Live with Abigail Pogrebin: Holding Hope During a Fragile Peace

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Identity/Crisis – Live with Abigail Pogrebin: Holding Hope During a Fragile Peace
Date: October 21, 2025
Host: Abigail Pogrebin
Guests: Rabbi Daniel Hartman and Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer (Co-presidents, Shalom Hartman Institute)

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Overview

This episode features a live conversation following a historic week for Israel: the return of living hostages, the beginning of a ceasefire, and tentative steps toward peace. Host Abigail Pogrebin speaks with Rabbi Daniel Hartman and Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, who reflect on the personal and collective emotions in Israel and the Jewish diaspora, interrogate the political and moral dimensions of the situation, and discuss the challenges and hopes facing both Israeli and American Jewish communities in this transitional moment.

The episode explores themes of cautious optimism, the power of communal solidarity, the complicated gratitude toward political leaders, and the enduring tension around peace, security, and moral responsibility.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Immediate Emotional Responses to Hostage Returns [03:19–08:49]

• Collective Experience in Israel:

  • Yehuda Kurtzer describes how all of Israel was unified in watching the return of hostages. Both mundane activities and profound emotions were shared nationally.
    • “Imagine what it feels like for a whole country to be watching the same thing… it was a day of feeling. You were smiling and laughing and crying.” [03:19]
  • The focus was less on analyzing implications and more on experiencing relief and joy.
    • “It was our family welcoming our children home… it was a day filled with emotions and there was no room for meaning.” [04:30]

• Diaspora and Religious Communities:

  • Rabbi Daniel Hartman describes leading Thanksgiving prayers that, for the first time in two years, he felt sincerely, reflecting a reclaimed sense of celebration.
    • “For the first time in two years, felt like I meant it. Like there was something of a feeling of a joy that was possible.” [05:51]
  • Acknowledges tension between the public nature of hostage reunions and the private needs of families.

2. The Significance of Simchat Torah—Joy, Grief, and Reclamation [07:29–08:49]

• Rabbi Hartman reflects on how the joy commanded on Simchat Torah had been absent amid crisis, but the return of hostages allowed for authentic rejoicing for the first time in years.
  • “For the last two years… I felt a lot of going through the motions.… But really, our hearts are very heavy.”
  • “I’m rejoicing because I’m joyful… I felt it very acutely in our synagogue over the last couple days.” [08:44]

3. Hostage Square: Symbol of Relentless Solidarity [08:49–12:21]

• The persistence of public advocacy for the hostages is celebrated as a uniquely Israeli phenomenon.
  • “This is a remarkable people… This country just stood up and said, we’re sacrificing, we’re willing to die.… But I want to tell you, these people count.” – Rabbi Daniel Hartman [10:17]
• The Jewish imperative of pidyon shvuim (redeeming captives) is cited as a core value.
  • “There is no Judaism and there is no Jewish people if you love Jews in general and you don’t love Jews in particular.” [11:01]

4. The Trump Factor: Gratitude and Complexity [12:21–16:13]

• Ambivalence and Appreciation:

  • Acknowledgement that President Trump brokered the deal leading to the hostage release and ceasefire.
    • “I am okay saying, as much as I oppose a lot of aspects… to appreciate his capacity to make it happen in this situation.” – Yehuda Kurtzer [12:58]
    • “I appreciate these ends. Yes. I’m thrilled that… 20 hostages are home again.” [15:04]
  • Complexity in public gratitude is discussed due to political polarization; the risk for Americans in expressing appreciation for political adversaries.

• Israeli vs. American Perspectives:

  • Rabbi Hartman distinguishes how Trump is perceived as a stalwart friend in Israel—providing direct support and vision absent in Israeli leadership.
    • “President Trump does for Israelis a few things… He gives a sense of unequivocal support. He stands with you, you trust him… he loved us, he appreciated us, he respected us.” [16:26]
  • Trump’s speech is described as the first in years to articulate a vision for Israel’s future.

5. Leadership Vacuum and the Need for Vision [19:21–23:03]

• Israeli political leadership is critiqued for failing to project hope or a path forward; Trump and others (e.g., Witkoff) are noted as rare voices offering honest conversation and empathy.
  • “For two years, the news has been censored, there’s been propaganda. Honest conversation has been absent, and President Trump brought it.” – Rabbi Daniel Hartman [20:33]
• Difference in approaches between Trump and Netanyahu highlighted (Trump as pragmatic visionary vs. Netanyahu’s “war by other means”). [21:19]

6. The Fragility and Challenges of Peace: Cautious Optimism [23:03–29:29]

• Contagion of Hope and Fear:

  • Israelis remain wary due to trauma and skepticism about Palestinian intentions; collective progress is hampered by reticence to hope and fear of disappointment.
    • “We’re traumatized not just by October 7th… we’re frightened to even hope.” – Yehuda Kurtzer [23:35]

• Political Frameworks:

  • Trump’s peace plan is framed as consistent with decades of incremental US policy, focused on frameworks rather than final agreements.
    • “Trump is actually consistent with 30 years of American policy vis a vis the Israelis and Palestinians... the best you can offer is a framework for the process going forward.” [25:00]

• Obstacles: Hostage Bodies and Hamas:

  • Distinction is made between living and deceased hostages; while tragic, the inability to retrieve bodies is not a dealbreaker.
    • “People are taking off their yellow ribbons.… People understand that there’s a difference.” – Rabbi Hartman [27:37]
  • Ongoing Hamas violence and chaos in Gaza threaten to derail progress and breed anxiety.

7. Rituals Marking Transition: Moving Beyond the Hostage Era [30:04–32:30]

• Emotional and communal importance of phasing out rituals (dog tags, hostage prayers) developed during the hostage crisis.
  • “It’s like getting up from shiva or getting up from shloshim to say, I really am leaving this period of time behind and moving to something else.” – Rabbi Daniel Hartman [30:26]
  • New prayers and synagogue rituals evolve to reflect gratitude for return and hope for recovery.

