What’s really going on in Israel, Part 2: how do we even begin to talk about a "solution"?

It’s been six months since Hamas attacked Israel, killing nearly 1200 people, kidnapping around 250, and triggering Israel’s devastating war on Gaza. The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters without Borders say more than 100 journalists, and more than 200 aid workers according to the UN, have also been killed, including seven World Central Kitchen workers.

This episode was recorded before a lot of things happened: Sen. Chuck Schumer’s speech on the Senate floor, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu’s response, Biden and Bibi’s phone call, the Al Shifa hospital raid and the IDF pulling troops out of Khan Younis, to name a few. So, while these items aren't in the episode because they hadn’t happened yet, the larger conversation about what faces us as people committed to a safe and sustainable future for Palestinians, Israelis, and Jews the world over has not become less relevant. This conversation was held and is being published in the spirit of not just trying to keep the light of hope alive, but to look some of the obstacles before us in the face; concepts, pain and trauma through which any future solution must pass.

In the meantime, we try to fight the sense of helpless horror with what little we can do from a distance while trying to make sense of the pain and stay in touch with our humanity with conversations like this one. Find Part 1 here.

Donate to World Central Kitchen here. UN Crisis Relief here. Help the International Rescue Committee here. Find more on Vivian Silva, Women Wage Peace, Israeli societal resilience, Progressive Labor Zionism and HaNoar HaOved 

Transcript

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THIS IS AN AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT WITH AUTOMATIC SPEAKER DETECTION. The robots are good, but they're not perfect.

[00:00:00] Zev: Setting firm boundaries doesn't always help invite people in. Sometimes we have the illusion that that creates a safer space, if we say what's firmly outside of the boundaries. And I think it's much less about drawing a fence or drawing boundaries around what's, what can be inside and what should be outside.

[00:00:16] Zev: If we put certain values at the center, and we say, let's first start on the assumption here that no one here is advocating for violence. as a long term solution. That no one here is advocating for taking away anyone's right to identify as a people and a nation and to seek self determination. If we acknowledge those things and we can start from that standpoint and we can say that we value human life, okay, then we can talk.

[00:00:40] Hannah: A lot has happened since we recorded this episode with my brother and his to Israeli educator friends, Yair and Adam, who were here in the U S on a discussion tour, visiting with Jewish communities, youth, primarily on college campuses and with other groups dealing with American Jews. And [00:01:00] to talk about how the discourse is different in the U S versus Israel and how the American perception of what's going on in Israel is not only perhaps inaccurate, but certainly incomplete.

[00:01:12] Hannah: Please go ahead and go back to that episode to get the full context and the beginning of this conversation. Because this is a four person recording and there were technical issues and I am but one person, it has taken me a while to get this out. So some of the really current events. Including Schumer's speech on the Senate floor, and the Ashifa hospital raid, and Biden and Bibi's conversation, and the killing of the World Central Kitchen workers, just to name a few.

[00:01:40] Hannah: Those won't be addressed in this episode, they hadn't happened yet. But for context, it's now been six months since Hamas attacked Israel, killing close to 1, 200 people, kidnapping around 250, 130 of whom are still alive. And triggering Israel's devastating war on Gaza. [00:02:00] The Hamas run health ministry says more than 33, 000 people have been killed in that campaign.

[00:02:05] Hannah: The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders both say around 100 journalists have been killed. And the UN says more than 200 aid workers have also lost their lives. And more than two million people in Gaza are now teetering on the edge of famine. This is an unimaginable, devastating, horrific situation.

[00:02:27] Hannah: And the longer it goes on, the more all of us struggle not to lose hope. Back when we recorded this episode, we were starting to lose hope. Fight those feelings. And I hope that you'll receive this conversation in the spirit in which it was intended as an honest look at some of the trauma and obstacles, at least from the Israeli societal perspective that stand between all of us and some sort of solution, the spirit of this conversation is around trying to keep track of each other.

[00:02:59] Hannah: of our [00:03:00] shared humanity, of some kind of hope for a safe and sustainable future for Palestinians and Israelis alike. I hope you'll meet us in that place and I hope that an end to this incredible suffering comes soon.

[00:03:17] Hannah: So what are you guys finding as you're going on this tour? I'm fascinated because I know Zeb, you even mentioned even the language has changed. So for example, talk to me about being like, can, do people even call themselves Zionists anymore? What do they say instead? 

[00:03:33] Zev: Yeah, that is a fascinating. One of the organizations we met with, I don't know if I want to speak for them, but they, they basically said, We introduced ourselves and said, you know, we represent this progressive Zionist, uh, public to some extent and have some experience in that world.

[00:03:47] Zev: And they said, we, we prefer to identify as pro Israel because Zionist is too charged. It's, uh, it's more extreme than we want to identify. And they, you know, they said, we're in a Zionist organization. It's just not the language that we put forward [00:04:00] often. It's not the foot we want to start on with people.

