Thanks for that personal narrative. It does provide a different flavor than a more impersonal, generalized exposition would have done.

I’m an American, but I have never understood why Jeremy Corbyn would be at the head of the Labor Party. That any member of that party could be anti-European makes no sense to me. For that matter, as far as I am concerned, the sooner humanity can progress beyond the nation-state phase, the better — which does reference the other point on which I wanted to opine.

The term ‘anti-Semitism’ always reminds me that, ethnologically, “Semitic” includes the Arab people. I do think that debating what constitutes being anti-Semitic is a good thing to do. The more rigorously it can be defined, the better. For sure, I think that the idea that disagreeing about anything with whoever happens to be in power in Israel constitutes being anti-Semitic is Orwellian nonsense.

The fact is that Jewish people can be conflicted when the policies of the nation of which they are citizens or the party within that nation of which they are members oppose something that the nation-state of Israel sees as its best interest. For many, very legitimate reasons that sense of loyalty to Israel is qualitatively different than, say, being of Arab extraction in a non-Arab nation. For one thing, there is only one Jewish nation-state.

I understand that sense of conflict. I am morally certain that if I were Jewish I would feel the same way. Still, that conflict, however understandable, does bring Jewish people’s sense of their ultimate obligation into question.

Does being in a position of power within another nation remove that personal conflict for Jewish people? That is the question. It is a legitimate one.