How many times do we think this Turk has been asked to account for the Turkish genocide of up to 2 million Armenians, or their continued suppression of the Kurds? As Fran Drescher was fond of saying, “ talk to the hand.”
“The next time someone discovers you’re Jewish and immediately pivots to Israel, ask yourself a simple question: Would they have asked this of almost anyone else?”
No! You already know the answer, so there’s no need to ask yourself. Instead, ask THEM the question. That’ll either shut ‘em up or show them up.
Please, let’s stop talking to ourselves, stop asking ourselves. It’s long past time to aggressively push back.
SAY IT LOUD! I’m a Heeb and I’m proud! Jewish Pride! This is the silver lining of this resurgence of blatant antisemitism. Well, at least for us who don’t separate being Jewish from being a Zionist!
All great points. I only wish you did go into a Judaism 101 explainer when prompted. I know it’s hard and not the sexiest party chatter. I’ve been there. But it would have been a great opportunity to teach Judaism !
Also, that person’s statement “I’m Jewish but have nothing to do with Israel” is a ridiculous statement. Judaism and Israel are not mutually exclusive.
January 2026, after initially declining to use the term during a candidates' debate, Wiener posted a video saying he believes Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, explaining that the Israeli government has tried to destroy Gaza and push Palestinians out, which he said qualifies as genocide. He's a jew -doesn't matter what he thinks does or says to antisemites
He has been horrible....trying to appease the Jew haters. As has Jacob frey....now to some extent Josh Shapiro....the only Jew with guts is Fetterman .....who's not a Jew.
Judaism and Israel don’t have to be but still could be mutually exclusive, if the person is NOT a practicing Jew and NOT an Israeli. Otherwise, this individual is the new product of wokeness and fear for their safety,
Some try to exclude one and keep the other. These are Jews who have forgotten, or never knew, the over 3,000 year history of the Jewish people, and especially the last 2,000 years in the diaspora. Even in Nazi Germany there were Jews who rejected the notion of Jews returning to their historic homeland in Israel, and actually supported the Nazi Party. They even formed an organization—the Verband Nationaldeutscher Juden ("the Association of German National Jews"). Guess what, almost every one of these would-be "good" Jews went to the gas chambers just the same.
To reciprocate, I heard from a Jewish historian about 35 yers ago, professor at Melbourne University, as his son, Paul Adler, was a friends in California, whom I brought back to Melbourne to participate in delivering a new degree on technological innovation management at Melbourne Business School, that there a similar organization in the Netherlands, and the same process commenced after Nazi occupation, to the members’ surprize. They tried to negotiate, as they could not betray their Nazi Jewish comrades!
It was of a wider conversation about human ability to adjust and abolish their values and ethics, as my father convinced me that Jews could do the same if the policies were directed at others, not them. Professor Adler Sr agreed, used the Netherlands as an example.
How can it not be-topic of conversation when the majority of current news is about the Middle East wars and consequences in the Diaspora. This was an opportunity for discussion and perhaps education and perhaps a change in conviction. It is far better than silence.
I would have, especially if a person was even moderately aggressive. About a year ago, in a supermarket in Pattaya, Thailand, where I and my Thai family reside, a 35-40 years old family man, with a wife and 2 kids, expressed his umbrage about the yellow ribbon pin on my Polo shirt. He mumbled something bland “I don’t like what is happening in Gaza.” It was one of my “hot buttons,” and an opportunity to vent. I said audibly, publicly: “You better shut your maw, people with your accent (his accent sounded German to me) murdered my grandmother in Western Ukraine, and about 100 other blood relatives!”
Just a reminder of all these Jews who don’t practice their religion and don’t support Israel. The Nazis didn’t discriminate between you and religious Jews. Before during and after World War11 no country was willing to accept the Jewish remnants of the Holocaust. That’s why the world agreed to give them a tiny scrap of land in the Middle East. When Israel is destroyed again and the whole western world has again turned anti semitic where will you go if still alive?
I’m sorry you had to go through this. But thank you for reporting.
You could have said,
“Didn’t Attaturk and Inonu, the founders of modern post World War I Turkey, legislate democracy and religious freedom? Don’t you think Turkey would be better off with people like them running the country?”