[00:04:02] Zev: And to me, this was strange because I, I remember at least 10, 12 years ago when I was, uh, For us, saying Zionist meant you held to lofty ideals and didn't necessarily have to be completely supportive of Israel, could include criticism, could include a vision of a Socialist utopia even, I mean, certainly did include the vision of a socialist utopia for kibbutz Zionism that we talked about and drew inspiration from.

[00:04:31] Zev: And pro Israel we thought was, you know, mindless supporting, yeah, being a hundred percent whatever Israel does. And today it seems like, you know, Zionists has been so thoroughly demonized that pro Israel is just like, I think you said it well done. Like, we just support. the existence of the state. We're not trying to argue about ideology here.

[00:04:49] Zev: We're just saying it exists. And we're acknowledging that reality where Zionism is like, Oh, we can, we can debate the ideology and whether it should exist or shouldn't exist. You know, something that's not up for grabs for [00:05:00] most countries on the planet, even those created after Israel. 

[00:05:03] Adam: I think most people are confused and they're genuinely very, very, very confused because they don't spend all day Reading Israeli news, talking to their Israeli friends, reading all the Zionist literature to figure out exactly what the difference between this type of Zionism is and this, like, okay.

[00:05:20] Hannah: Fair enough. I'm a 

[00:05:21] Adam: nerd. I'm obsessed with this stuff. You didn't have that special day at camp? Yeah. Like. Even the kids that grew up in the, some of the most intense, kind of in, inside the Jewish community, went to Jewish school. You know, how much do they know about this and how much do they know about the differences?

[00:05:36] Adam: Now, some people know a lot, but the vast majority of Jews, you know, they live their lives and this isn't what they spend their days doing. And then, when you get, there's something about this word Zionism that suddenly came about, that it's like, I have to kind of know what I, Like, that's an ideology. I have to know what I'm talking about.

[00:05:54] Adam: I have to be able to explain it in incredible detail. And I think there's something about the word [00:06:00] Israel, which there's this simple feeling of, here's a place where half the The Jews in the world more or less live where actually the vast majority of Jewish communities that are not white Which within the Jewish world would say non Ashkenazi Live it's a cultural center of the Jewish people.

[00:06:24] Adam: I've been there before I maybe have family there. I maybe have friends there I'm connected to it. And there's just I think there's something about just Saying, I'm connected to this thing. And that's the outpouring I saw after October the 7th. Like, I know people who have very extreme, or at least very, very, very critical stances about Israel to the point where maybe they even said, Israel doesn't need to be a Jewish state.

[00:06:51] Adam: When October 7th happened, there was an outpouring because they feel connected to it, because It also just is a living thing. It's a country. [00:07:00] It's a place. It's a people. And I'm connected to that deeply. I know a lot about it. And I think there were certain people who feel so, so repulsed, like, like, I hear almost like a repulsion from, from the name, the flag, like anything that reminds me of this place.

[00:07:22] Adam: I'm like, troubled by it. And I think that it's almost an emotional response as much as it's like a response that is based in like, I have these, I have these very clear stances about what I think ideologically and what I think about politically. And I think a lot of people also just experience it on a deeply emotional level.

[00:07:40] Adam: And I found that that's what came out in my conversations, 

[00:07:45] Music: the 

[00:07:45] Adam: communities I'm engaged with, with my friends that live all across North America. Is that it was really based on this, did I experience October 7th as something that happened to me? Yeah. Or [00:08:00] did I not? And that was the outpouring, I think. And I think for certain people, they were made to feel that that was the outpouring.

[00:08:08] Adam: Especially certain people that are more in left circles. They didn't have a space to talk about that. That they were made to feel guilty for that sense, for that experience. That it was illegitimate because, you know, you, you can't question the tools that the oppressed use to fight their oppressors. And, uh, I think that I've seen a lot of that.

[00:08:31] Adam: I've seen a lot of feelings of, um, I didn't have a place to experience that. to experience this or on the vice versa, doubling down, kind of like, 

[00:08:43] Zev: yeah, 

[00:08:44] Adam: I feel more attached and more connected than I have in years. Friends that wrote me after October the 7th, friends that suddenly started posting things on Facebook that I was like, I can't believe that that person's posting that thing.

[00:08:58] Adam: And they taught us also today, like in the [00:09:00] Federation, they were like, Suddenly people started showing up, they started donating, and like, those two things happened at the same time, sometimes in the same family, I think sometimes even on some level in the same person. And I think that that, those two responses are But those two responses over time are moving farther and farther apart from one another.

[00:09:22] Adam: That's, that's where we're heading, I think. 

[00:09:24] Hannah: I agree. It troubles me. And, and I think that it's happening a lot, especially in the younger circles. And I, I know you guys are especially well positioned to speak to that. I think, you know, a big part, for example, of the algorithm that I see is because I'm more connected to the academic communities.