8. Israel’s Standing in the World and Antisemitism [33:38–41:23]

• Perceptions of Isolation:

  • Israelis feel stigmatized and hesitant to travel; concern about the world increasingly viewing Israel as a pariah.
    • “The world feels much smaller and Israelis would like it to be bigger.” – Yehuda Kurtzer [34:21]

• Distinguishing Criticism from Hatred:

  • Importance of discerning between legitimate critique of Israeli policy and underlying antisemitism; examples cited of anti-Jewish activism on US campuses.
    • “We’re going to now see which part is anti Semitic and which part isn’t… a plague on all your houses.” – Rabbi Hartman [34:21]
    • SJP and other organizations openly celebrate figures affiliated with violence, highlighting the persistence of ill will, even as peace resumes.
    • “That’s not a pro peace movement.” – Rabbi Hartman [37:36]

• Silence of Ceasefire Advocates:

  • The lack of acknowledgment or recalibration from those who previously advocated for ceasefire is noted; uncertainty about whether the public discourse will evolve.
    • “I try not to make a lot out of people’s silence. And it’s partly because sometimes I don’t know what to say.” – Rabbi Hartman [39:08]

• American Jewish Divides:

  • The war and global reactions exacerbate rifts within American Jewry: between those doubling down in tribal solidarity and those morally uncomfortable with Israeli policy.
    • “The American Jewish community is in a very precarious position because there is nobody in Israel who’s speaking to it and for it.” – Yehuda Kurtzer [42:01]

9. Abraham Accords and the Elusive Moral Solution [43:26–50:07]

• Limitations of Normalization:
  • Both guests articulate that broader Arab-Israeli normalization (e.g., the Abraham Accords) cannot substitute for grappling with the Palestinian question.
    • “An expanded Abraham Accords is not going to solve that moral discomfort.” [43:30]
    • “The long-term ability for Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security next to one another is going to always be connected with the capacity for the Palestinians to have self-determination.” [48:32]
• The tension between security and morality is examined; the risk of “covering up” unresolved injustices is stressed.

10. The Coarsening of Compassion and the Necessity of Hope [50:07–57:26]

• Hardening Attitudes:

  • The war has hardened many Jews’ attitudes, with some expressing fatigue or anger at the possibility of compassion for Palestinians.
    • “I’m kind of done with compassion. I’m done with humanizing the other because they don’t humanize us back.” – Abigail Pogrebin [50:47]
    • Rabbi Hartman responds: “Compassion is not a zero sum game… That empathy is a limitless reservoir. We should be able to think beyond that.” [50:47]
  • A process of trust-building, requiring both time and change in Palestinian society, is described as a prerequisite for peace.

• Optimism as a Practice:

  • Guest Tal Becker’s assertion that “optimism is a practice” is discussed.
    • “You see yourself as responsible for bringing out a better world… the alternative is way worse. Being convinced that things will get worse is a pretty good predictor that it will be.” – Yehuda Kurtzer [54:52]
  • Rabbi Hartman reframes optimism as a self-interested moral practice and as the duty of leaders to help communities imagine better futures, not merely to pander to their fears.
    • “It’s the job of leadership… to remind people what is the best of us and who do we want to be.” [56:26]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Unfiltered Joy Amid Fragility:

  • “You want this to happen. It happened. 20 hostages are home again… We have an obligation to say I appreciate the good when it happens.” – Rabbi Daniel Hartman [15:16]

• On Sustained Vigilance and Solidarity:

  • “This country just stood up and said, we’re sacrificing. We’re willing to die.… But I want to tell you, these people count.” – Rabbi Daniel Hartman [10:17]

• On Perpetual Disappointment and Israeli Caution:

  • “We’re frightened to even hope… Hope. It’s better not to have hoped because the disappointment, to go over that disappointment again…” – Yehuda Kurtzer [23:35]

• On Political Vision and Israeli Leadership:

  • “For two years, the news has been censored, there’s been propaganda. Honest conversation has been absent, and President Trump brought it.” – Rabbi Daniel Hartman [20:33]

• On Ritual, Commemoration, and Transition:

  • “It’s like getting up from shiva or getting up from shloshim… I really am leaving this period of time behind and moving to something else.” – Rabbi Daniel Hartman [30:26]

• On Optimism:

  • “Optimism is a practice… not that you think things are going to get better, but that you see yourself as responsible for bringing out a better world…” – Yehuda Kurtzer [54:52]
  • “It’s not our job to pander to people’s fears… it’s our job to remind people what is the best of us.” – Rabbi Daniel Hartman [56:26]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Hostage Return & Emotional Reflections – [03:19–08:49]
• Simchat Torah & Joy Reclaimed – [07:29–08:49]
• Hostage Square & Israeli Solidarity – [08:49–12:21]
• Trump, Gratitude, and Complexity – [12:21–16:13]
• Political Vision and the Peace Framework – [19:21–23:03]
• Challenges to Lasting Peace – [23:03–29:29]
• Rituals of Mourning and Closure – [30:04–32:30]
• Israel on the World Stage & Antisemitism – [33:38–41:23]
• American Jewish Tensions – [41:23–43:26]
• Abraham Accords & The Moral Dilemma – [43:26–50:07]
• Compassion Fatigue & Practicing Optimism – [50:07–57:26]

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Conclusion

The episode is marked by a tone of hard-won, pragmatic hope. Both guests stress the importance of recognizing moments of joy but acknowledge the fragility of peace, the necessity of tough self-examination, and the imperative for responsible, visionary leadership. They urge both Israeli and American Jews to resist cynicism, recommit to moral clarity, and maintain faith in the future despite daunting realities.

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Transcript

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

What if prayer doesn't work? This question strikes us as a distinctly modern one, an outgrowth of the slow disenchantment of the world. But in truth, the question is an old one and one given. Space to breathe Here from the Sholom.

[Podcast Narrator/Host]

Hartman Institute, Thoughts and Prayers is a new podcast that explores what Jewish prayer means and why it still matters. Join host Rabbi Jessica Fisher as she weaves together stories, classic texts and conversations with leading rabbis and thinkers like Yossi Klein.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Halevi Judai is about the democratization of the spiritual of revelation.

[Podcast Narrator/Host]

Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

I was representing the second gentleman Emhoff as his rabbi on that stage. What you had in that moment was the pluralism of America.

[Podcast Narrator/Host]

And Rabbi Josh Warshavsky.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Prayer helps me be the best version of myself. It helps me figure out what do I need in my spiritual backpack.

[Podcast Narrator/Host]

Thoughts and prayers inspiring new connections to Jewish prayer in a changing world. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Hello, my name is Maital Friedman, Vice President of Communications and Creative at the Sholem Hartman Institute. Today we're bringing you a special episode. On Thursday, October 16, presidents of the Sholem Hartman Institute, Yehuda Kurtzer and Danielle Hartman, joined Abigail Pogrebin on her show Jewish Insights for a live conversation. Together they reflected on the events of the past week as all of the living hostages and some of the fallen returned to Israel and as a ceasefire came into effect. With cautious optimism, they celebrated the moment, considered how we got here, and envisioned where we go next. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to in the Spotlight. I'm Abigail Pogerubin and I'm so glad to be live with you right now. Now with two of the Jewish leaders that I admire most, Rabbi Daniel Hartman and Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer. They are the co presidents of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a leading research and educational center developing innovative responses to the challenges of our time. They cultivate a new generation of leaders and change agents and they build transformational educational projects that help inspire a better Judaism and and a better Israel for the 21st century. They host two of my favorite podcasts and I mean I don't miss an episode of either of them. For heaven's Sake with Daniil Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi and Identity Crisis with Yehuda Kurtzer. Yehuda's in New York. Daniil is at the Red Sea. They're both with us today. Welcome, gentlemen.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Thanks for having us.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Really nice to be with you.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