Of course, he would agree with you and then he might challenge you again on Israel. If you wanted to take the bait, you could have said a few things:
“Let’s talk about Gaza.
“Israelis are pretty good killing their enemies. Look what they did to Hamas, Hezbollah, which means ‘Party of God,’ Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has Islamic and Jihad in its name. They killed Haniyeh in Tehran, another guy in Doha, and Sinwar in Gaza. They killed Nasralla about a week after the pagers killed, named, or blinded hundreds in Lebanon. They killed dozens of high ranking apparatchiks in the IRGC and nuclear scientists and nuclear engineers in Iran. They destroyed Assad’s Air Force. So if the Israelis are so good at killing their enemies, why are there more Arabs in Gaza today than there were on October 6?
“And speaking of Genocide, how many Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks did the Ottoman empire kill during World War I? Estimates are 1.5 million to 3 million? And what exactly do you call that?”
You also could have said, “Have you been to Istanbul? I understand it’s a beautiful city. You know it was originally called Constantinople, because it was built by the Roman emperor Constantine, who was a Christian, and who made Christianity, the official religion of the Roman empire. Y’all only became Muslim when the Arabs colonized Turkey. So if you’re a Turk, not an Arab, you were colonized.”
However, that might also not have gone over very well. And discretion being the better part of valor, it’s best not to embarrass people who already hate you, especially if they side with terrorists.
The other thing you could’ve said was. “Suleiman, I, ‘the Magnificent,’ who ruled the Ottoman empire for about 50 years from 1500 to about 1550, during its ‘Golden Age’? This Golden Age coincided with the Spanish Inquisition . And that’s probably because of the Sephardim, the Jews from Spain and Portugal, who left for North Africa from Morocco to Egypt and Eastern Europe, from Greece to Yugoslavia, and Turkey, and poll Jamaica, Brazil, India, London, Amsterdam, New York, California, and elsewhere.”
I don’t know what I would have done if I was in your shoes. I only discuss the Middle East with close friends and Zionists. (And on PopularLogistics.com and Substack.)
I’m about to be the outlier here because it never hurts to hear another perspective, right? So here goes: why is it offensive for someone to ask a Jewish person what they think of the situation in Israel? I think I could have made this terrible mistake, but nothing about that question from me would harbor any prejudice or ill will or preconceived notions about what kind of person I think a Jew is.
I would also ask a Jewish person what they think of the current increase in antisemitism in this country. I have a doctor who is Jewish and I also raise these subjects with him. Why? Because I see a lot of evidence that Jews DO care about Israel and what is happening there. I know how I (emphasis added) feel about it so I want to know how HE feels about it. And what I really want to know is what he THINKS about it.
I want to know if he is as frightened as I am at the antisemitism. I want to know if he supports Israel’s efforts (often thwarted by my own government) to eliminate the terrorism aimed at it, by any means necessary, because I do.
I also ask questions like this to Jewish people because I don’t believe Israel is a monolith and every single Jew in the world thinks the same way. By asking these questions I seek to widen my perspective by asking the people that may offer something I do not know.
I agree that the type of questions posed at a party aren’t really serious and they do belie something besides a sincere wish to know. But not every question hides a demand to either defend or disavow Israel or Judaism.
I have total contempt bordering on hatred for any Jew that separates themselves from Israel. I might have walked out of that event as soon as that Jewish simp opened his mouth for fear of what I would say.
You seem to be very lucky when you meet people able to lead at least some `kind of´conversation.
I haven´t had such luck for quite a while now. When I appear somewhere with an Israel flag, I get insulted, spat at or physically attacked. Or a bunch of idiots calling "Free P*lestine". I reply with "HEIL HITLER !" - "Hm?" - "Well, obviously you´re sharing his hobbies, attacking and killing Jews ?"
Those are the usual "conversation" bits these days when politicians at most are whining and warning pricelessly about "rising antisemitism".
If ever in one of thousand times, a faint breath of what could eventually be called "Conversation" takes place, I encounter nothing but staggering, total ignorance regarding everything that defines and constitutes Israeli and Jewish history, conditions, and the present reality; yet these people dare to ceaselessly "know," "judge," and "condemn" matters about which they haven't the faintest clue.
And I am not even a Jew; it is impossible to have a conversation with absolute idiots—who clearly make up the "majority."