[00:09:40] Hannah: Um, you know, I did a Middle Eastern and North African studies. Master's and a Judaic Studies grad certificate, but, you know, so the people that I know who work and write and read and, and, and, and also me and journalism. And I mean, it's, I, I, to think of the number of Palestinian journalists who have been killed is, is, is, [00:10:00] is earth shattering because this is a narrative that also we're going to need if we're ever going to find a longterm solution.

[00:10:08] Hannah: We need. And the internal realities from Gaza as well, to be a part of that. Um, so, but I mean, thinking about it from that perspective, what are the conversations that you guys are having here and that you're trying to facilitate? And what do you find to be the biggest struggles? 

[00:10:30] Yair: That's a good question. I think maybe one way of looking at it is what we want to engage with young people about.

[00:10:42] Yair: And what we've realized is three important things. One is to try to facilitate a more personal connection, not in the sense of inventing someone that you don't know or. Transcribed That you knew that was hurt on October 7th, [00:11:00] but more of trying to connect my personal experiences with an actual person that had similar, maybe dilemmas or life story that.

[00:11:13] Yair: Was the fact that October 7th, uh, we can elaborate on that, but I think it's, it's 1 thing that, that we are bringing to this. Another is, uh, more, uh, on the ground perspective of what happened in Israeli society, which is different than talking about, uh, the conflict and, and that sense, but does give a certain perspective of the complexity of, uh, Israeli society, which is part of what we've been talking about.

[00:11:45] Yair: And now, but I think it's something that's missing in the big picture of, uh, what, what people see. And another thing is to try to relate to their experience as [00:12:00] young progressive Jews in campuses, which are, I think you could say from a, from a positive perspective. A very lively place of like political activism in general, but certainly also one of the most violent spaces that people who like take a generally pro Israel stance can experience.

[00:12:27] Yair: And I'm not necessarily saying that. Any outcry against Israel is, uh, wrong or isn't isn't legitimate, but I think that the general atmosphere and specifically in campuses has been very, uh, difficult to. To establish meaningful debate, or even I'd say, uh, free thinking, uh, on this subject. And I think a lot of [00:13:00] young people need the tools to even understand their situation, uh, in this.

[00:13:06] Yair: very volatile atmosphere. So that's what we've already talked with some young adults about and are going to bring this conversation to more places. I wouldn't say that we have a solution to any of these dilemmas. I think that we as educators and as people who work with youth and young adults for a long time, and a lot of, I could say, Smaller crises that happen in recent years.

[00:13:39] Yair: We think we have some tools to offer, and these are some that we've chosen to bring to this tour, and we also genuinely, and I say this with confidence, part of what we do is dialogue, and dialogue requires us to listen. To what they are experiencing, [00:14:00] because I can maybe think that I know what a young person in a college campus is experiencing, but I actually have talked to only a few of those, and we hope to get an opportunity to engage with them in the sense that to really get more of a picture of what's going on.

[00:14:21] Yair: Maybe also help them unpack some of the. Things. And I, we do believe, believe that even that like dialogical approach to me meeting them could also assist them in some of the things that they're going through.

[00:14:43] Adam: I think a lot of the organizations that are trying to, uh, deal with Israel, you could say, especially working with young people, demand, um, the participants or the members to make a very clear stance on the simplest level of [00:15:00] accepting like. First of all, they need a place to be confused. They're living in a confusing environment.

[00:15:06] Adam: They get a lot of crazy different messages that are really, really, really different. Like, just going on TikTok is like a nightmare. You really get, you know, what is, like, they're living in a grand level. Like, what is the truth? What actually happened? They're like, you can go into places where you can find fairly convincing arguments that October The seventh was most of the people that were murdered were murdered by the Israeli army.

[00:15:34] Adam: And that all of, everything having to do with the sexual violence that happened didn't actually happen. You can find endless, just crazy propaganda. And it's convincing. You need to accept that it's convincing. I've gone on all those places. I've looked at it. When you don't put a barrier to the conversation of saying, first and foremost, say where you stand and you [00:16:00] create a place where they're allowed to be confused and allowed to change their opinions and they're allowed to ask questions.

[00:16:07] Adam: That's the initial space. And I think a lot of educators and community people, um, are nervous about that because you're going to hear a lot of opinions. That are very hard to hear and I can say this in Israeli in the two months after October the 7th I didn't want to hear a lot of those opinions. Yeah, I was like It, you know, if we just describe the anger and the pain and what, if you want to actually meet them where they're at, and you want to have a reasonable conversation with them, and you want to accept where they're at, like I think Kiyo said, you're going to have to hear a lot of things that you don't like, and you don't agree with.

[00:16:44] Adam: And you can't set that barrier as you're in and you're out. Now at a certain point, you're also going to have to tell them. They will develop their opinions over the time and they'll be more engaged and more involved and, you know, at some point an organization has its stance, it has its opinions. You know, you have to set red lines, you have to send [00:17:00] boundaries, you have to say to someone, you know, you think something very, very different than the rest of this organization.

[00:17:04] Adam: Maybe you should go find something. Maybe you're not 

[00:17:05] Hannah: in the right organization. Go find something you're more aligned with. 

