Israel TherapyIsrael Therapy: Should I join a boycott of a summit run by a friend who posted anti-Israel content?
Help! What to do when an old friend is sharing social media content about the Israel-Hamas war that seem offensive? Photo by Yoav Einhar
Editor’s note: Israel Therapy is a new column, and a forthcoming podcast produced in partnership with Reboot Studios, helping people grapple with personal dilemmas and emotional issues around Israel. Its host, Libby Lenkinski, is an Israeli-American who has worked around the conflict for close to 20 years and frequently fields questions from friends, colleagues and total strangers about how they feel about the latest news from the Holy Land.
Each column — and the future podcast — will surface a real person, their real problem, and Libby’s real advice, sometimes fueled by input from experts. If you need some Israel Therapy, send your dilemma to israeltherapy@forward.com.
The Patient: Lauren is an entrepreneur who regularly attends a power-summit in Europe with major tech moguls, celebrities, investors and journalists. It opens this month and she is slated to speak about advancements in technology alongside a colleague she encouraged to participate.
The Problem: The summit’s founder, who Lauren has known for many years, has retweeted some content Lauren found offensive since Oct. 7. His own tweets have been more measured. A group of Israelis who planned to attend the summit withdrew and wrote a letter calling on others to boycott. Lauren is torn about whether to go — and how to advise fellow Jews she recruited to the conference.
The Prescription: These are sad, confusing and unprecedented times. Part of what makes it feel so chaotic for folks not living in the region is the pace, breadth and prevalence of social media around us. Do we really want access to what everyone we’ve ever met is thinking and feeling about this at every moment? Probably not. But can we avoid it or look away? Probably not.
I would first advise you to lean into your existing relationships offline. This does not mean ignoring what people are posting or letting them off the hook for how it makes you feel. But it means you should use your phone for its original intended purpose: Call the summit organizer.
You’ve got 15 years of history with this guy. Share your feelings. See what he says. You have to be prepared to be disappointed, but it’s got to be better to talk about it than to doomscroll his social media.
Don’t make any decisions while on the phone. Have a conversation, sleep on it, see how you feel when you wake up. It feels urgent, and it is urgent. But participation in a summit is not life-or-death kind of urgent, and slowing down is generally a good and helpful thing to do.
The fact that you feel a sense of responsibility toward the people you encouraged to come to the summit certainly makes this more complicated. But these people are adults and need to make their own choices in sticky situations based on their own interests, calculations, histories, identities and accountabilities.
Transparency is key, and I would not necessarily wait until you’ve decided what to do yourself. Tell the colleagues you invited what made you uncomfortable, tell them about your conversation with the summit chief, tell them how you yourself are considering the choice. And make clear that they should make up their own minds about what feels right to them.
Be careful here — you don’t want to turn into anyone else’s researcher or intermediary or take responsibility for anyone else’s choice or feelings. But sharing your thought process and the research you’ve done for yourself is the helpful and responsible thing to do.
The final thing I want to say is that there may not be a right answer. Many of us are seeking clearer categories of right and wrong than we’re able to reach in this moment. You may choose to attend only to find the space feels unfriendly, uncomfortable or even unsafe. You may choose not to attend only to discover from those who went that it turned out to be warm and welcoming.
That’s OK. We can only make decisions based on the information — facts and feelings — we have access to at the time we make the decision.
And if you end up going to the summit, be careful what you post about it on social media.
Are you struggling with a personal dilemma regarding Israel and its war with Hamas? Send a query to israeltherapy@forward.com and Libby may reach out to you for a future column or podcast.
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