This casts a harsh light on what passes, in our glorious chimera "free democratic society", for "education" — something that has long since been replaced by mere "opinion".
I am under no obligation to remain "polite" toward dangerously idiotic fools.
Kill Hasan Piker, kill Mamdami, kill all of Hamas; it is too late for anything else.
Do you really not realize that the year 2033 is just around the corner?
Being a Jewish-Israeli and a naturalized US citizen, plus a 100% atheist, the theme is familiar and requires a footnote that the author decided to omit for some reason: being Jewish does require a clarification, as we all know that being Jewish is both a religion and also people. “Am Israel Hai” is an established Jewish meme, so a clarification about one’s identity is required for Jews: are they identify themselves as Jewish people, which would then imply that they care about Israel, which could be identified as being a “Zionist,” which is of being used these days as a derogatory term and camouflaged antisemitism, when used by non-Jews.
And for fuller disclosure: Zionism is NOT part of my self-identification because being an Israeli addresses it directly and completely for me — I viscerally care about Israel, its geography, people and future. I have been residing for personal reason in diaspora since 1982, when I left to the U.S.for my PhD studies in Boston, in a “blue chip” university, since then worked as an academic in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Singapore, Kazakhstan and Thailand. I’m 76, a USSR (Western Ukraine) born Israeli, I lived in Israel between 1960-1982, served the usual 3 years, plus the usual annual reserve duty, partially in infantry combat, the rest classified. I’m, like many of my contemporaries, with whom I grew up in Israel, had a Holocaust survivor father (born in the neighborhood of my birth, while mother was born in USSR, was evacuated East, so doesn’t formally qualifies as Holocaust survivor) by now peacefully buried next to my mother, while all my grandparents are buried in the suburbs of Tel-Aviv; 1 of the grandparents, a grandmother, is really a step-grandmother, as my paternal grandmother was murdered by German Nazis in 1943 or 1942, with probably gleeful support (“gleeful” brings up Hamas and 7/October/23), date and place only estimated.
I’m 100% NOT apologetic for being Jewish, but I consider the “Green Line” the boundary of what Israel is for me, which made me eschew Judea and Samaria and Gaza, as much as legally feasible (my bootcamp and squad commander were in Samaria), as NOT being part of my Israel. Like my mates from Bat-Yam, where I lived all my teenage years and until mid-20, I refer to Israel as the “Only Land,” but being a citizen of the U.S., I take my Oath of Allegiance seriously and sincerely.
My apology, though, for bothering the readers with all the above details. I just wanted to illustrate that being Jewish does requires a bit more detail than being Turkish to get a sense of who this Jew is in terms of affiliations and loyalties, which for an Israeli-Jew also informs you for whom and what I’m ready to die for and kill for, which until now I was fortunate to avoid.
This strange conversation between TWO JEWS was a wasted opportunity that might better have been spent discussing issues of personal identity, tribalism, the competition for scarce resources that pervades all of nature and explains so much about territorial conflicts all over the world and the questionable future of the human species. The best defense that Jews (or anyone) have against being scapegoated is to point out the shallow silliness of believing that some people, or religions, or states are better than others. In my view, “Poor us, we have contributed so much, and see how unfairly we are treated” really just doesn’t cut it. As I said - this exchange was a wasted opportunity.
Good article, great discussion. I complain about this exact situation to my wife after almost every social gathering in Seattle. How to respond? I always wish I had Haviv Rettig Gur next to me, like Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall, talking about the righteous morality play that these fellow Jews have running through their brains— the fish not seeing the identitarian water they’re swimming in.
If asked (which is actually rare), I try a version of: “I picture myself and my family living in all these places in the Arab Middle East and in Israel. Why would I prefer to be an Israeli in that region? What would you prefer? Have you been there?”
Would like to hear more strategies, especially once the words “Genocide”, “Apartheid”,“colonialist” inevitably enter the conversation.
How many times do we think this Turk has been asked to account for the Turkish genocide of up to 2 million Armenians, or their continued suppression of the Kurds? As Fran Drescher was fond of saying, “ talk to the hand.”
I happen to be armenian and jewish, half and half, and I would LOVE to be like, "IDK dude, when are you gonna give us back western armenia? hmmmm?"