[00:17:08] Adam: That's like not, that's not education and that's not what an educational organization is gonna do. 

[00:17:13] Music: Yeah. 

[00:17:14] Adam: Um, I think very few Israelis naturally just slid into that position. and I had to do a lot of personal work, push myself into that position.

[00:17:25] Adam: And also a lot of the educators that we work with, a lot of the people that. that I was, you know, working with, running an NGO, dealing with this. They had to decide that they were willing to put themselves in that place emotionally. And I told them, like, I told some people, you don't have to, you don't have to, you know, if you, if you don't have the bandwidth for this, but I think most people at the end of the day, they do have bandwidth for it because genuine dialogue and genuine meeting and genuine conversation.

[00:17:53] Adam: Everybody at the end of the day likes more or less. That's one thing. And I wanted to loop back. I just wanted [00:18:00] to, uh, give a specific example to what Yair said. So, um, Yair said finding stories that, uh, relate to people. So, uh, one of the things that happened after October the 7th, like one of the things that came out, uh, on October the 8th, I got a phone call from my mother who told me that a close family friend of ours, Vivian Silver, who lived Who grew up in Canada, and she was, uh, she grew up in Canada, she made Aliyah.

[00:18:31] Adam: Uh, she lived on keyboards with my parents, um, and my mom called me and told me that she, what we thought at the time was that she had been kidnapped, and then we later discovered three weeks later, uh, that she'd been killed. 

[00:18:45] Zev: Yeah, I just want to stop you for a minute to clarify maybe the significance to people who didn't know Vivian from a close personal connection, Vivian also achieved a lot of notoriety in the following weeks.

[00:18:55] Zev: Certainly while people thought she was still a hostage and also after her death was discovered [00:19:00] because she was a very prominent peace activist. She was one of the founders of women wage peace, who by the way, have been nominated for a Nobel prize, but one of the nominating bodies recently, uh, she worked with many other NGOs that worked with Bedouins in Israel that worked with Palestinians, including in Gaza.

[00:19:18] Zev: She volunteered to drive cousins to. medical procedures in Israel. She had close connections with many people in Gaza and in Palestinian society and had dedicated a large chunk of her life to fighting for peace in Israel, living on the kibbutz. I think it's important context. Sorry. 

[00:19:36] Adam: Yeah. No, no, that was very important.

[00:19:38] Adam: I've already become so, uh, so involved in telling her story that I almost forget that not everybody just naturally knows who she was. Yeah. So, um, and first of all, it was important me to simply tell her story. And also I think it, It's important for people to [00:20:00] humanize what happened, to humanize the people that happened, and also more particularly to listen to what, who they were, to listen to what they believed, to listen to what they wanted for their lives.

[00:20:11] Adam: Like um, to humanize the thing that, especially I think for It's for the young people. The young people. I sound very old, just to clarify. You're not 

[00:20:23] Hannah: as old as me, so there's that. You're one of the youngs, don't worry. 

[00:20:28] Zev: That was also the theme of our meetings today, is talking about the young people. Wait, is that, who do we mean?

[00:20:33] Hannah: Exactly, young to who? 

[00:20:36] Adam: I think if you're consuming a lot of your media, Like if you live on the other side of the world from where this happened, and you're gaining a lot of your knowledge of what's happening on social media. It's just dehumanizing. It's just on a basic level, it just dehumanizes the whole story.

[00:20:54] Adam: And I, and, and I think that's an essential piece. 

[00:20:56] Yair: I think that Vivian's story in particular, it's [00:21:00] also I think, makes a few different types of bridges. It is bridge, I mean, her personal story is bridge between, um, Israel and, uh, world jewelry. I mean, I think in, in a way, every person who makes , uh, has. Uh, two sets of different roots, uh, the roots that they left, they still have in their home country and the new routes that they begin to develop, uh, and, and her story can relate to a 50 year old person, uh, living, uh, in, uh, And, and town in Israel and could relate to a 20 year old student in, in the U S and in different ways.

[00:21:50] Yair: But I think it's something, and I think another very important bridge is the thing that we just, uh, had this talk [00:22:00] about like, well, pro Israel or Zionist, but the notion of being In her case, I guess she would say Zionist. And being a peace loving and peace, um, uh, yeah, peace activist, someone who pursues peace in, in, in her life actively is something that, as both Adam and Zev said earlier, is something that people sometimes don't have a clear vision of how that could even be.

[00:22:39] Hannah: You could be a Zionist and also love peace. 

[00:22:42] Yair: Yeah, you could be a peace activist and still live on the border of Israel and make I mean I don't mean the fact she was killed make certain sacrifices for it and leave live in place that even before October 7th had Rocket fire [00:23:00] on it and and say this is something that I I think is important is something that I want to advocate because I believe that Jews should have a country and I am willing to be in the forefront of that sitting in all in the border, uh, keyboards and still spending so much of our life.

