Moving Beyond Talking Points: An Invitation to Authentic Engagement

Sometimes the silence feels safer than speaking up. 

When Israel comes up in conversation with non-Jewish friends, peers, colleagues, there’s often a moment where everything shifts and people find themselves at a crossroads: retreat into quiet or reach for the phrases they’ve been taught to deploy. 

“Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.”
“Israel wants peace but has no partner.”
“But Hamas uses humans as shields.”

These words might come out confidently or they might stumble forth awkwardly, but either way the aftermath is usually the same. The conversation doesn’t open up but shuts down and everyone walks away feeling misunderstood. 

For years, Jewish education has tried to solve this by giving students more information, stronger arguments, and clearer explanations. The reasoning makes sense - if non-Jewish people just understood the facts better, these exchanges would go more smoothly.

But even well-prepared people report feeling stuck in these moments. Despite having facts at their fingertips, conversations still leave everyone feeling defensive. The goal of real understanding gets lost somewhere in the effort to convince. 

What if the problem isn’t necessarily that students don’t know enough? What if the frameworks they’ve been given don’t actually meet the conversations they’re having?

A Different Approach

That’s what led us to develop what we call the Hazmana Series, hazmana meaning “invitation” in Hebrew, as an alternative approach altogether: 

• Moving from certainty to curiosity
• Asking questions instead of making statements
• Replacing defensive/offensive positioning with bids for connection

Here’s a real-life example we use in our workshops:

Someone says: Israel is committing crimes against humanity. It’s ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians just want their own state in which to live securely.

Traditional response: That’s a dangerous lie. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005—dismantled every settlement, even removed its own citizens. And what happened? Rockets. Thousands of them.

Hazmana-informed response: That’s a painful and serious accusation. And yeah—too many people are dying. It’s devastating. I know that I grapple with this situation all the time. I often wonder, how might we find both peace and justice for both sides of this conflict? 

The Hazmana response doesn’t dodge the issue but steps into the conversation behind the question. It allows someone to stay grounded in their connection to Israel without defending every political decision. It asks them to bring real curiosity about what others believe and why, shifting the goal from winning arguments to building relationships that can handle disagreement.

Once they learn to lead with curiosity instead of defensiveness, they can carry these skills everywhere. Like any skill, this requires practice and ongoing support. But for those open to trying a different approach, the rewards can be significant: conversations that deepen rather than divide and relationships that grow stronger through challenge.

Curious to see what this could look like in your community? The Hazmana series is designed specifically for Jewish educators and campus professionals who want to move beyond traditional advocacy toward authentic engagement. Learn more about bringing these tools to your organization here. 

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