My friend just visited Azerbaijan and Turkey....he went to the now ruined Armenian City of Ani...
“The next time someone discovers you’re Jewish and immediately pivots to Israel, ask yourself a simple question: Would they have asked this of almost anyone else?”
No! You already know the answer, so there’s no need to ask yourself. Instead, ask THEM the question. That’ll either shut ‘em up or show them up.
Please, let’s stop talking to ourselves, stop asking ourselves. It’s long past time to aggressively push back.
SAY IT LOUD! I’m a Heeb and I’m proud! Jewish Pride! This is the silver lining of this resurgence of blatant antisemitism. Well, at least for us who don’t separate being Jewish from being a Zionist!
You are so right, and how I wish every Jewish person thought the same way!
All great points. I only wish you did go into a Judaism 101 explainer when prompted. I know it’s hard and not the sexiest party chatter. I’ve been there. But it would have been a great opportunity to teach Judaism !
Also, that person’s statement “I’m Jewish but have nothing to do with Israel” is a ridiculous statement. Judaism and Israel are not mutually exclusive.
So that JBBO who said "I’m Jewish but have nothing to do with Israel," is his name Scott Weiner?
No because he didn't accuse Israel of genocide in a futile attempt to appeal to the Jew haters in his queer camp.
January 2026, after initially declining to use the term during a candidates' debate, Wiener posted a video saying he believes Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, explaining that the Israeli government has tried to destroy Gaza and push Palestinians out, which he said qualifies as genocide. He's a jew -doesn't matter what he thinks does or says to antisemites
He has been horrible....trying to appease the Jew haters. As has Jacob frey....now to some extent Josh Shapiro....the only Jew with guts is Fetterman .....who's not a Jew.
Judaism and Israel don’t have to be but still could be mutually exclusive, if the person is NOT a practicing Jew and NOT an Israeli. Otherwise, this individual is the new product of wokeness and fear for their safety,
Some try to exclude one and keep the other. These are Jews who have forgotten, or never knew, the over 3,000 year history of the Jewish people, and especially the last 2,000 years in the diaspora. Even in Nazi Germany there were Jews who rejected the notion of Jews returning to their historic homeland in Israel, and actually supported the Nazi Party. They even formed an organization—the Verband Nationaldeutscher Juden ("the Association of German National Jews"). Guess what, almost every one of these would-be "good" Jews went to the gas chambers just the same.
Thanks for this snippet of Jewish history!
To reciprocate, I heard from a Jewish historian about 35 yers ago, professor at Melbourne University, as his son, Paul Adler, was a friends in California, whom I brought back to Melbourne to participate in delivering a new degree on technological innovation management at Melbourne Business School, that there a similar organization in the Netherlands, and the same process commenced after Nazi occupation, to the members’ surprize. They tried to negotiate, as they could not betray their Nazi Jewish comrades!
It was of a wider conversation about human ability to adjust and abolish their values and ethics, as my father convinced me that Jews could do the same if the policies were directed at others, not them. Professor Adler Sr agreed, used the Netherlands as an example.
Teaching Judaism assumes the students want to learn; from this conversation it appears this person would rather attack.
How can it not be-topic of conversation when the majority of current news is about the Middle East wars and consequences in the Diaspora. This was an opportunity for discussion and perhaps education and perhaps a change in conviction. It is far better than silence.
I would have, especially if a person was even moderately aggressive. About a year ago, in a supermarket in Pattaya, Thailand, where I and my Thai family reside, a 35-40 years old family man, with a wife and 2 kids, expressed his umbrage about the yellow ribbon pin on my Polo shirt. He mumbled something bland “I don’t like what is happening in Gaza.” It was one of my “hot buttons,” and an opportunity to vent. I said audibly, publicly: “You better shut your maw, people with your accent (his accent sounded German to me) murdered my grandmother in Western Ukraine, and about 100 other blood relatives!”
Just a reminder of all these Jews who don’t practice their religion and don’t support Israel. The Nazis didn’t discriminate between you and religious Jews. Before during and after World War11 no country was willing to accept the Jewish remnants of the Holocaust. That’s why the world agreed to give them a tiny scrap of land in the Middle East. When Israel is destroyed again and the whole western world has again turned anti semitic where will you go if still alive?