I understand you're in a hotel room in the Dead Sea, but we see the clouds behind you and I Think it's a metaphor, Danielle, for what we're all feeling this week. I know it's complicated. I know it's not all blue skies, but I'd love to take us first, let's start with you, and then to go to Yehuda, to October 13, a historic Monday of this week. It already feels like weeks ago, when we watched those incredible videos of the live hostages coming home. Can you just say where you were, how you watched and what you felt.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

From 8 in the morning till 5 o' clock in the afternoon? I, together with everybody in Israel, was watching the same thing. And you were. It was Erev Hag the day before Simchastora. So we were cooking, we were shopping, but everybody. It was just. It was with you. Was with you in the kitchen, it was with you in the supermarket. It was with you while you're walking in the streets. And it. Imagine what it feels like for a whole country to be watching the same thing. And, you know, there so much has been spoken about how what the hostage return will mean to Israel, will mean for the war. Well, October 13th had no meaning. It was just a day of feeling. It just. It was just. It was just you were smiling and you were laughing and you were crying, and it was just, you know.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

And. Let me interrupt you, Danil, when obviously that feeling, though, must have some meaning just in terms of how far it feels like we've come in these two years.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

What do you mean on October 13? I didn't think about it, really. Now. Now, a few days later, I'm ready to analyze that day. It just. We just had a simcha with our family. Our family had a joyful time together. Our children came home, and it didn't need anything else, Abby. It just filled you. You didn't think about its implications and its consequences and whether this is the real victory. It just. It was. It was our family welcoming our children home, and we didn't know if they were going to come home, right? And we. We just. And like, each one of us were watching. How does he look? How's he walking? Is he skinny? How skinny? Like, we're a bunch of grandparents. Like, how skinny is he? What color does he look like? It was. It was just. It was a day. It was filled with emotions and there was no room for meaning.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Okay?

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

And I want to tell you. And that was enough.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Yeah. Dayenu Yehuda. You're watching from here. Are you on Instagram? I don't even know, because I watched every reunion 15 times over. And then there were Montages of reunions and music. And I watched those. I never left my phone.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yeah, look, like so many of us, I've been so down for two years and so everything has felt so heavy. Very scared about the future. At any given moment, I think my spirit started lifting on Shabbat, actually, October 11, I led services in synagogue and recited Hallelujah Thanksgiving prayers. And for the first time in two years, felt like I meant it. Like there was something of a feeling of a joy that was possible. I did not stay up to watch the videos, I think because I was nervous about it. I also have been nervous to watch. I know there's good reasons why they record them live. I kind of wish they each had a moment with their families before it was on Instagram for everybody. But like Daniel, you described that Monday knowing it had already happened, that, you know, there's always a possibility something's going to go wrong. Knowing it already happened felt like a totally different preparation for a holiday. And I just really leaned into these last two days of holiday celebrations here. Finally, as a holiday, it felt like a reclaiming of all of the holidays that were lost of the last two years. And then last night, after the two days of holidays were over, I finally went and watched the videos and wept. I think I needed to know that it had happened before I could watch it.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

And there was sort of a kina horror of almost, that's right.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

And now it's done. And for me, being able to say, let me just celebrate with joy with the Jewish people and with my community and with my kids and with my family and to feel. I feel different as a person today because of that heaviness that. That felt like it lifted that.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

And you mentioned the holidays. I think a lot of non Jews and even some Jews don't realize that Simchat Torah had become something dark that is actually we're commanded to have joy. And can you just talk about that idea that you just mentioned about reclaiming that? Because I think that's been part of the heaviness.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yeah. You know, the Bible says that this is the one festival of the year where you're obligated to make yourself happy. And it's interesting. It says both make yourself happy and you should be happy. So you don't just programatize happiness. You're supposed to actually feel something, which is very hard when religion tells you to feel something. It's complicated. I think for the last two years at least, I felt a lot of going through the motions. Okay, well, we'll get together we'll dance around the Torah. But really, our hearts are very heavy. You can't have a full sense of celebration when your loved ones are hostage. You can feel this full sense of celebration when Israel is in this precarious place, when there's so much ill feeling in the Jewish community about Israel. It's just too much. And so felt to me like a shift from a ritual sensibility. We're doing something because we kind of have to. We have to go through the motions to actually being able to feel like I'm.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

It's a holiday.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

I'm rejoicing because I'm joyful.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

You're actually feeling it.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

And I felt it very acutely in our synagogue over the last couple days.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Danille, I want to talk about Hostage Square for a minute before we talk about the deal and going forward. I realized in looking, and I've taken the deep dive, as so many have. We almost took for granted that there was this place that people returned to week after week for two years. You could think that there's not only fatigue, but there's kind of like futility. And it's just amazing to me, reading and seeing interviews with people where that was their pilgrimage every week. It was a Saturday night, but they went. And I would love you to just talk about what that is, what that's about. That sort of relentless optimism, or at least relentless togetherness that somehow people take for granted over there, but not necessarily in other parts of the world.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

You're right to point to Hostage Square and tens of other examples. You know, I love being an Israeli, and I appreciate being an Israeli because I get to live in the midst of Israelis. And with all the stuff, you know, the pushing and the aggravation and the, you know, whatever it is, everybody has a list. This is a remarkable people. And the spirit of this people, you know, we saw the spirit of this people come on October 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, two years ago, as everybody joined and they joined to fight. And here for two years, not all of the country, but a huge percentage of the country joined to fight for our family. Just they refused to allow a notion of some national larger agenda that didn't take into account the particular hostages. Like, we're not. Because if you think about would have been perfectly legitimate for the country to say, we got most back. We did great. We're not. We can. We can't put everything on hold for 20 people. You think, like any operation you go on, people die. They die all the time. That's the nature of war. But the country, or let's say 60% of the country, and it was really carried by the families. And Hoshiz Square protesters said there is no larger picture or larger agenda that doesn't take into account the individual members of our family. And that's a part of what our tradition is about. It's, you know, like, we have. We have. If I could just take one more second. This notion of pidyon shvuim, of redeeming the hostages, and Maimonides says it's the most important commandment. Now, why should it be the most important commandment? Okay, it's a big commandment, but why should it be the most important? Because there is no Judaism and there is no Jewish people. If you love Jews in general and you don't love Jews in particular. And this country just stood up and said, we're sacrificing. We're willing to die. We're willing to go through the most horrific things as families and as individuals. But I want to tell you, these people count. And it's like, I am so proud to be an Israeli, to be able to say that I'm part of a people who didn't forget for two years. And at the end, 20 people. 20 people.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Yehuda. I want to talk about Trump because it comes out of Hostage Square. He was celebrated there. He was celebrated on the beach of Tel Aviv as he landed. He was celebrated the Knesset. This really was a kind of a Trump moment.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Moment.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

And for some people in this country, I think it was complicated. I think for many Jews, they were just thanking him.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yep.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

