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I was surprised by a conversation listed in my textbook. The conversation goes
like this:

```

    A: ハンバーガーを[食]{た}べますか。 
    B: いいえ、ハンバーガーは[嫌]{きら}いです
    
```

As for the meaning, I believe I understand it. ("Do you eat hamburgers? ...
No, I hate them.") However, I interpret line "B" as a shortened version of
いいえ、[私]{わたし}はハンバーガーが[嫌]{きら}いです. I think it would be incorrect to say
いいえ、ハンバーガーは[私]{わたし}が[嫌]{きら}いです - I interpret this as the jocular "hamburgers
don't like me". So what I'm confused about is if the 私は was dropped because
the subject was implied, why did the が particle change into は? Is this
typical?

Or is my fundamental understanding of the distinction between は and が just off
in general (which would not be surprising)?

EDIT: I guess an alternative question would be "would it be wrong for me to
say 「いいえ、ハンバーガーが嫌いです。」"
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は-and-が
は vs. が when topic is implied
What's important is to grasp what's talked about, that is, the topic.

In this conversation, they are talking over "hamburgers", so (as long as the
context goes straightforwardly) you must first think to refer to the
hamburgers as the topic, in other words, marked with は. (In this regard, the
example sentence saying ハンバーガーを is not really natural. It should be
ハンバーガー食べますか？ when you invite the listener to eat it, or ハンバーガーは 食べますか？(or
◯◯さんは ハンバーガー を/は 食べますか？) when you ask about his dietary habit.)

So, replying to the example question as いいえ、ハンバーガーが嫌いだ doesn't work unless it
implies a hidden context that questions what the listener hates to eat in the
moment among possibly available choices (or it appears in a sub clause like
いいえ、ハンバーガーが嫌いなので…).

I don't know what logic enables us to interpret ハンバーガーは… as 私はハンバーガーが, but
anyway, when you add 私 to ハンバーガーは食べる, it becomes 私はハンバーガーは食べる (as long as 私 is
a shared information).

The structure of Aは Bが… is essentially Aが Bが… with A topicalized. So, when B
is topicalized too, it becomes Aは Bは….

Edit: 嫌い doesn't only mean "to hate" but also "I hate", "you hate", "s/he
hates", "we hate" or "they hate". So, ハンバーガーは嫌い doesn't so much imply presence
of "I" as it's not missing from the beginning. (This interpretation is more
reasonable because adding 私は could more or less change nuance of the
sentence.)
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answer
Your suggestion, ハンバーガーが嫌いです, is a grammatical sentence. Actually the first
sentence is the same as this except that ハンバーガー is marked with は instead of が
because it's the topic of the sentence. That is what は is for, after all; it
marks the topic by replacing が or を. The following is also grammatical:

> B: ハンバーガー **は** 食べませんが、ホットドッグ **は** 食べます。

Now these は are replacing を.

Where は should appear depends on the context. I said ハンバーガーが嫌いです is not
incorrect, but it does sound odd in this context because it lacks the topic
even though you're describing some general fact. In most cases, Japanese
sentences needs a topic, which can be a grammatical subject or a grammatical
object.
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answer