[00:23:22] Yair: Advocating for peace and different organizations in different places is something that I think, but by the way, also in Israel is something that people don't necessarily believe is, is actually possible. And I think that telling the story is very, has been for me, a very educational, uh, thing because. You need to give the concrete example of someone who actually has done it in her life in order for people to be able to imagine it.

[00:23:59] Yair: It's [00:24:00] something that exists outside of some people's sphere of like, to be what I could choose to be or what people could choose to be. By the way, even when we go and tell people that we are, uh, Zionists and we also advocate for peace, some people just look at us strange. And when we see it all, also, uh, how young people engaged, uh, with it, and you could say, well, it's a story of a 70 something year old person.

[00:24:28] Yair: Why are they so, uh, connected to it? And I think it is something in her life story that is very appealing in the sense of, you I can relate. 

[00:24:41] Zev: Yeah. So I mean, I think I, I work with a lot of youth. I work with a specific segment of Jewish youth. I don't think it's necessarily representative, but I do agree with the dumb sentiment that there's lots of confusion.

[00:24:53] Zev: And there's also lots of sense that there's no open enough space for me to deal with [00:25:00] that confusion and to ask questions about my identity and their high demands placed on me to take a stance one way or the other. I also agree with what you said of, uh, Setting firm boundaries doesn't always help invite people in.

[00:25:14] Zev: Sometimes we have the illusion that that creates a safer space, if we say what's firmly outside of the boundaries. I think there's some things that should be, but I agree. I mean, I work with a movement as well. We don't exist to take in every viewpoint and every person and every identity. We're a Jewish Zionist movement that has a view for peace and specifically, at least explicitly a two state solution until that gets changed at a, at a, at a future, a democratic conference, which we have every two years and the members can vote on.

[00:25:44] Zev: Um, and to me, or something that I've said to a few people is I think it's much less about drawing a fence or drawing boundaries around what's, what can be inside and what should be outside of. the usual movement, and it's much more about drawing a center and trying to articulate [00:26:00] together what should be in the center.

[00:26:01] Zev: And then you can define if you're close to that or far from that personally, and that's okay, as long as you're willing to relate to that. And if we put certain values of the center, I think when we do that and we say, let's first start on the assumption here that no one here is advocating for violence as a long term solution.

[00:26:18] Zev: That no one here is advocating for taking away anyone's right to identify as a people and a nation and to seek self determination as a people and as a nation. If we acknowledge those things and we can start from that standpoint and we can say that we value human life, okay, then we can talk. Then we can talk about how do we take those values and those standpoints in the center and apply it to actually the reality we're seeing.

[00:26:41] Zev: And we can also. Debate about the reality. We can debate about the reality of is Palestinian society going to go further to the right after this? Is Israeli society going to go further to the right after this? Are people going to be more despaired after this? Am I going to be more despaired after this?

[00:26:58] Zev: Um, [00:27:00] and do I want a part of this? Do I not? Do I feel responsible? Do I feel connected? Do I want to open up to more personal stories? Because there are many that deserve to be told. I think we can start with those things if we do that. If we establish shared values at the center first, rather than only gatekeeping the boundaries of the discourse.

[00:27:20] Zev: Or, I mean, you know, maybe I'm saying that because I believe it ideologically and maybe I'm saying that because I've found that I've I have no other choice. Otherwise I have to speak to people who are diametrically opposed in their, in their viewpoints, if you just ask them. Are you Zionist or are you anti Zionist?

[00:27:35] Zev: Are you pro or are you anti? Are you pro Palestine or are you anti? Um, but I do think that there's value to that. I do think you can bring people in who would say, I've, I've had the experience of sitting in a room with people who say, one says, would identify as I'm anti Zionist and one would identify as I'm Zionist and then we articulate a future vision that looks pretty identical to what they actually [00:28:00] want for the reality for Israelis and for Palestinians going into the future.

[00:28:05] Zev: I think that's important. I don't, I don't think it also means like, Oh, we should do away with all these labels and we should do away with the conception of Zionism because some people equate it to white settler colonialism. No, I think we should also talk about those things. And we did. And also some people started by saying, yeah, I think it is white settler colonialism.

[00:28:21] Zev: And then we can unpack that. Like, I don't hear anyone advocating violent views, but I do hear people like Adam said, I think. regurgitating simple views or more likely propaganda points that they've seen and that are compelling and that they feel like they need to position themselves relative to. So if you do relate to things as, Oh yeah, obviously I'm anti Zionism if.

[00:28:45] Zev: Zionism is white settler colonialism that exists specifically to dispossess the Palestinians. Yeah, okay, I'm also not pro that. Um, that's one thing. And the second thing I'll say is I [00:29:00] do just meet lots of loneliness and isolation. I think it's an extremely isolating time to be. I don't want to like exceptionalize Jews experience of this moment, but I am a Jewish person and I am a Jewish educator.