Hi Vanessa,
I’m sorry you had to go through this. But thank you for reporting.
You could have said,
“Didn’t Attaturk and Inonu, the founders of modern post World War I Turkey, legislate democracy and religious freedom? Don’t you think Turkey would be better off with people like them running the country?”
Of course, he would agree with you and then he might challenge you again on Israel. If you wanted to take the bait, you could have said a few things:
“Let’s talk about Gaza.
“Israelis are pretty good killing their enemies. Look what they did to Hamas, Hezbollah, which means ‘Party of God,’ Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has Islamic and Jihad in its name. They killed Haniyeh in Tehran, another guy in Doha, and Sinwar in Gaza. They killed Nasralla about a week after the pagers killed, named, or blinded hundreds in Lebanon. They killed dozens of high ranking apparatchiks in the IRGC and nuclear scientists and nuclear engineers in Iran. They destroyed Assad’s Air Force. So if the Israelis are so good at killing their enemies, why are there more Arabs in Gaza today than there were on October 6?
“And speaking of Genocide, how many Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks did the Ottoman empire kill during World War I? Estimates are 1.5 million to 3 million? And what exactly do you call that?”
You also could have said, “Have you been to Istanbul? I understand it’s a beautiful city. You know it was originally called Constantinople, because it was built by the Roman emperor Constantine, who was a Christian, and who made Christianity, the official religion of the Roman empire. Y’all only became Muslim when the Arabs colonized Turkey. So if you’re a Turk, not an Arab, you were colonized.”
However, that might also not have gone over very well. And discretion being the better part of valor, it’s best not to embarrass people who already hate you, especially if they side with terrorists.
The other thing you could’ve said was. “Suleiman, I, ‘the Magnificent,’ who ruled the Ottoman empire for about 50 years from 1500 to about 1550, during its ‘Golden Age’? This Golden Age coincided with the Spanish Inquisition . And that’s probably because of the Sephardim, the Jews from Spain and Portugal, who left for North Africa from Morocco to Egypt and Eastern Europe, from Greece to Yugoslavia, and Turkey, and poll Jamaica, Brazil, India, London, Amsterdam, New York, California, and elsewhere.”
I don’t know what I would have done if I was in your shoes. I only discuss the Middle East with close friends and Zionists. (And on PopularLogistics.com and Substack.)
Excellent article.
Outstanding!
I’m about to be the outlier here because it never hurts to hear another perspective, right? So here goes: why is it offensive for someone to ask a Jewish person what they think of the situation in Israel? I think I could have made this terrible mistake, but nothing about that question from me would harbor any prejudice or ill will or preconceived notions about what kind of person I think a Jew is.
I would also ask a Jewish person what they think of the current increase in antisemitism in this country. I have a doctor who is Jewish and I also raise these subjects with him. Why? Because I see a lot of evidence that Jews DO care about Israel and what is happening there. I know how I (emphasis added) feel about it so I want to know how HE feels about it. And what I really want to know is what he THINKS about it.
I want to know if he is as frightened as I am at the antisemitism. I want to know if he supports Israel’s efforts (often thwarted by my own government) to eliminate the terrorism aimed at it, by any means necessary, because I do.
I also ask questions like this to Jewish people because I don’t believe Israel is a monolith and every single Jew in the world thinks the same way. By asking these questions I seek to widen my perspective by asking the people that may offer something I do not know.
I agree that the type of questions posed at a party aren’t really serious and they do belie something besides a sincere wish to know. But not every question hides a demand to either defend or disavow Israel or Judaism.
I have total contempt bordering on hatred for any Jew that separates themselves from Israel. I might have walked out of that event as soon as that Jewish simp opened his mouth for fear of what I would say.
You seem to be very lucky when you meet people able to lead at least some `kind of´conversation.
I haven´t had such luck for quite a while now. When I appear somewhere with an Israel flag, I get insulted, spat at or physically attacked. Or a bunch of idiots calling "Free P*lestine". I reply with "HEIL HITLER !" - "Hm?" - "Well, obviously you´re sharing his hobbies, attacking and killing Jews ?"
Those are the usual "conversation" bits these days when politicians at most are whining and warning pricelessly about "rising antisemitism".
