Empathy Doesn’t Scale

A Team Human conversation with artist/activist Mushon Zer-Aviv

Mushon Zer-Aviv was a student of mine twenty years ago, and now I’m a student of his. For while I was frozen in place after the October 7 Hamas attacks and subsequent Israeli massacres, Mushon — a peace activist in the region who was directly impacted by all this — had no such luxury. He had to respond in real time, and to many things at once, while also figuring out how best to sustain potential for a peaceful future in the face of so much violence and death.

As a proponent of a shared, equal society for everyone in the region, he has enemies and detractors from all sides. But, by the same logic he also has allies everywhere, including me.

Here’s our conversation, which took place the morning after the Israeli-Arab peace group he supports, Standing Together, was banned and boycotted by an American anti-war group (6,000 miles away) for suggesting that Jews be allowed to live alongside Arabs in the Middle East after the conflict is over.