[00:29:14] Zev: And I think it's an extremely, this may be true for people who are connected to Palestine very emotionally as well, but for Jews who want to hold a vision of justice and a value of human life. and also have some amount of personal connection to Israel, which I think most do, even those who try and, you know, who are very good at compartmentalizing it.

[00:29:34] Zev: I think it's an extremely isolating moment where you don't necessarily feel like you have a home in the wider Jewish community, but you also don't have a home in the left necessarily. I think some people also try and conquer that cognitive dissonance by disconnecting themselves from one of those two poles.

[00:29:51] Zev: And I think that's difficult as well. It's hard to hold that tension. And also, you know, Maybe some people do just want to [00:30:00] be disconnected because rather have friends and not be expected to answer for Israel as a Jewish high school student because Why should they? But that's another discussion of, is that an antisemitic reality or not?

[00:30:16] Hannah: Next time on Jew ish. No, just kidding. 

[00:30:19] Adam: I'm just shocked that that was the first time the word antisemitism was said. I was, I was just thinking to myself, how long can this go on before someone said it?

[00:30:35] Hannah: It's good that you pointed that out, but I actually think that that, to me at least, feels like we've stuck to the substance. It feels like, not that antisemitism is like, no big deal. Yeah. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that we started this conversation to have a conversation about how the discourse is different in American Jewish communities that you guys are encountering versus Israel, and also how it's being experienced.

[00:30:59] Hannah: This has now [00:31:00] become the defining conversation for Jewish communities around the world, period. You cannot be, at least my experience of being a Jewish person in the diaspora, this doesn't not come up. 

[00:31:11] Music: Mm hmm. 

[00:31:12] Hannah: When you come across another Jewish person, period, right now. In our own way, all of us are experiencing this together.

[00:31:22] Hannah: And yet, as you say, Zeb, incredibly individually. Mm hmm. And that brings me to my last question. 

[00:31:27] Zev: Can I give one anecdote about the book? 

[00:31:31] Hannah: I wasn't done. I'm feeling thoughtful. Yes. 

[00:31:35] Zev: Not like in the considerate way, in the like full of thoughts way. 

[00:31:38] Hannah: Yes. The philosophical way. Yes. 

[00:31:40] Zev: I just, no, just an example. Oh, sorry.

[00:31:41] Zev: I think you're right of the difference in the discourse. One of the programs that I built with people and ran for all of our, our, our local leaders online, but ran it for them to hopefully inform what they're going to do in the local chapters of Habunim is to what, when I came back, I was struck by how differently the campaign of bring them home is structured [00:32:00] there here.

[00:32:00] Zev: Like I touched on this briefly before, but I think even some of the language in the discourse here is just so different to how it actually looks in Israeli society. So we ran a program about how here. It seems like the ceasefire now camp and the bring them home now camp are diametrically opposed. Like they're certainly different people here and they probably come with a different package of other viewpoints that are being represented at either of those rallies, even if they're not the central message at either.

[00:32:31] Zev: And in Israel, I was just struck by the fact that the Bring Them Home campaign often was filled with people who are, you know, Very much on the left and critical of Israel or sorry, critical of the government at the moment and its policies and how it's handling the war. And also people calling for, like I said earlier, calling for a hostage deal, a hostage deal Oh.

[00:32:51] Zev: With Hamas. Yeah, and it's like, is that so different than calling for a ceasefire? Certainly, many of the Jewish voices that I've spoken to [00:33:00] advocate for a ceasefire insist that it also means releasing the hostages in the form of a deal. It's like, okay, are these really such different? Camps then 

[00:33:10] Hannah: but you feel those can coexist in Israel, but then you just don't see those views coexisting here I 

[00:33:15] Zev: I think that they could I don't understand Necessarily why they are so disparate and on such opposite sides of the 

[00:33:22] Hannah: let's 

[00:33:23] Zev: be real a campus quad more than we're also the street in Philadelphia 

[00:33:28] Hannah: That brings me to my last question, which is to each of you And to all of you, which is, how are you doing?

[00:33:34] Hannah: That's a simple question. That's not simple, I guess. 

[00:33:36] Adam: Yeah, this is, uh, this is the hardest question you've asked. Um,

[00:33:47] Adam: we, in some ways I've gone, we, we've entered, at least I entered probably about two months ago into some kind of new [00:34:00] normal where, you know, at some Everything's crazy and there's a war going on and there's tons of displaced people and there's, you know, possibly the biggest crisis Israel's faced since the 1973 war, maybe since the 1948 war.

[00:34:21] Adam: Um, and on the other hand, the country needs to function. And so at some point I realized I needed to go, like I said before, I was volunteering with, uh, with, uh, displaced people. And I was, and at some point I realized I needed to go back to just a new day to day, a new normal, a new way of operating. Uh, and I entered into running my day to day life on some level.

[00:34:51] Adam: And then you always have in the background, the reality. Like I also live on the Northern border, uh, Akko's [00:35:00] fairly close to the border with Lebanon. We've had a few sirens, but there's actually been, as we're recording this now, a few more, not specifically in Akko, but across the North, kind of a heating up of the borders we say in Hebrew.