If ever in one of thousand times, a faint breath of what could eventually be called "Conversation" takes place, I encounter nothing but staggering, total ignorance regarding everything that defines and constitutes Israeli and Jewish history, conditions, and the present reality; yet these people dare to ceaselessly "know," "judge," and "condemn" matters about which they haven't the faintest clue.
And I am not even a Jew; it is impossible to have a conversation with absolute idiots—who clearly make up the "majority."
This casts a harsh light on what passes, in our glorious chimera "free democratic society", for "education" — something that has long since been replaced by mere "opinion".
I am under no obligation to remain "polite" toward dangerously idiotic fools.
Kill Hasan Piker, kill Mamdami, kill all of Hamas; it is too late for anything else.
Do you really not realize that the year 2033 is just around the corner?
Superb essay. Just so.
Being a Jewish-Israeli and a naturalized US citizen, plus a 100% atheist, the theme is familiar and requires a footnote that the author decided to omit for some reason: being Jewish does require a clarification, as we all know that being Jewish is both a religion and also people. “Am Israel Hai” is an established Jewish meme, so a clarification about one’s identity is required for Jews: are they identify themselves as Jewish people, which would then imply that they care about Israel, which could be identified as being a “Zionist,” which is of being used these days as a derogatory term and camouflaged antisemitism, when used by non-Jews.
And for fuller disclosure: Zionism is NOT part of my self-identification because being an Israeli addresses it directly and completely for me — I viscerally care about Israel, its geography, people and future. I have been residing for personal reason in diaspora since 1982, when I left to the U.S.for my PhD studies in Boston, in a “blue chip” university, since then worked as an academic in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Singapore, Kazakhstan and Thailand. I’m 76, a USSR (Western Ukraine) born Israeli, I lived in Israel between 1960-1982, served the usual 3 years, plus the usual annual reserve duty, partially in infantry combat, the rest classified. I’m, like many of my contemporaries, with whom I grew up in Israel, had a Holocaust survivor father (born in the neighborhood of my birth, while mother was born in USSR, was evacuated East, so doesn’t formally qualifies as Holocaust survivor) by now peacefully buried next to my mother, while all my grandparents are buried in the suburbs of Tel-Aviv; 1 of the grandparents, a grandmother, is really a step-grandmother, as my paternal grandmother was murdered by German Nazis in 1943 or 1942, with probably gleeful support (“gleeful” brings up Hamas and 7/October/23), date and place only estimated.
I’m 100% NOT apologetic for being Jewish, but I consider the “Green Line” the boundary of what Israel is for me, which made me eschew Judea and Samaria and Gaza, as much as legally feasible (my bootcamp and squad commander were in Samaria), as NOT being part of my Israel. Like my mates from Bat-Yam, where I lived all my teenage years and until mid-20, I refer to Israel as the “Only Land,” but being a citizen of the U.S., I take my Oath of Allegiance seriously and sincerely.
My apology, though, for bothering the readers with all the above details. I just wanted to illustrate that being Jewish does requires a bit more detail than being Turkish to get a sense of who this Jew is in terms of affiliations and loyalties, which for an Israeli-Jew also informs you for whom and what I’m ready to die for and kill for, which until now I was fortunate to avoid.
Oscar-Joshua
This strange conversation between TWO JEWS was a wasted opportunity that might better have been spent discussing issues of personal identity, tribalism, the competition for scarce resources that pervades all of nature and explains so much about territorial conflicts all over the world and the questionable future of the human species. The best defense that Jews (or anyone) have against being scapegoated is to point out the shallow silliness of believing that some people, or religions, or states are better than others. In my view, “Poor us, we have contributed so much, and see how unfairly we are treated” really just doesn’t cut it. As I said - this exchange was a wasted opportunity.
Good article, great discussion. I complain about this exact situation to my wife after almost every social gathering in Seattle. How to respond? I always wish I had Haviv Rettig Gur next to me, like Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall, talking about the righteous morality play that these fellow Jews have running through their brains— the fish not seeing the identitarian water they’re swimming in.
If asked (which is actually rare), I try a version of: “I picture myself and my family living in all these places in the Arab Middle East and in Israel. Why would I prefer to be an Israeli in that region? What would you prefer? Have you been there?”
Would like to hear more strategies, especially once the words “Genocide”, “Apartheid”,“colonialist” inevitably enter the conversation.