While I don't begrudge Goldberg responding to Benedikt's essay, I think he comes off a little smug and preachy when he essentially accuses her of not really being Jewish. This is tricky, as Jewish identity is notoriously difficult to define. Is a Chinese convert who believes in God more or less Jewish than an secular Jew with roots in Europe or the Middle East and a direct connection to the Holocaust? Does being Jewish automatically mean that one has to care about the state of Israel one way or another? Can one be an American Jew who regards Israel as simply another country, like France or Spain? Goldberg seems to think that his version of Jewish identity (Jews are responsible to and for other Jews, no matter what) is right, and that Benedikt's is wrong.

In a sense, this back-and-forth is as much a personal essay for Jeffrey Goldberg as the initial post was for Allison Benedikt. He just has the cover of not having provided the initial material. As you say, Reihan, "when we write about our own lives in a public setting, we invite others to interrogate our motives and to put our self-chosen narratives in a broader context." I completely agree, and Benedikt should have anticipated pushback. However, the fact that Goldberg isn't explicitly telling a kind of coming-of-age story doesn't mean he isn't writing about his life in a public setting, and does not mean his motives shouldn't be interrogated and contextualized as well.