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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Flying is one big stressor around Thanksgiving. We're going to end today with a call-in on another one, maybe even bigger, on the fraught holiday question, what are you anticipating at your Thanksgiving table regarding the Israel-Hamas war, and how do you plan to handle it? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. What are you anticipating at your Thanksgiving table regarding the Israel-Hamas war, and how do you plan to handle it?

Do you plan to bring up the subject? Do you hope to avoid the subject, or how do you hope to handle the subject if others bring it up and it gets hot? 212-433-9692. Obviously, you don't need me to tell you how intense people's feelings are about this conflict and the reactions to it in this country, but as your calls are coming in, here's a smattering of what's in the press now anticipating Thanksgiving or just about communities fraying generally over this.

The cover story in New York Magazine right now is called Torn Up and Torn Apart. It starts by saying, "At workplaces and in restaurants, on university campuses and in playgrounds, over Instagram and along lamp posts, the war in Gaza has shifted something in the psyche of New York. Family members are confronting the vast distance between one another's sense of justice. Friend-group chats that were once warm and boisterous are turning bitter and quiet." It goes on from there in New York Magazine.

Listeners, have you been surprised by the vast distance between you and a friend or a relative's sense of justice as the article puts it, but specifically, how are you anticipating Thanksgiving, and what will that be like over the issue, and what role do you hope to play? 212-433-9692. Another article, this one in Newsweek, has the headline When Your Anti-Israel Kid Comes Home for Thanksgiving.

One of the paragraphs from that, "It will be particularly rough in Jewish families who may face the heartbreaking scenario of having one end of the table have a precious grandparent who helped found the state of Israel or fled there from antisemitic oppression, and on the other end a young person who publicly advocates for the destruction of the Jewish homeland." That scenario in a Newsweek article.

Listeners, what are you anticipating at your Thanksgiving table regarding the Israel-Hamas war, and how do you plan to handle it? 212-433-WNYC. Will you be the instigator, the one who brings it up because it's so important not to on a holiday that's supposed to represent freedom from oppression into new land but is also associated with the start of genocide against the Native Americans?

Will you be an instigator or will you be a peacemaker who wants to downplay the topic or even ban it for the day or get people to talk nicely to each other? Will you just be the quiet listener who rolls your eyes and sits a little lower in your chair as other members of the family get loud and proud on one side or another? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Here's one way to handle it. This one is an opinion piece on CNN's website by Joan Steinau Lester.

She starts by saying-- Well, I'm going to read one paragraph from the article. It says, "It will be hard on Thanksgiving Day, despite my host's instructions." Sorry, I am going to read the beginning of the article. I just lost my place there for a second because this is interesting. It says, "My wife and I were recently invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of a friend. At the bottom of the invitation, printed in bold letters, were the words, 'No Politics Discussed.'"

She writes, "I read those words with a deep feeling of relief. 'No Politics Discussed' would, as the hosts no doubt intended, foreclose any heated, unresolvable arguments about the war raging in Israel and Gaza, a topic already dividing families and severing friendships." Then a little later, she goes on, "It will be hard on Thanksgiving Day, despite my host's instructions, to keep the war, so raw with suffering, from surfacing among the multicultural, politically engaged folks at the dinner table. If the topic does bubble up, as close to the surface as it is for all of us, I hope we will listen to each other in a spirit of empathy."

Who's listening right now? Who's for a 'No Politics Discussed' rule at your Thanksgiving table and who is not? 212-433-9692. We've been here before, right? We've done Thanksgiving week shows on how to handle your Red State uncle just after the election of Donald Trump, things like that, but this may be the most raw and most difficult version yet. You get the idea. What are you anticipating at your Thanksgiving table regarding the Israel-Hamas war, and how do you plan to handle it?

Maybe we can help a little to make it go as well as it can by talking it through a little bit here in advance. 212-433-WNYC, call or text. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls on what you're anticipating at your Thanksgiving table regarding the Israel-Hamas war and how you plan to handle it. Dee in Chester, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in. Hi, Dee. Happy Thanksgiving.

Dee: And to you, Brian. Thank you. We have a large family gathering, we have for years, and part of our family is Orthodox Jew and very, very pro-Israel. Some of us are more liberal and see things a little more nuanced. I have a basket at my door for people to put their shoes when they come in, and my sign this year is going to say, "Please leave your shoes and your politics at the door."

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Do you think people will feel resentful at that or pretty universally relieved?

Dee: I think they may be taken aback because we do sometimes talk politics. We're a very political family, but I'm hoping that this year in particular, everyone will be able to put that on the back burner and just enjoy each other's company.

Brian Lehrer: Okay, Dee. Good luck. Thank you very much. Ronnie in Teaneck, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ronnie.

Ronnie: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Long-time listener, first-time caller. We are a family of liberally minded American Jews, and there's no question in my mind this will come up at the table. This is probably all we've been thinking about since October 7th. I think the universal feeling at the table, and I'm pretty confident in saying this is that Israel is fighting the war that is saving the world from a terrorist situation that will impact us all. We are completely with Israel on this one.

Brian Lehrer: You don't think there's going to be much dissension within the family on that point of view as you just articulated it?

