A longtime friend of mine, someone I’ve known since high school and with whom I was more or less “best friends” for 20 or 30 years, last year terminated our friendship because I wrote that I thought Israel has a right to exist, that Palestinians have the right to a state, and that in Israel’s war with Hamas there is no moral high ground. I sent the clip of my column to Kurt (not his real name), an ardent anti-Zionist and an atheist of Jewish descent, because it dealt in what I felt was a nuanced way with a subject I thought would interest him.

He replied with a shockingly hostile letter calling me “a Zionist,” which to him is the approximate equivalent of a Nazi, and telling me as a definitive kiss-off to enjoy my old age. I had no idea my essay would provoke that kind of reaction — he ca

See Full Page