And I would love you to just address the complexity of that.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Sure.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

And what you've seen in terms of some people almost like, not knowing what to do with their appreciation of this president right now.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yeah. When you live in a polarized society politically, as we do here in America, as many countries now do around the world, it becomes very difficult to say, I appreciate something that the president does, even as I oppose other things that the president does that we have fallen into camps where either you're supportive or you're opposed. And there's actually a lot of risk involved in saying you like something that the president does, because that means it has, I don't know, greater chance of continuing to succeed politically. It feels like you've given something up. I've heard that in my community. I've heard from people who are kind of stalwart opponents of the president's policy. They don't want to yield. There are legitimate grievances. I think that folks in The Democratic Party have, who say, well, Biden had the same plan and was not able to get it to happen, and maybe the Israelis wanted it to happen under Trump. I mean, there's all sorts of analyses we could provide to this particular moment. I do think it is possible for us as Jews who were committed to this outcome that emerged. And I mean the outcome both of the release of the hostages, as well as even a temporary but hopefully permanent ceasing of these hostilities, the pathway towards the reconstruction of Gaza, all these things that I think, as a Zionist, I feel we've been waiting to see happen. I am okay saying, as much as I oppose a lot of aspects of not only the president's agenda, but how he does it, to appreciate his capacity to make it happen in this situation. What's interesting is it's not clear to me that there's anything different about how the president handled this than how he handles a lot of issues domestically. This is a president who cares much more about ends than means, and I find that very worrying. I believe in democratic processes and procedures. This president doesn't. He cares about particular ends he want to have happen. In this case, I like those ends. And so though in many cases I don't like the means, in this case, I could tolerate those ends. I think it's confusing for many Americans.

[Podcast Narrator/Host]

Let me just pause.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

You can tolerate those ends or I can appreciate you're not thrilled about those ends?

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

No, no. In this case, I say I appreciate these ends.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Kind of unequivocal.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

I appreciate these ends. Yes. I'm thrilled that.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

But also, the, as you said, his approach ultimately was effective where others weren't. So even if someone had the same plan, they didn't get that plan done. And he did.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

He did. And I appreciate it. I'm thrilled. It doesn't bother me that much to see Israelis celebrating President Trump. I think, like, you want this to happen. It happened. 20 hostages are home again. I don't think that changes long term the relationship between the president and the sectors of the Jewish community that oppose his domestic policy and some aspects of his foreign policy. But, yeah, we. We have an obligation to say I appreciate the good when it happens. I particularly liked how one of my rabbi friends handled this, also in the context of a synagogue, where he started off by thanking God. And once he thanked God, then it's easier to thank political leaders, President Trump and other ones, because it was like, I have an overall sense of gratitude for all of the forces in the world that's made this possible, and that includes politicians Here who even, even if I don't like what they do in column A, I have tremendous appreciation for what they could do in column B.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Daniil, I'd love to talk about Trump from the Israeli perspective, because it really is, it's almost like a different leader, it's a different Persona there. Or am I wrong?

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

No, very much so. Now, you have to understand, and you know, so often we tell North American Jews who criticize or have an opinion about Israel that you're so far away, you don't understand our reality. Israelis don't understand, nor can they understand the complexity and the meaning of Trump's presidency. For many North American Jews, they don't understand it, and you can't expect them to. And there was just. President Trump does for Israelis a few things. And the first thing he does is he gives a sense of unequivocal support. He stands with you, you trust him, you trust that he's going to be there. Now, again, whether it's true or not true is a separate question. Whether he'll have a temper transferment, it'll turn around. But when you listen to his speech at the Knesset, that was a speech that no Israeli heard from any north, from any American president. We just didn't, we never did. Just, he just, he loved us, he appreciated us, he respected us, he understood us, he was gracious towards us. That was one part. And so there is, that's the dimension that most Israelis relate to. There's another dimension to Trump's speech and what Trump has done in this peace plan that I feel is critical for the future of Israel. He's the first one talking with any vision about a future for Israel. Our prime minister isn't. Our opposition leaders aren't. President Trump gets up and says to all of Israelis, you can't fight the, you can't fight the world. They're a big place. You won't win. You fought. And he says, he didn't say you fought and failed, if you noticed, because he could have. And many Israeli commentators are now saying, did we win this war? What does it mean? And we'll leave that aside. He said, you are great, your army is fantastic. You won. Take the victory. And then he says, you're not going to achieve anything else through military means. It's time to go on. And so President Trump, just like, by the way, Witkoff in his speech at Hostage Square, were, were filled with empathy, speaking to people, and gave a vision for a future of Israel, which we've been lacking for years. We've been lacking. It for. For a generation, almost since Oslo, but certainly since the beginning of the war. We're always October, we're in the past or in the present, and there is no future.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

So can we talk about that a little bit? Danil, do you want to jump in?

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

I just want to say something that I find unusual right now, even just today, about Trump's leadership here, which isand it was even reported today, where Ron Dermer, through channels, has said Israel feels like it's beenyou know, it has the right to pull out of this deal because the bodies weren't returned and feels like Hamas is dragging its feet. And the president's response earlier today was, this is complicated and it's going to take a long time. And that I find unusual.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

It's very un Trumpian.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

It is. The president is famously impetuous. If you don't do exactly what he wants, he doesn't like it. The most interesting part of Trump's presidency here, and again, it goes to the ends that he wants and the means that he's willing to tolerate has been that he is now the voice of this is actually going to be hard. It's going to be hard to rebuild Gaza correctly. It's going to be hard to deal with the Hamas attacks against the rival clans and to re establish law and order. It's going to be hard to find the bodies of the hostages. And you now see how passionate he is about holding this place in a ceasefire, that he's the voice of reason in this conflict, which seems like the most unlikely set of circumstances to come.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Can I just actually ask Yehuda if I could? I really appreciate what you said, because in Israel, we have nobody for two years, we have nobody talking that way. Yeah, for two years, I feel. And I've been fetching and complain for two years, we've been lied to. For two years, the news has been censored, there's been propaganda. Honest conversation has been absent, and President Trump brought it. And today, already, if you look in the newspapers all over the world, not from our politicians, they're still frightened, but there's real conversation going on.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Now, when you say the politicians are still frightened, can you clarify what you mean.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Here? It's analysis and I'm very disappointed. Netanyahu. For Netanyahu, this is not a peace plan. This is not a peace plan with Palestinians because he has no language for peace with Palestinians. He only wants peace with the larger Sunni world in which he could leapfrog over the Palestinians. He has no language. He wants to control. For him, this treaty is. I wrote an article about this is like Clausewitz. Clausewitz says war is diplomacy by other means. For Netanyahu, this police plan is war by other means. It's the same thing. It's just about defeating Hamas. It's not about a new future between Israel and the Palestinians, and it's not about a future for the Palestinians. It's like they're, they're completely transparent. From Netanyahu and his coalition's perspective, you can't say anything compassionate, you can't speak about their rights. It's only about defeating Hamas and disarming them. That's the only thing. And then you have a whole bunch of other politicians, with the exception of the Democratic Party, who have a fantasy that the only way we're going to win the election is if we could get two or three seats away from the Likud. So we want to pretend as if we are to the right of Netanyahu so that maybe they'll vote for us because to the left that the Democrats have. And so there is this space for. This is potentially a game changing moment in the Middle East.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