Ronnie: Correct. What I do think is the conversation will be how everybody can be activists in terms of supporting Israel, in terms of fighting antisemitism in this country, which has come out in full force in a way that is just mind-boggling to us all. As I said, we've all been liberal activists for much of our lives, and this has hit us like a ton of bricks.

Brian Lehrer: What if you get surprised? What if somebody in the family-- because I know a lot of people who've been surprised by some of their friends' and relatives' differences on this. People who started out like you started out, we've all been this or that kind of politics, and then somebody blows their mind with how different they are from maybe the rest of the group. What if somebody in the family surprises you in this way and starts talking about genocide or whatever? How do you think you would like that to go at Thanksgiving?

Ronnie: Well, clearly at Thanksgiving, I would like peace to reign at the table. I think we're all civil people, and I don't think having a conversation would be a problem. I think we all believe in conversation and dialogue, but in this particular case, we have a WhatsApp group for the family. I don't think there is a person who has not been involved in the conversation, and the sentiment seems to be pretty universal.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Ronnie. Good luck at Thanksgiving. Todd in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Todd.

Todd: Hey, Brian. Nice to speak to you again. Hope that you are doing okay. We used to work together. Like many families, because of divorce and intermarriage, it's a mixed family. I have an older brother who's not Jewish and his son, my nephew, have always been pretty on the left when it comes to Israel. I mostly share their opinions, but this time around, it's really veered off into just out-and-out antisemitism from the river to the sea and liberate, calling the Hamas attack a liberating force.

Brian Lehrer: They're going to say that isn't antisemitic if you bring it up that way?

Todd: Well, actually, we've already expressed through another brother that we are unhappy, and so we are not going to Thanksgiving because of their positions. I got an email--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, it's come to that in your family. Go ahead.

Todd: Yes, and it's sad because this older brother had an opportunity to at least express that we are hurt, like getting beyond the specifics of a political position. Just as one brother to another saying, "Hey, I didn't realize." Instead, he just said, "Oh, sorry, not going to Thanksgiving. Hope we can catch up again sometime." There was sort of a blithe dismissal of the whole topic from his end.

I don't know what it means for the future, but it means we'll be going to Maison Pickle on the Upper West Side for some of their extremely fattening pumpkin pie.

Brian Lehrer: Maison Pickle for Thanksgiving. Todd, I'm sorry it came to that in your family. Thank you for calling us, though. Julie in Glen Ridge, you're on WNYC. Hi, Julie.

Julie: Hi. We are, I guess, a mixed family, and I'm seeing this really as an opportunity to have a real dialogue and to listen to each other as opposed to, I found it so hard and haven't engaged at all in any social media on the topic because we're just hearing these sound bites from different perspectives. I think it's so important to find a way to talk to each other, and the sanctuary of home is that place.

I don't know what the opinions are of my family. I imagine there'll be different opinions, but I think listening is really the place to start. We all have so much sorrow and pain, I think, about all of the deaths and the injuries and the harm that so many people are experiencing.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think or have you thought about whether it would be worth trying to lay down some ground rules or at least request a certain tone from your Thanksgiving guests like we heard from a previous caller, "Please leave your shoes and politics at the door"? For you, in your case, maybe to say something like, "I think we can't look away from what's happening in the Middle East, but if people want to talk about it and we have differences of opinion, let's just make sure we listen as much as we talk and respect different points of view." Something like that from the outset? Or do you think that just makes everybody feel awkward?

Julie: I think that's being too prescriptive, and because this will be a small gathering of about nine people, and because I trust everyone who's coming, that they will listen to each other. I think in our case, we don't need to, but I think every family is different and every family has-- Just listening to the other callers and the situations and experiences that those families have had are different, so it's just going to be different for every family.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it depends on who you think is coming and what they will be like. Julie, thank you very much. Now, here's a text from a listener who writes, "Young millennial here. I don't Let's see how instituting an outright ban on talking about politics at the Thanksgiving table is going to dissuade people from bringing it up if it is really important to them. It sounds like something that would just make me want to talk about it more personally."

Yes, there's that risk with the 'No Politics Discussed' rule that you're going to make people feel censored on a very important thing, and so there'll be a backlash to that. I guess that's a risk of trying to establish no politics from the outset. Jack in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jack. Thanks for calling in. You're going to be our last caller.

Jack: Hi. Thanks for taking the call. We had this conversation over Passover, where my son, who's very pro-Israel, and my daughter and son-in-law is pro-Palestinian. To quote Winston Churchill, "It's better to jaw-jaw-jaw than to war-war-war." I think it's really important that people talk about stuff. As the patriarch of the family, or whoever's running the dinner, I think it's really important that we act as a mediator and to focus on stuff that we agree. It just so happens that my daughter happens to be a pacifist, and she's married to someone who's Moroccan.

Brian Lehrer: Jaw-jaw-jaw. I have to leave it there for time, but thank you very much. If you can jaw-jaw-jaw without the family breaking up with each other, that's a good thing. In response to the text that I read about a no-politics policy would make me more likely to bring it up, somebody else chimed in, "If anyone or family or friend raises this topic, I would ask them to leave." Good luck.

We may talk more about this tomorrow, on the day before Thanksgiving. Thanks for your calls for today. Hope it all goes well for everybody on Thanksgiving, one way or another. Stay tuned for Alison.

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