His call for empathy has made this Jewish studies professor feel isolated

There's a particular feeling of uselessness that can take hold when you are watching a horrible thing happen far away from your home — but that same thing is causing your friends and neighbors deep pain.

The war in Israel and Gaza has created this web of shared grief connecting friends and strangers. In the days right after the Hamas attack, my neighbor was worried about her extended family in Israel who she was having a hard time tracking down.

Another Jewish friend has been working through her own grief, albeit from a distance — one of the women in her broader friend network lost two nieces. One was killed by Hamas, the other is missing.

My husband's best friend is Palestinian American. He and I texted this week. I didn't know what to say, but just said I was thinking of him. He wrote back,