[00:35:12] Adam: Um, and to live your day to day normal life as if it's normal and to constantly know that at any second, It could not be normal, and it's actually not normal right now, and that we're in a crisis. There's like a quiet level of, um, uh, anxiety and fear and tension that is always in the room, but that you will need to ignore if you want to function.

[00:35:45] Adam: And I think that we are all, I, at the very least, am living in that, I think. tension all the time. Uh, I'll also say, uh, I know I spoke about Vivian before, but, uh, I also have close [00:36:00] family friends who's, they are family members, uh, two of them, uh, Keith and Aviva, uh, from Gaza were kidnapped, uh, and Aviva was returned in the first deal and Keith is still and that is like, constantly also somewhere in my mind.

[00:36:21] Adam: Like, like you always have it somewhere in your mind at the most random event of the day. You could be, you know, you make yourself a sandwich, you sit in front of the TV, you eat your sandwich, and suddenly it just pops into your head that they're there. And I think you're, you're almost constantly at war with yourself.

[00:36:45] Adam: between trying to function and knowing everything's going on. And some days I, I look at the pictures of what's going on in Gaza and some days I don't. Um, and I don't know [00:37:00] how long I can live in that tension. Um, on the one hand, we are a very resilient Israeli society. Crazy levels of, uh, astronomically high levels of resilience Uh, various psychologists have come and tried to study Israel to figure out why there are such high levels of resilience in the population, above and beyond anything by normal, certainly normal Western standards.

[00:37:28] Adam: And on the other side, it's tough. Um, yeah, it's, it's always present. 

[00:37:38] Yair: I think another thing, uh, and I think it's, Also, somewhat true for the Jewish world in general, I mean, we just, uh, in every meeting we've had today, we've been like, Oh, you know, this person, you know, this person, I think in a stage of crisis in Israel, I think there isn't anyone in the country that doesn't personally [00:38:00] know some of the people that were affected in some way by this, uh, attack on October 7th and, uh, I could say personally, I had, I have one friend that lost his brother, I have one friend that was pretty severely injured in the war, I have few friends whose families are, there's the clean language of saying they're displaced, but You know, they had to flee their homes either because their homes were destroyed on October 7th, or that their homes are in a place that is still under very real danger.

[00:38:41] Yair: And I mean, I think that sense of connectedness is something that's both one of our strengths and weaknesses, and I think that what I've described is Being [00:39:00] wired to a lot of these different situations all the time. I mean, I The course of these months I operated two Shiva's families of friends that have lost someone I've, uh, been with a friend through, uh, recovery after injury, I've been, and, and you see all these things that you didn't necessarily expect to see in your lifetime, but in a very short time, you experience quite a lot of them.

[00:39:36] Yair: And I'm saying that really not in a political way, even though everything's political, uh, I think the not seeing, like, the light at the end of the tunnel is also a very difficult thing. I think that most Israelis at this point maybe hope there will be a light at the end of the [00:40:00] tunnel soon. There are these, just now, an article in a popular news, uh, Uh, out there site in Israel saying, uh, maybe there's a hope on the way, but, you know, you read this and then maybe it'll happen.

[00:40:15] Yair: Maybe it won't, but you don't necessarily feel like it will really bring to a stage where all the people that left their homes in the North and the South of the country could really go back. And it is a stage that, as I think I said earlier, we haven't been in. In my lifetime, and certainly in the past 33 years that I've been living in Israel, uh, we haven't had that feeling.

[00:40:43] Yair: I'm not, I'm not even talking about anything like, and I think it's, it's a difficult stage to be in. I'll also say that. This operating Stage [00:41:00] that Adam described. I think it also allows for good things to happen in the sense of We are capable of doing more and of engaging more and of being and more complex and sometimes Difficult, uh, dialogue with a lot of people within Israeli society and outside of Israeli society.

[00:41:29] Yair: And that is something that has given me a lot of respect and appreciation for a lot of different people that I've met throughout these, uh, I'd say the past two months or so, because really before that I wasn't in a stage of listening. And it has been meaningful. I think also what we're doing now, which I also didn't have the bandwidth to go through if someone would have asked me even a [00:42:00] month ago.

[00:42:01] Yair: But I think it is generally something that is a hopeful thing to do and in a lot of ways.

[00:42:17] Hannah: You have feelings too. 

[00:42:19] Zev: I can, I can have some feelings. If 

[00:42:22] Adam: I'm 

[00:42:22] Zev: forced to. If I must. If I must feel. Um, well, first, I mean, I've been here for the better part of, well, I've been here almost six months. And I lived in Israel for the better part of 10 years. I, I think I've like re learned pretty quickly some of that compartmentalization I was mentioning earlier.