But isn't that.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Trump is putting it in front of Israelis? I'm sorry, yes, Abby.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Isn't that somewhat contagious? I mean, isn't Bibi a little bit outnumbered? Outnumbered now in terms of people, seeing as you said, Trump articulated a path forward, he, the prime minister has not articulated the. Any kind of future vision. Now there is one and people want it to be over. People really want this to actually be possible, to have an international force there to demilitarize all things that are hard. But isn't that.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

You have to let it. It's going to take a little time, Abby, because what they're filled with now is what happens if it doesn't work like already. Hamas is, is not delivering on the bodies. See, there we are. We're traumatized not just by October 7th. We're traumatized by living with another people who we believe have never accepted our existence. And we're frightened to even hope because, you know, while it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Hope. It's better not to have hoped because the disappointment, to go over that disappointment again and to have to go through another generation of Israeli kids having to be having to go to war and, you know, it's. We don't want it, so we're shutting it down. We're like, it's. You almost have to fight against a core Israeli instinct to say Trump. That part of Trump, Israelis aren't speaking about as much. And even the right wing who embrace him doesn't realize that what Trump is basically doing is he, more than anybody else in the last generation, is bringing us close to the possibility of a Palestinian state. All of that is just sort of is pushed aside.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yeah. What's interesting about that actually is in this respect, though, Trump succeeded in ways that the Biden administration didn't to get to this place. And maybe it's about time and maybe it's about different shots, strategies. Part of what we're seeing also is that Trump is actually consistent with 30 years of American policy vis a vis the Israelis and Palestinians. Which is the best you can offer is a framework for the process going forward, which actually requires the continued investment by both the Israelis and Palestinians to do incremental steps that lead you to the next part of the process. Nobody has ever been able to say, here's the exact final status agreement, we all are going to sign off. You go back to Madrid, you go back to Oslo, Camp David. It was all frameworks. And then every single time between the presentation of a framework and the next time you tried to present a framework, there was finger pointing. Well, you didn't do this part of the process, you didn't do that part of the process. The erosion of trust. And then you need to re articulate another framework or it blows up.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Or it blows up or called a failure.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Correct. Now, President Trump has offered a framework. Right. He, like other presidents before, is saying there is a possible finish line here. But he's acknowledging by saying it will take a while to find the bodies, it will take a while to do this. He's acknowledging that you actually need to engage in real trust building and risk taking by both the Israelis and Palestinians at this point.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

And you don't walk away to build.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Towards and you don't walk away from that. And what's been frustrating for many of us who have cared about American policy in this region, region is that American presidents put forward these frameworks. Their negotiators work very hard to try to get them there. Israelis and Palestinians resist the frameworks exactly because they get anxious about the other side failing and they get anxious about their own risk taking. And then they throw their hands up. And that, to me is the biggest threat, is that President Trump will at some point throw his hands up and say, okay, you guys, you don't want this. I tried. I came here, I showed my love to you. I tried to even get the Prime Minister pardoned. You didn't do the things that I wanted you to do. And now not only am I going to walk away, but I may actually turn against you.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Daniil, you mentioned the dead bodies, and it's obviously the very difficult topic, but it's also kind of unimaginable that things would halt because of it. Because just simply there's a reality of finding them. And obviously many of them could have been in bomb's way and they're not findable. So for Israelis, how much would you say of a deal breaker? Maybe that's too spot on.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

It won't be a full deal.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

It's.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

People make a very clear distinction between the live hostages and the dead and the dead bodies and the dead. There is a clear distinction. People are taking off their yellow ribbons. They're taking, you know, I live in a building where the whole building is filled with, you know, with, with hostage sukkahs and hostage posters. And people understand that it's a, that as tragic as it is. And I understand from insights that the golden family and other families have been suffering terribly, terribly, terribly. But people understand that there's a difference. The question is whether Hamas is playing us. It's a larger if already now. So part of the reports are Israel is telling them, here's where the bodies are. How could you say you don't know where the bodies are? Here the bodies are. So it's like, I think we're just testing each other. And I think part of what might happen is you might have a little flare up here or there. You have now Hamas literally massacring and murdering Palestinian Gazans in the streets in the hundreds. You know, there was a clause missing in the 20 clauses. There should have been a clause that just as we retreated, Hamas had to cease and desist till a new force came in. And they're allowing this chaos to go on.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

And so, and it's on video, horrifically.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

And it's on video. And the head of sitcom is telling them, beware, but that doesn't mean anything. So we're seeing things that there, it's just like, so is this just the foretelling what's coming? And you know, as you would have said, like, we're, we're all nervous. We're nervous.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Yeah.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Because big picture. I believe that history has changed when somebody presents a big picture, but the details matter. So you have to keep, you don't live in the big picture. You have to work those details out. So I think there's just a lot of nervousness. Yeah. But this alone won't stop it, but it's a sign of, of like, listen, how much more do we, how much more do we have to remind ourselves who we're dealing with? Do you know, the Israeli army X rays, the coffins as they come back, and a fear that they're booby trapped. So you know, what are we talking about?

[Abigail Pogrebin]

It's not that suddenly we're trusting the enemy. The enemy is transformed. Yehud, I want to talk about. Daniil talked about taking down the posters, the yellow ribbons. And we're watching it here among many Jewish Americans who wore the dog tags, wore the pin. Can you just address that maybe personally and what you're seeing in your own community?

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yeah, I thought I was. As I was thinking about the last couple days, I was reminded of a teacher of mine in high school who had a shtick that he used at the beginning of every year that he taught European history, where he said on first sentence, he said in 11th grade, on January 1, 1492, the Renaissance began. And it was his way of teasing the history doesn't work that way. Right. Larger historical events take place over time. It's only in retrospect that you're able to look back and say something changed. He was right overall, but he's wrong in the sense that you do need to punctuate moments in time and say this period of time has changed, something has to happen. And I think Jewish tradition has particular wisdom about this. Like the reason you mark particular dates in history is not because, like the destruction of the temple in the year 70 took place in one 24 hour period. Because you have to be able to say, here's the moment in time where I begin the commemoration and, and here's the moment in time where I end the commemoration. I think we're seeing that this week. I think when people say, I'm taking off the dog tags, I'm taking off the hostage pin, I'm taking the tape off. There are still people out there, and I totally get it. People I see who say, I'm not taking off the tags until every body comes back, because how would I feel if it was my child? And I understand that. I think it also reflects that these decisions have psychological import. To say, I'm over, I finished with. This period of time also has deep emotional resonance for people. It's like getting, in some ways, it's like getting up from Shiva or getting up from Shloshim to say, I really am leaving this period of time behind and moving to something else. But I think it will happen the same way that it became really ritually important for so many American Jews in ways that maybe have surprised them, that they feel such a deep sense of solidarity with the Jewish people that they were willing to do something like that consistently every day for two years. Now. There's the richness and a little bit of the pathos of saying, I'm moving on to a different period in our country.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Yes, I'm at Central Synagogue, and they've had a flag draped over an empty chair for two years on the bema. And this Friday, they will be removing it for the first time. After a lot of thinking about exactly what you're saying, sort of needing to turn that page and actually having Jewish tradition give you permission, our colleagues at.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

