In some Jewish families, talking about Palestine raises discontent Israel’s conflict and the two

On a cold day on December during Christmas holidays, Dalia Sarij’s 80 -year -old father arrived at her home in Vienna after she returned from a skiing trip.

There was to capture her sister, who joined the Sarij family on vacation.

She was convinced that she would be her last meeting with her father, because her political differences are about to reach her head.

“I said goodbye. I embraced him,” she said to Al -Jazeera. “When I said goodbye, I said goodbye, knowing that you may not see him anymore.”

Tensions with her Jewish family were building for years. In 56 years, Sarij, a pro -Palestine activist, contradicts most of her relatives.

Her parents are committed ZionismThe national political ideology that called for the establishment of a Jewish state and was seen by the Palestinians and their supporters as a system that supports their suffering.

Sareg knew during the December meeting with her father that she intended to organize a pro -effective demonstration outside Parliament in January, which will be filmed by a local television station. The active group, part of which had been presented to it forward for a broadcast interview. Relaxed by Israel Genocide Against the Palestinians in Gaza and the determination to speak, I advanced with it.

“The interview was broadcast and I went immediately to my family.”

She later heard that her father, who also lives in the Austrian capital, told friends that he “has died.”

“But he never talked about it with me, and he never reached me to tell me something like this. (He) just cut off the relationship.”

Her 77 -year -old mother, who lives in Germany, launched a week later.

“I still have it here on my phone, as you know,” I will not accept your political activity. You are a traitor, you dirty the nest … and you must change your political views, we can return to normal. “

She has not spoken to her parents since then.

Family divisions are not common among Jewish families from the United States to Israel, but they have become more firm since then October 7, 2023.

On that day, Hamas, the Gaza Strip, has led a penetration in southern Israel, where 1139 people have been killed and more than 200. Since then, Israeli bombing. killing More than 61,700 people in the pocket.

“I think that one of the most interesting phenomena among the liberal Zionists is the truth, while the majority moved to the right because of October 7, it became a more betrayal minority with Israel and Zionism,” the author and the academy Ilan PappeThe prominent critic of Zionism said, he told Al -Jazeera.

The ancestors of Sarge from Austria fled in 1938, the year of the annexation by Nazi Germany, to Serbia. They later settled in Palestine according to the British mandate as it is now Israel. But by the fifties of the last century, most of its relatives returned to Austria, where it was born.

When she was a child, she celebrated the Jewish holidays while learning about Zionism from the elders.

She was also told that the Palestinians “are the enemies, and they want to kill all the Jews … that the Jews who live there (in Israel) want peace, but the Arabs did not.”

At the age of 18, she moved to Israel, where, upon encouraging her parents, she joined the Zionist leftist youth movement.

For 13 years in Israel, she joined Kibbutz, served in the Israeli army in the role of the office, and married. But when she studied politics and the history of the Middle East at Haifa University, her view of the world began to change.

This is where I met a Palestinian professor and later became an activist of Palestinian rights.

“It started in a garden in an evening with my Palestinian school, when he told me the story of his family, which was displaced from a small village.

She said, “I understood that what was said to me, the Zionist narration, is wrong.” “I started thinking about what he might feel, or how he feels, or how I might feel that I am a Palestinian who lives in a Jewish state where my predecessors were expelled.”

Returning to Austria, her family will argue with her in the gatherings, and agree not to speak again about the Palestinian and Israeli policy, break their promises, and clash again.

In 2015, she gave up her Israeli nationality as a gesture against Zionism.

“It makes my activity easier,” said Sarij. “I lost my Jewish community because I was considered at best, strange and strange, and in the worst case, a traitor.”

Experts say that the collapse of the individual family can negatively affect mental health.

“My outlook has not changed dramatically since October 7.”

According to Fisel Sharif, nerve scientist and doctoral student at Oxford University, brain imaging studies have shown that “the experience of social isolation leads to activity in areas that may illuminate in response to physical pain.”

“In other words, social pain is not metaphorical – it is biological real.”

He said that families often constitute “small cultures” with their own rules and positions on political issues.

“The betrayal that I felt when love and acceptance is conditional upon silence or collusion in the genocide, can be deeply injured. In the context of Gaza, an additional layer of shock adds: it is not limited to one witness who carries collective suffering, but it also pays a personal price to refuse to search far away.” “This leads to long -term stress and anxiety, which can reach clinical levels.”

To maintain relationships, he said that families need to lead “curiosity, not confrontation.”

“Especially when the topic is painful such as war or genocide, the facts alone will not move people – the name of the emotions found under fear, guilt, or sadness, often opens more space for real dialogue.”

The presence of such talks is not an easy thing.

Jonathan Oreer, the musician who was born in the Israeli Kibbutz and immigrated to Denmark in the late 1990s, said that in 2009 he realized that “he was already colored in propaganda that deleted an entire Palestinian point of view.” Pappe read the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, describing this experience as a “turning point” for him.

Almost at the same time, the Jewish and Palestinian writers read “Challenge Zionist narration“.

(But) I did not share this publicly and did not share it with my family either. “

in 2014Nevertheless, during the Israeli war on Gaza – the third in seven years – he said he felt sufficiently confident to express his critical opinions “abroad and the public.”

More than 2000 Palestinians-including 551 children-were killed during the conflict for 50 days.

Take to Facebook to post a picture of the Israeli collected on top of a hill near Sdeot watching while Gaza Burned, a picture that appeared in the New York Times.

A relative soon wrote an e -mail that ended with the recommendation that “stop publishing on the Internet.”

“This has become a hot debate, but it stopped very quickly.”

Years later, he learned that his family in Israel decided to avoid talking about the policy around him “so as not to give my political views.”

After the October 7 attack, he examined his extended family who lived near the attack site. But the incursion did not change its position.

“My outlook has not changed significantly. But there is something that has changed in Israeli society. In this sense, you can say that we may be more than more politicians.”

“This is the only issue at the present time.”

Daniel Friedman, 44, grew up in the Netherlands, in South Africa by his father Stephen, an academic and explicit critic of Zionism, and his mother, who was part of a circle of anti -bars activists.

While his father is still hostile to Zionism, Friedman said that he and his mother were increasingly colliding with the genocide of Israel in Gaza since late 2023.

He said, “This is the only issue at the present time,” which affects talks and bonds within some Jewish societies.

One of their previous arguments is considered a statement He claims that Palestinian fighters raped women during the October 7 incursion. After many unstable conflicts, which are often killed by Ping-Ponging many newspapers to support their WhatsApp arguments, they agreed to stop talking about politics.

“I love her, but what I face is that I lost a lot of confidence for her,” Friedman said.

During a previous Israeli war on Gaza, his mother signed a petition calling for a ceasefire, a step she saw her rejection by some family members. “I think this had a great influence,” he said. “I went to the right.”

He said he realizes that for some, taking a position means risking with a loss of support for a nearby society. However, he chose to “cut a lot of people from my life intentionally” after October 7.

Returning to Vienna, Sarij is busy organizing a Jewish anti -Zionist conference in June, and includes speakers such as Stephen Kabous, a UK -based Holocaust survivor, the American Podquaster Club and the commentator Katie Halper and Ronnie Barkan, an Israeli Jewish activist. Pappe is expected to attend.

With the continued killings in Gaza, its focus on Palestinians trying to survive in Israeli fire.

“I am not the victim,” said Sarij.