[00:42:46] Zev: Like I, I also, I resonated with some of what you said, Yair, that I also walk around in a day to day and I have to be very open and empathetic and accepting and go into conversations. And it's easy for me, like maybe too easy [00:43:00] for me, to also put to the back of my mind my, my friend, or who is Who I visited when I was there a month ago who was injured when his unit was struck by an IED and several of the members of his unit were killed and now his main mission in life is trying to recover enough that he can go back to running marathons, which he was very good at before.

[00:43:21] Zev: And I must say it's a very hopeful journey and he's very positive and resilient. in it, but it's, yeah, it's something that I like totally put back into my mind and like, I have to, you know, I'm going to come clean of these personal and overly emotional connections in order to be able to have a conversation and be empathetic with someone else.

[00:43:40] Zev: I don't think it's actually a good way to be empathetic. I'm not realizing. Um, but the thing I was going to say is it made me realize that I feel a constant amount of, uh, on edge or guarded here that I have to watch what I'm going to say. I have to watch what I'm wearing on the [00:44:00] street. I. You know, assume that any wrong identification will, at the very least, close people off towards me, if not incur hatred.

[00:44:15] Zev: And maybe that's a real perception, maybe it's not. I also see religious Jews walking around the street of Philadelphia with pipa and tzitzits and think, oh, okay, they're just walking around their normal life. But on the other hand, I'll just share a little anecdote. I felt a huge amount of relief when I got to Israel.

[00:44:31] Zev: And it was. Uh, a strange distance because at the same time I was having conversations with parents who were, how could I possibly think about signing my kid up for a program to go to Israel right now for this same solidarity trip? You know, adults who are college students or older saying like, Oh no, no, I couldn't go to Israel right now.

[00:44:47] Zev: It's not safe. And I went there and I immediately felt. more secure emotionally. And I think it's part of just the being around. It's like, Oh, no one here wants to deny my right to exist or would dehumanize me immediately for 

[00:44:59] Hannah: or your [00:45:00] pain. 

[00:45:00] Zev: Yeah. Yeah. Also. And also just some of the things that surprised me about that.

[00:45:05] Zev: Like, uh, you know, I'm a little ashamed to say, but I walk around Philadelphia and if I see religious Muslim people walking down the street, which is a pretty daily occurrence or people walking around with a keffiyeh, I assume that they hate me if they know who I am. Probably they do at this moment, maybe not in an ultimate sense, and maybe not if we were to meet and speak, but we don't meet and speak.

[00:45:27] Zev: That's not the reality here. And I got to Israel and the first night we went up to Kibbutz Ravid and we were staying there, having a barbecue with the members of this delegation, these community leaders from intentional Jewish communities that had come to meet other Jewish communities and not only Jewish communities in Israel.

[00:45:45] Zev: And they're just, they're like, There was a seminar there also of the Hanoraved youth women of the Arab sector, of the Hanoraved youth women in Israeli society, 300 so Arab teens who are, seems like they were having a good seminar about [00:46:00] how to be teen leaders and facilitators. And they came up and just chatted with us and chatted with us in English and a little bit of Arabic and a little bit of Hebrew and back and forth.

[00:46:08] Zev: And we just had this conversation and it was just like a crazy moment where I felt like there's like, so at now is a moment where certainly there can't be a lot of interfaith or coexistence work happening. In the Diaspora, and I went to Israel, and it was the first thing I encountered, and it just felt like, ah, cleansing, I don't know how to describe it.

[00:46:27] Zev: Um, it's surprising that some of those tensions are how I feel here in the Diaspora. And maybe it's projecting it, and maybe it's me carrying that weight around, but It is strange. 

[00:46:40] Hannah: Thank you guys for being as generous with your pain and your hope and your time as you've been. I really appreciate it. And I hope that in some small way, maybe this conversation moves the larger conversation forward.

[00:46:56] Hannah: Maybe the work that you guys are doing [00:47:00] advances just one more inch. How do you eat an elephant? 

[00:47:07] Adam: How do you eat 

[00:47:08] Zev: an elephant? Yeah, I don't know that one either. You don't know that one? No. How do 

[00:47:10] Hannah: you eat an elephant? 

[00:47:12] Zev: One bite at a time. Wow. Where's that expression from? 

[00:47:16] Hannah: India? Oh, look that one up. We'll put it in the show notes.

[00:47:22] Hannah: Well, guys. for having 

[00:47:25] Music: us. 

[00:47:26] Hannah: For the record, I did look it up and the quote has been attributed to Desmond Tutu and Saint Francis of Assisi and a Chinese proverb and an African proverb. So I mean, my India guess wasn't that far off, I suppose, but in any case, the value holds. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode.

[00:47:48] Hannah: Facing what lies ahead doesn't get any easier as time passes, but do what you can not to lose hope and to try and find the ways that are available to you to make a difference. Be sure you [00:48:00] check the show notes. There will be some sources for information as well as some ways that you might be able to take action.

[00:48:07] Hannah: If you're so inclined, if you like the show, please do give us a follow and tell a friend and a drop us a five star rating and a review. If you've got some nice things you'd like to say. And we'll see you next time. Jew ish is a Saymore production.