The Institute in Israel composed a different prayer to replace the one for the hostages as a temporary stand, in which our synagogue did, to say, we're no longer going to say the same prayer that we say for the health of the hostages. It doesn't make sense anymore. And instead, it was a kind of temporary prayer that we pray for the health of these hostages who have returned in their road to recovery. We pray for the restoration of the body so that they can get a proper burial. And I thought that was a useful way of saying, I'm not going to just rip off the band aid and stop saying this, as though I can stop praying for the same kinds of things I was praying for before. I may need something of a transitional time to get to a place where we then can look back and say, do you remember that period of time in Jewish history when that's what we were focused on? You don't move from one phase to another all that quickly.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

So I want to go to maybe the transition for Israel in the world we have seen. And I know it's simplistic to say that Israel's become a pariah state, but we saw something really gaining momentum in the world and even having allies like France and the UK really taking a very different perspective and abandoning Israel in many ways. What would you say, Danil, about the feeling there when it comes to Israelis traveling, which many have stopped doing, whether it's, you know, to Greece or to Scotland, like, this sense of, I'm just being an Israeli has some kind of stain.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Right? It's, you know, there's not all anti Zionism or criticism of Israel is anti Semitic, but we're going to now see which part is anti Semitic and which part isn't. Because those people who critique this peace plan because somehow it robs Hamas of its inalienable Right to armed resistance. I say a plague on all your houses. And so there is a distinction, and you will see a distinction between governments and mobs in the street. Germany already was waiting. You'll see the same thing probably in France, Britain, Spain is a different story. But where there is an ultra progressive narrative that's dominant, that really isn't about critiquing the excessive civilian casualties of the war, but where the critique really goes to the essence of Israel's right to be. Israel's right to defend ourselves and a criticism of terrorism, recognizing that Israel has a right. When you say Israel's a right to defend itself, what you're saying is the other side doesn't have a right to kill us. Now, that seems simple, but now that is there, that there's a lot of places like that and we're going to have to see. So there is a whole group of people who, you know, Yehuda, you beautifully spoke about the ritual. I don't know if they have a ritual, Yehuda, to stop their protests. So, like, they're still stuck. They're still, especially the anti Semitic ones. And there's a rhetoric that sort of has become predominant. And how do you get off of that? Now? It's true, the fact that there is a ceasefire doesn't mean that for those who believe that Israel did not conduct this war justly that criticism is still there and they want to have an accounting of it. But some of the, the demonstrations like in Barcelona yesterday, and the violence, this, the anger Israelis feel, it is an anti Semitic anger. And so we'll, we're going to watch and, and it will take some time. And we Israelis like to accuse everybody of being anti Semitic even when they're not. It's like, it's, it's really, it's. It's like the gift that never stops giving. So. But the world is shrinking. And so we're like, we're trying to figure out where we could go or until which time. The governments themselves, which are now going to realign with Israel or not realign in the sense that they're going to say we're great, but there's. Okay, we realize we're moving into another place for their police forces to establish rule and order in their streets. So this is part of that dynamic. But the world feels much smaller and Israelis would like it to be bigger. But the mobs in the streets, for whom the criticism of Israel goes way beyond the criticism of certain things that happened in the war, that has taken root. And I think it's I don't have a clear path forward for that necessarily.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

There's two powerful examples of that this week here, actually, to what Danil's describing, one of which was an advertisement for an event by Student for Justice in Palestine at NYU this week as a memorial event for Yahya Sinwar. That gives you a pretty clear sense of that's not a pro peace movement and national sjp, following all of the news about all of this attacks by Hamas on the rival clans in Gaza, had an Instagram post which said death to collaborators. So I think Daniil is right. Right. Daniil is right that it's actually quite useful in some ways to see what was the resistance against Israel's actions in Gaza and what was just a deeper hatred of the Jewish people, hatred of Zionism, hatred of Israel that is not going to be reconcilable afterwards.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Let's talk about just the silence after the ceasefire from those who had been advocating for ceasefire relentlessly because again, and you particularly have encouraged us not to make our Judaism kind of centered on the fact that people hate us. But we've seen a lot of hatred and something has been laid bare since October 7, which is the people who purport to care about humanity didn't care about Jewish humans very much after, right after October 7th. In terms of whether it's celebrities, whether it's, you know, prominent progressives literally saying nothing since any of this deal was announced, how would you say that we should make sense of that? And I'm asking a real way.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yeah, I try not to make a lot out of people's silence. And it's partly because sometimes I don't know what to say. And I don't, and I'm not comparing myself, but sometimes you don't know what to say.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

You're not quiet very often, Yehuda.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

I know, but that's actually part of the thing. Like, so if I don't comment on something, on something, people read it, people read into it. And so I don't think we should be in the business of. Or put it like this, I'd rather be in the business of this person said this outrageous thing. I want to comment on it rather than why didn't this person say something. I think it's a little bit of a trap. That said, I think there are two pieces of data that we have in front of us. One is this story which suggests that we have seen a dramatic change in the standing of Jews who support Israel and the state of Israel in the world over the past Two years. And I don't think that's going back in the box. I actually think Yossi, our colleague Yossi, said for years that.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Yossi Klein Olivi.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yossi Klein Olivi. Thank you. I said for years that the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement won't have material consequences for Israel, but will have material consequences for North American Jews and especially young people on college campuses who are going to see their identity negotiated and challenged on the basis of their commitments to Israel. Now, I'm not sure long term he's completely right about its consequences, but I think he was right to say that this story of how Israel is understood in the west has deeper implications for those of us who don't live in Israel in a lot of ways. And I think that it's going to be hard to put that back in. There is going to be a cooling down period where the fact that if Israel and Hamas cease their hostilities indefinitely, people do calm down, they focus on other things. There's plenty happening domestically that's going to take the attention of progressives. But we have seen a shift over time. And I don't know whether they're going to be able to put that stuff back in the bottle again when people who have been outspoken critics of Israel are going to be able to walk any of that back. And I think that for us here in North America, it's a very, very significant uphill climb to help reposition even the stances of liberal Zionism back into an atmosphere of credibility in parts of the progressive left that have shown that they're completely inhospitable.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Daniel, you've spent so much time here since the war and you've heard from a lot of angst ridden Jews who first have real misgivings about the way the war was prosecuted. But also you hear from Jews who say, you know, I'm kind of doubling down on my tribe because I feel like people didn't show up for us. So in those push and pulls, just from your perspective, what are you seeing as kind of the American Jewish rift right now? And I know there's not just one.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

