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Dearborn, Michigan – Raised in a Jewish American household, Dana Kornberg was in her early 20s when she started to become critical of the Israeli government.

It was 2006, and Kornberg was touring Israel, as part of what is called a birthright trip, a tradition for Jewish teens and young adults.

During her travels, she saw Israeli construction workers building a tall concrete barrier to fence in parts of the occupied West Bank, a landlocked Palestinian territory. She also heard Israeli comments about Palestinians that made her uncomfortable: “They were alluded to as being dangerous.”

Those experiences made her concerned about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians — something that evoked in her parallels to Jewish oppression throughout history.

“To me, it was horrific,” said Kornberg, now a 41-year-old assistant sociology professor. “What lessons have we learned from what our people have gone through?”