My family is already arguing about the war — and Thanksgiving hasn’t even started. How can we avoid a blow-up? Image by Yoav Einhar

The Patient: Rona is a mother of two kids in high school. She and her siblings do Thanksgiving together in Connecticut; their parents are no longer alive. They do not agree on politics, but they are close-knit and loving. Rona went to Jewish day school and summer camp, as did her siblings and some of their kids; her kids go to public schools.

The Problem: Disagreements about the Israel-Hamas war have already seeped into group chats about who’s making what pie. With everyone ramped up from weeks of reading the news, Rona is worried that this might be the Thanksgiving that finally tears her family apart. Her oldest sister has become so hypervigilant about antisemitism that hearing anyone voice sympathy towards Palestinians feels like a personal threat. At the same time, one of Rona’s nephews keeps talking about Algeria and decolonization, which feels provocative even though she doesn’t fully understand what it means.

The Prescription: News flash: Your family is not going to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict around your Thanksgiving table in Connecticut. I know that these conversations feel really high stakes, as though our ability to convince one another of the righteousness of our position is going to lead to peace in the Middle East. It won’t.

If you keep this in mind and focus instead on what the people at your table need from one another on this holiday, maybe together we can save the family meal.

You basically have two choices: Engage, or avoid. I usually oppose avoidance strategies, thinking that problems and feelings always have to go somewhere. As Mike Myers famously said in Austin Powers, better out than in. But in moments like these, avoidance can be a helpful tool to have in your back pocket. Still, let’s start with engagement.

What if the group created some ground rules over the first round of drinks or appetizers, before even sitting down at the table? For example:

• Can we agree that we won’t try to convince each other, only share our points of view?
• Can we agree not to interrupt each other, to give everyone the chance to express their ideas fully?
• Can we begin each response with “I heard you” before moving on?

These can form a foundation for engagement. But if your family won’t agree to these — or could not adhere to them — chances are they won’t be able to be together without fighting and hurting one another.

A friend who is doing a doctorate in clinical psychology told me that her school administrators advised students shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack to lean into their friendships and talk about the issues privately because they did not think they were equipped to contain the disagreements across the community. These psychological experts felt that big group conversations would not be productive and might instead increase people’s feelings of trauma, alienation and rage.

If you cringed or scoffed at your family’s interest, ability or desire to agree to the platform for engagement outlined above, I’d consider an explicit avoidance strategy. You could say something like, “I know what’s going on in Israel is on all of our minds and we know we disagree, so let’s agree to have a nice dinner together and try to avoid talking about it or avoid the tension points so we can leave here with the warmth of our family’s love.”

This conflict is not going away anytime soon unfortunately, and if productive communication is not possible now, try again another time when people seem less polarized.

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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