I think the American Jewish community is in a very precarious position because there is nobody in Israel who's speaking to it and for it.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

You mean for us.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

And as a result. Yes, to you. And as a result, you have those splits. You know, you want to be supportive of Israel, you want to most Jews, you know, every, every poll, whatever you want to have, you want to be in relationship to Israel. You know, Yehuda, I Love your line when you've said over the years is Israel is the most, is one of the most exciting things happening in Jewish life. Sometimes it's too exciting. That's part of the problem. But you want to have a relationship with Israel. It provides meaning and vitality and vigor and joy and excitement. You want to have it, but it's hard now. The war in Gaza made it hard. Now the war in Gaza is over, the rebuilding will start. But what North American Jews need in order to overcome the rift that you're speaking about is they need Israeli politicians to start speaking about not the day after in Gaza, not stage two of the peace plan, but stage three and four of our relationship with Palestinians. Not even, not even the Abraham Accords. The Abraham Accords is not going to do it. Are we going to deal? And how do you talk about why.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Is the, why are the Abraham Accords not going to make a huge difference?

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Because it's Abraham Accords is like it gives you nachos. Oh, you see, they need us, they love us. We're startup nation. It's going to be wonderful. But at the end of the day, the split that you're speaking about grows out of a sense of moral discomfort with where Israel is. And an expanded Abraham Accords is not going to solve that moral discomfort. And so you have one group of people who are, who are uncomfortable and another group who are saying, I have to, what do you say? Double down. That's the term you use, double down in support. Because the more you criticize, I have to show, you know, it's like, so we're almost feeding off of each other. All of us, both of us need an Israel which envisions a, a, a, a, a new future in which the, in which human rights aren't trampled on by the state of Israel. Now, okay, we could say it's complicated and we could say you need two sides to have peace and all of the above all, I agree with it. I want peace, I want a two state solution. I don't know how to bring it about, but I at least want Israeli politicians to talk about it. But when you go and you just say, okay, I want to have, I want Indonesia, I want, I want Qatar, I want, I want Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian in Gaza and the Palestinian Judea and Samaria just is not part of your story, you're going to keep that same tension in the American Jewish community is going to remain and we're going to feed off each other because as one group critiques more the other group's going to say, oh, you can't criticize.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

But I thought, and maybe I'm just buying the line, but that it lifts all boats, including Palestinians. If you have this Arab cooperation with Israel, if there's more economic opportunity, if there's more trade, if there's more tourism, it's that you're essentially, instead of saying, we have this thing we have to solve, Palestinians and Israelis, Israeli Jews, you're saying the whole world is now actually saying we're, we're going to have normalization, we're going to have a real relationship, and we're not just going to be in a war.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

But that's. You see, there's two ways. Again, I appreciate that it's naive.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

You're saying I'm naive.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

No, I'm not saying you're naive at all. It's not naive. You know, here we're talking about opinions and the future, and none of us really know. But why was Netanyahu told that he can't go to Sharon El Sheikh? It wasn't because of Simcha's Torah. Netanyahu was told, because we now know, Erdogan said, that if you go, I don't, I'm not coming. And basically what they're saying is you don't get to shift from being in their mind, not in my. You don't get to be. From shifting from being a war criminal to now being our partner. You have. If you want to play and join this Sunni coalition, there's going to be a price. Now, the Abraham Accords didn't extract any price. The only price was not annexing parts of Area C. As long as you didn't do that. The, the, the Gulf, the Emirates. And they said, okay, we'll sit down. It'll be piece for piece.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Define Area C. For anyone who doesn't.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Know abc, Area C is, is the area under Israeli political and military control, as distinct from Area A and B, which is A is under Palestinian military and political control, and Area B is under Palestinian political and Israeli military control. Area C is where the settlers live. It's 55% of the West Bank. So we were about to annex it. And then. And they said, Emirates said, you want to play? You want to play with us? Don't do that. Other than that, we have no demands. But now what they're saying is if you want to play, and Saudi Arabia saying it, and certainly Turkey, which is one of the more complicated parts of this whole puzzle, because they hate us on a level quite similar to Hamas. And the question is whether their interest in F35s and being in relationship with Trump will trump and override their inherent hatred towards Israel. But at the very least we're going to have to play. You're not going to have some phenomenal European Union and right in the middle Palestinians still their rights being ignored. They're not going to allow for it. They're not going to. It's not going to.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

But even.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

No, won't. But even more. Just one last sentence if I can. You, you asked. This whole thing started when you spoke about the American Jewish community. But it's not just the American Jewish community. It's me too. It's Danielle Hartman. I don't want to be an occupying people. I'm concerned about Palestinian rights and having trade with Saudi Arabia and advancing Israel as the center of AI in the whole area doesn't solve my moral problem. Nor is it going to solve the moral problem of any North American Jews.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Who says I don't want someone being able to dig a hole and come up in my backyard and kill my children.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

So that in the long term those two things are entirely related. Right? The long term ability for Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security next to one another is going to always be connected with the capacity for the Palestinians to have self determination, the right to live in freedom and dignity in their ancestral homelands. Also these things are inextricably linked. I mean the real risk, the more risk of the Abraham Accords which are an objective good, right? Israel coming to normalize relationships with Arab countries is an objective good. But the moral risk that's been inherent in the Abraham Accords all along was that it was going to happen at the cost to the Palestinian people of their own self determination and their freedom and dignity. That the Arab states would sell them out because they got what they need economically and militarily and otherwise through the Abraham Accords. And I think long term that continues to be a risk if the whole story becomes the normalization of Israel with Arab countries. But we're never going to deal with the central moral civil rights challenge that lives within the boundaries between the river and the sea. You'll have solved in theory one problem, but covered up another. And one doesn't replace the other. I just think long term the security questions and moral questions, we like to think about them as being separate. You know, only the pure hearted think about the moral questions, then they're naive. They don't think about security questions. And it's the serious people who talk about security. I think that's just Like a foolish way to think about the human condition. It doesn't help us. It certainly doesn't seem to be making things any safer for Israelis and Palestinians.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

But I want to talk in the real world of the coarsening to both of you that has gone on in terms of, for many in the Jewish community, feeling like after October, since 7th, something was laid bare and they're painting a very broad brush about Palestinians not caring about Jews living at all, not caring if Israel lives at all, and not caring about our lives. Is that. I guess it's not whether that's true or not. It's. How do you address the fact that that is essentially a narrative that many have warmed to. I'm kind of done with compassion. I'm done with humanizing the other because they don't humanize us back.

