nothing’s about to happen to me

many jews experience debates about israel as directly affecting jewish life because other people often collapse the distinction for us. take the woman who was assaulted on a NYC subway while her attacker said "jews are eating kids," or Dan Goldman the rep of the 10th district in NYC who was publicly lambasted by a local coffee shop for getting coffee there, or Scott Wiener a California state legislator who was harassed by masked people at a pride march. the woman on the subway wasn't attacked because of anything she had personally said or done regarding israel. goldman had only gone into the coffee shop because his daughter needed to use the restroom and bought a coffee as a thank you. wiener is a gay jewish legislator with a solid track record of defending trans rights who had the gall to appear at a trans rights event.

the woman was attacked because she was jewish in public, goldman was harangued for being being jewish with a public platform, and wiener was chased out of the event for being jewish. and people projected the actions of the israeli government onto them. (and before people start saying 'well goldman and wiener are pro-israel politicians!' i implore you to take a look at their voting record and see just how run of the mill democrat they actually are on the topic)

incidents like these make it difficult for many jews to treat israel as merely a foreign policy issue, because public attitudes toward Israel often become attitudes toward jews in practice.