Welcome to the first installment of Unpacked’s new love and relationship column, Love, Unpacked with Logan, where relationship and sexuality expert Dr. Logan Levkoff answers your messiest questions about love, boundaries, and Jewish identity in a very complicated world. Submit for Love, Unpacked with Logan’s next edition here.
In this debut, we’re tackling a question a lot of people are whispering about: Can a relationship survive if partners disagree about Israel?
Once upon a time, not so long ago, families could sit at dinner tables and debate politics without someone storming out of the room. Partners could belong to different political parties. Your vote wasn’t treated as a measurement of your morality. I yearn for those times.
You may be thinking my nostalgia for that faraway land of meaningful discourse will color my take on this question: Is it possible for someone and their partner to have different opinions about Israel and Gaza?
No.
Well, actually…it depends.
Before you stop reading because you feel validated or violently offended, let me explain. Hasbara, you know — Israeli PR and all that (wink).
Partners can withstand differences of opinion about how Israel and its government have managed the war in Gaza. Policy disagreements, military strategy, ceasefires, humanitarian access — all of that falls under the broad umbrella of “we’re two humans with two brains.”
However, partnerships cannot survive fundamental differences in core values. This is where many couples have the very romantic belief (in my opinion, a mistake) that love conquers all.
It doesn’t.
If one partner is a Zionist and the other is anti-Zionist, that is not a difference of opinion. That is a difference in worldview, identity, history, and moral framework. By “Zionist,” I mean someone who believes the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, Israel. I’m not talking about someone who doesn’t know much about Israel or hasn’t formed an opinion. I am talking about someone who believes Israel should not exist, holds the only Jewish state to standards not applied to any other nation, or traffics in ahistorical talking points dressed up as justice, “human rights,” or a warped version of tikkun olam.
That, my friends, is where relationships go to die.
What makes this particular conflict so uniquely destabilizing for our relationships – especially since October 7 — is that for Jews, Israel is not an abstract intellectual exercise. It is family. It is lineage. It is collective trauma and extraordinary survival woven together. For many of us, the conversation is never just about borders or policy; it’s about grandparents who fled, cousins who serve, synagogues that need armed guards, and children we worry will one day have to explain why their existence is up for debate.
So when someone says, “It’s just politics,” what they often mean is, “It’s not personal to me.” But that doesn’t make it impersonal. For many Jews, no matter how observant or secular we are, it is very personal to us. One partner is arguing theory (unemotionally) while the other is arguing safety, memory, and grief.
Look, relationships can survive disagreement. But this isn’t a disagreement. This isn’t about politics. These are core values. And core values are not negotiable without serious emotional consequences. You can compromise on where to live, how often to see your in-laws, or whose turn it is to fold the laundry. You cannot sustainably compromise on whether your identity, peoplehood, or sense of safety in the world is legitimate.
And whether it’s a partner, a friend, or a coworker, you are entitled to create some clear boundaries for your own emotional well-being. (This isn’t because I believe that we should never be uncomfortable; it’s because some things that aren’t merely about comfort, they’re much bigger.)
These boundaries might sound like:
- “I will not engage in conversations that justify violence against civilians.”
- “I will not tolerate language that denies my identity or my people’s right to exist.”
- “I can discuss policy. I cannot debate my humanity.”
If your partner (or anyone for that matter) repeatedly violates those boundaries and then calls you “too sensitive,” “indoctrinated,” or “brainwashed,” that’s not political conflict nor debate. That’s flat-out disrespect. Intimacy cannot survive in an environment where one partner feels morally or existentially unsafe.
I use a particular test to determine whether a relationship — platonic or romantic — is worth saving.
“October 7th was terrible, but…”
If the fifth word is but, the rest of the sentence doesn’t matter. There is about to be a justification for atrocities that nullifies the first four words and the Hamas attack they refer to. And once your nervous system learns that, to your partner, your pain is conditional, desire doesn’t stand a chance.
Which brings us to the question no one wants to ask out loud:
Is the sex worth it?
Sex can be intoxicating. Chemistry can be blinding. But eventually, the orgasm wears off and you’re left with the quiet realization that you don’t respect each other’s moral universe. If you cannot trust your partner with your fear, your grief, your family history, or your right to exist without debate, no amount of sexual compatibility will save you from the slow erosion of resentment and self-betrayal.
And listen: I am not saying people must think identically to love each other. Far from it. But I am saying that love cannot develop when one partner’s core identity is treated as political provocation or a thought experiment in dehumanization.
So can couples navigate different opinions about Israeli politics and the war in Gaza?
Sometimes.
Can they survive a war over each other’s legitimacy?
No. And they shouldn’t have to try.
Have a question for Love, Unpacked with Logan?
Bubbe hates your boyfriend? Dating someone with wildly different politics? Stuck in a situationship? Fighting with your parents about Israel, boundaries, or who you’re bringing home for Shabbat?
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Originally Published Feb 12, 2026 11:32AM EST