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Compassion is not a zero sum game. Right. I only owe it to those who are compassionate towards me. I felt this very deeply. Actually, for me it's less about Palestinians. It's been about the tensions in the Jewish community with folks who I think have done just outrageous things, said outrageous things. And I felt my heart hardening over these last couple of years. And by the way, this emerges out of fear. It always comes out of fear when you feel pushed against the wall. It's not just that you don't have compassion for people who you think are bystanders. In that process, you have very little room in your neshama, in your soul, in your moral imagination to care about the needs of others and you only focus on yourself. We just know that that's bad. We know that that empathy is a limitless reservoir. We know that we should be able to think beyond that. And we ultimately also know that it doesn't protect us, it doesn't make us safer by backing ourselves in the corner and saying only those who are standing with me will protect me. I just. We have to know that what you're describing is a description of a problem, even if it actually also characterizes the reality.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

Danielle, jump in here on this. Yeah, I think we have to really pay careful attention to the details of this peace plan because this peace plan is an attempt to address this psychological block within Israeli society that I think frankly is justified. You can't, it's. It Forget even forgetting October 7th. The thing that upsets Israelis most is that 80 plus percent of Gazans and Palestinians in Judea and Samaria felt think that October 7th was a great day. So what? I'm going to have something with you. So it's true. I'm Just like Yehuda, I worry about who I am, but I, I, I, but how do I, how do I create a future here? But we, the details of this plan, and this is both. It's, it's, it's a struggle, it could be a serious problem, but it is also its opportunity. This plan in its next stages has nothing to do with the commitment, either moral or political, of the Palestinians. What this plan did, and this was Trump's innovation, is he brought the Sunni universe together and said, do you agree that Hamas can no longer be a player? Which is in essence saying terror has to stop. The educational system which glorifies the killing of Jews has to be changed. All of that has been spoken about. We are now starting a 10, 15 year process of rebuilding Gaza. But through that process, you're talking about a 10, 15 year process in which Palestinian society has to basically say, are you going to show up or not? Do you want to join the Emirates? Do you want to join enlightened Sunni countries, or do you want to remain in the terror camp? And I want to tell you it's going to be up to the Palestinians. And at the end of the day, if they choose to remain in the terror camp, then occupation will continue. Okay, so we'll rebuild, but we're, we're not, we're not going anywhere. And I'm not worried about, like, someone digging a hole. I have an army. October 7th was an aberration. October 7th was a failure of Israel to use even the most 2% of its military capacity in order to protect it.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Would have stopped it. Yeah, would have stopped it. Okay, we have to go to your last answers. So two minutes each. Really compact. A big question. Tal Becker, who is vice president of the Hartman Institute, defended Israel in the Hague and has been at the table in many of these peace discussions in the past. He did an interview with Dan Signor, and he said, optimism is a practice. Let's start with you, Yehuda. How is your optimism? And how would you advise we maybe hone it, have more of it?

[Rabbi Daniel Hartman]

Yeah. Tal saying that working at the Hartman Institute is not a coincidence. It's part of the reason we love Tal. I think it's part of the reason he's at Hartman is because our institution thinks in optimistic terms. And what that means is not that you think things are going to get better, but that you see yourself as responsible for bringing out a better world in which things are better, and to recognize that the alternative is way worse. Being convinced that things will get worse is a pretty good predictor that it will be, that it will facilitate that. I, you know, coming out of background and studying Jewish history and especially the last few hundred years, it has been very, it would be, it's like almost impossible to pause the clock at any point in time, Jewish history, and predict what the next 50 years would have looked like. I will say, on a personal level, the last two years, as I mentioned, have been very hard. And part of the reason it's been hard for me is because I really like spending my time, as you said, not talking about antisemitism and the things that we can't control, but talking about how we build a continued vitality for North American Jewry. How do we say, not the golden age of American Jewry is over, but what were the things that made it possible? Possible, and how do we continue to invest in them? And that feels like it was taken away from us in the last two years that the story of the Jewish people was being written by others. I would like to think that history has given us a little bit of a window here to say we can get back into the business of constructing a viable, vibrant North American Jewish future and one for the state of Israel as well.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Great, Danielle. Now you have a minute and a half.

[Yehuda Kurtzer]

I'll do it really, really quick. You know, in Maslow's pyramid of hierarchy, self preservation is the core. And very often pessimism feels safer. It feels that's what I have to be, because I have to, because optimism could be dangerous. That's why it's the job of leadership. It's the job of political leadership. It's the job of rabbis, it's the problem of intellectuals, teachers. Our job is to speak to people about a vision and to realize that hope is actually also in their self interest. And that's our job. So in the sense that's it's. It's the practice of leaders to change our conversation. And it's not our job to pander to people's fears. It's not our job to get standing ovations by telling people, don't worry, things are worse. It's our job to remind people what is the best of us and who do we want to be. And if we put that vision there, then there's a chance that maybe we'll progress in that direction.

[Abigail Pogrebin]

Danielle Hartman, Yehuda Kertzer, I'm glad the Hartman Institute is there to do exactly what you just described. And it's been a pleasure to talk to you in a very historic, emotional week. I'm Abigail Pogba. For in the Spotlight. It's been good to be with you. Thank you all for joining us live. And for those who are watching on tape, we're glad you're here too. Stay safe and I'll see you next time.

[Podcast Narrator/Host]

Here are some other things that are happening at the Shalom Hartman Institute this week as we continue to celebrate this moment. We're also reflecting on its meaning for Israel, the region and the Jewish people. Check out our Instagram for reflections from our Israeli colleagues on the this moment of Beresheet of beginning again. Our handle is in the Show Notes. After two years of traumatic war, our celebration may be accompanied by fear. How can we really have hope ever again? Daniel Hartman argues that it is essential for Israelis to have hope right now. Read his new article at the link in the show Notes. Does Zionism have a future on the American left? The answer isn't obvious. Join Yehuda Kertzer this Thursday, October 23rd at the SAPIR Debates. Yehuda and former Representative Kathy E. Manning will argue yes, and James Kirchik and Batya Unger Sargan will argue no. This distinguished panel will be moderated by SAPIR Editor in Chief Brett Stevens. Register to attend in person at the 92nd Street Y in New York City or for streaming at the link in the Show Notes. Thanks for listening to our show. Identity Crisis is produced by me, Tessa Zitter and our executive producer is Maital Friedman. This episode was produced with assistance from Annie Byer Chaffetz and edited by Josh Allen with music provided by so called Transcripts of our show are now available on our website. Typically, a week after an episode airs, we're always looking for ideas for what we should cover on future episodes. So if you have a topic you'd like to hear about or if you have have comments about this episode, please write to us@identity crisisalomhartman.org for more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute about what's unfolding right now. Sign up for our newsletter in the Show Notes and subscribe to this podcast everywhere. Podcasts are available. See you next time and thanks for listening.