one of our most iconic sites, in what Australians long believed was a safe, peaceful country, shook the nation to its core.
Fifteen innocent people being murdered at a peaceful Hanukkah event is something so foreign to the experience of Australians, that it shattered the country’s sense of security overnight. Most Australians believed this kind of hatred was something that occurred elsewhere, not here.
Such trauma can prompt genuine reflection — which in turn may lead to genuine change.
In the aftermath of the attack, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese struck a markedly different tone than he had previously, showing an empathy with Australia’s Jewish community that many of us felt was often sorely missing in the months following October 7, 2023.
On January 22, 2026, Albanese initiated a National Day of Mourning, observed across the country. Fifteen sites were illuminated to commemorate the 15 victims, Australians were encouraged to light candles in their windows, and — strikingly — the government even urged citizens to perform a mitzvah — yes, it used that word — in the victims’ memory, publishing a list of 15 suggested acts of kindness.
In a nationally televised address at the Sydney Opera House — the very site where, on October 9, 2023, crowds had gathered to celebrate the Hamas massacre in Israel — the Prime Minister offered a direct apology to the Jewish community, acknowledging that “we could not protect your loved ones from this evil.”
Five days later, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Albanese released a statement commemorating the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, describing “the immense multitudes of Jewish lives and futures stolen with a pitiless cruelty that remains scarcely fathomable in its evil.” To be fair, he issued a similar statement on the same day last year.
This moral clarity contrasted starkly with the BBC and US Vice President JD Vance, who both failed to even mention the word “Jew” in their statements marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Albanese’s apology for the Bondi massacre was a sharp departure from what had often been a strained and acrimonious relationship between his government and the Jewish community, driven by persistent and often disproportionate criticism of Israel during its war against Hamas and other terrorist groups, alongside a series of concrete policy decisions widely perceived as hostile toward a longstanding democratic ally.
In the weeks following Bondi, the government moved swiftly to legislate, recalling parliament early in order to pass a package of new federal hate and extremism laws, including the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill. These measures criminalize participation in designated hate groups, impose penalties of up to 15 years in prison for directing such organizations, expand visa-cancellation powers for individuals promoting hate, and tighten controls on extremist symbols and propaganda. A provision to criminalize extreme racial vilification was dropped in the face of the Opposition’s objections to it.
New South Wales, where the attack occurred, also introduced state-level laws granting police broader powers around protests linked to declared terrorist events.
A Royal Commission has also been commissioned to investigate antisemitism in Australia in the lead-up to the Bondi attack, following pressure from broad sections of the community after Albanese was initially opposed to holding one.
These steps were welcomed by the Jewish community, yet it remains far too early to declare them transformative. After all, hate-speech laws already existed across Australian jurisdictions, but were only rarely used.
History therefore suggests that legislation alone is rarely enough; the true test is whether authorities are willing to enforce the laws consistently, especially when doing so becomes politically uncomfortable.
And that discomfort may arrive very soon.
The upcoming visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog in early February, at Prime Minister Albanese’s invitation, will serve as a critical test of whether the empathy shown after Bondi represents a lasting shift or a fleeting political moment.
Already, Labor Friends of Palestine have called for President Herzog to be blocked from coming and investigated for alleged incitement and complicity in war crimes. Multiculturalism Minister Dr. Anne Aly initially declined to confirm whether she would welcome the Israeli President on his state visit, before later offering a notably lukewarm endorsement. There are also mass protests planned against his visit by anti-Israel groups. How the government deals with this will be telling.
These are the same kind of groups that supported Hamas after Oct. 7, and appeared on Australia Day, the national celebration of identity and unity, with calls for “intifada.”
Australia is currently at a crossroads in its relationship with Israel and also the Jewish community here. How it navigates that relationship could well determine the future of Jewish life in Australia. Hopefully the solidarity now being shown will be maintained and enhanced. But if it proves to be temporary, and the hostility being drummed up by the local anti-Zionist movement resurges, then the long-term feelings of belonging and security that underpin Australia’s long thriving Jewish community will likely erode further.
That, tragically, could echo the same sad and tragic path of many past Jewish communities throughout history.
Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).