Hello everyone! Longtime lurker in the sub here and felt It was about time to make my first post. I've had this happen to me a few times over the last few months because of everything that's going on in Israel right now. For context I live in the Southern U.S.

Most of the time I hide my Jewishness due to the unfortunate reality of living "openly Jewish", but most of my friends know that I'm Jewish. They really like to ask this question when I haven't talked to them in a while, and I'm frankly not sure how to react or feel about it. Again for context 90% of my friends would be considered leftists.

I am a super policial person (Double major in Poli Sci and History) so I do like talking about similar issues, but when it comes to Israel the discussion always feels different. It's never a "what are your opinions on what's happening in Israel" it usually just "Are you a Zionist."

I can't help but feel like there's some antisemitism loaded in that question, because i feel like their thought process is "He's Jewish, I gotta make sure he's the acceptable kind." On the other hand, I talked to my closest friend about this, who is Cristian and also very politically minded. He told me that they probably just wanted to hear my opinion on the matter as they feel like I may have something interesting to say about it. I can get why they may feel that way, but I have never even BEEN to Israel, I don't know any Israelis and only know as much as they know from the news.

Anyway, I just wanted to see how you all feel/ react to being asked that. I can't shake this feeling of being treated like the "Jewish friend" that they need to make sure is one of the good ones. Thank you for everyone who reads this I really needed to get this off of my chest.

Edit: Thank you to everyone for your responses! I have gotten many useful insights and some really nice language to use going forward. I'm glad that I'm not alone in my negative feelings toward being asked that question.