Loved reading this, thank you for sharing it!

Love the critique of claiming unprovable specificity of a vague intervention effect, and yes, anti-med stigma is v. bad, but there is definitely no such thing as chemical imbalance. Other v. good reasons why meds help many! Chem imbalance is thoroughly debunked, though (sorry, this is a pet peeve).

Appreciate (as usual) your helping us glimpse the historical context for a concept that feels “natural.” It’s not uncommon to transform a dichotomy like that by flipping it, but it does seem especially vexed here (though I also can’t imagine a non-vexed Jewish identity that resonates for me).

Apologies if this isn’t welcome - if I ever went back to therapy (and I went off and on for decades), I’d ask to regularly see progress notes, either to check if it felt like it was helping or to notice patterns, etc. Don’t know if that would help, but maybe - hope today’s session goes easy!

“We” promote a vision of Jewish identity that is internationalist, that can include a Jewish state but not one that speaks for all Jews, and if that state is politically illegitimate, it’s not contradictory for Jews outside it to oppose it on those grounds.

I think it’s implied that she means “we at this freedom seder.” She’s being bombastic, it’s not a piece of scholarship.

Thank you for articulating this - it’s helping me start to untangle my feelings of opposition to injustice as a human being from my fantasy that Israel transforming itself would dissolve my much more complicated feelings of shame and guilt as an American Jew.

My brother-in-law's uncle and his children were just murdered. There were no survivors. There were all slaughtered while sleeping at home in Rafah. I am devastated but trying. Are those kids terrorists!!!