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- [00:00]
Noah
This is TLV1. This episode may contain explicit language.
- [00:15]
Rotem Bar-Or
And
- [00:18]
Noah
welcome to the Promise Podcast brought to you on TLV1, the voice of the city, whose mayor, Ronalda E. Opened Monday night's city council meeting with a passionate plea for a unanimous vote on a motion to rename name the big square in front of the art museum on the one side and the courthouse on another, and Beit Ariella Municipal Main Library on a third. Officially, now what we have mostly anyway, called it for the past more than 1,000 days, which unanimous yay vote the mayor received after he said, among other things, In this square, we shouted and wept. I visited the square every Saturday since October 7th. I saw it in grief and in celebration and sadness, and in the euphoria that swept over it the day the last hostage came home. At times, tens of thousands stood here, sometimes only a few dozen. But one thing remained constant mutual responsibility. People from every part of Israeli society came here to stand with the families, to fight for people they had never met, and to refuse, even for a moment, to accept the possibility that that anyone might be left behind. This square tells not only the story of the disaster, it also tells the story of how Israeli society chose to respond with solidarity, mutual responsibility and steadfast support for the families. Born of the conviction that no one can ever be left behind, the city of Tel Avivo gave this struggle a place and support and a home. We provided the families with support, assistance and cooperation, made the plaza available for the activities of the hostages and missing families forum. This is what a city's responsibility looks like. Not just declaring its support for the people who live here, but being there for them in every way that is needed. It was not only the municipality that mobilized the people of Tel Aviv. Iafo, together with thousands who came here from across the country, demonstrated the meaning of mutual responsibility. They volunteered, donated, cooked, accompanied, embraced, and simply showed up, not out of obligation or self interest, but from a profound sense of responsibility for the person in front of them. In those moments, we came to understand and knew what a city is. A city is not just streets, buildings and services. A city is the people who live in it. It is a community that comes together in crisis, taking responsibility for one another and turning the values of solidarity and responsibility into action and keeping hope alive. And arguably, nothing captures the spirit of this city we love so well, Tel Aviv, Jaffa. A city where tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, made their way each week, as if drawn by some instinct, some atavistic motive force inside us, to that square, to chant, chant chant and to clap and to shout now, now, now. And to sing together. And where the same tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds, as if by some instinct, found themselves making macaroni and red sauce and putting it in Tupperware and bro bringing it to some address they saw on a Google spreadsheet, not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was just the thing to do. More than renaming the square, I think biblically so that just like we remember that we were slaves in Egypt, so too our kids and theirs and theirs too will remember that there was a time when we were hostages. Until, partly anyway, we were free. With us Today, speaking from TLV1's flagship satellite studio in Jerusalem, is a woman who has a genius for all of those fellow feeling things, the empathy, the respons, the indeterminate sense of where she ends and the people around her begin to which she marries, a joy at just living that is a gift for all of us who know her in bad times and good. Obviously, that woman I am describing could only be Linda Gradstein. Linda Gradstein has long covered Israel, first for NPR and most recently for the Voice of America. Of blessed memory. Linda is also a lecturer in journalism at NYU Tel Aviv and the Hebrew University, and not too long ago at NYU Abu Dhabi, Linda has won an Overseas Press Club Award and an Alfred I. Dupont Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. Linda, how are you doing?
- [04:57]
Linda Gradstein
I'm doing well. I recently became a great aunt. One of our nephews on Kibbutz Kitura, which I believe, Noah, you've heard of Matan Horgan and his wife Shelly had a beautiful little girl named Zivi. And the way my kids are going, this may be the closest I get, so I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can.
- [05:19]
Noah
I am sure that you will be a great aunt, as it were. It works on so many levels, so many levels. Now also with us for the first time, this time in TLV1's newest North Tel Aviv studio, the Noordau Boulevard branch is one of my absolute favorite people in the world, a woman who grew up with the surname or or light. And it is a truth universally acknowledged that she brings into every room that she enters a great quantity of light. Her surname is now or Soco on account of marriage, so presumably she brings as well great quantities of soco into every room in which she enters. If you were to look at her Ketubah, you would find signed as a witness the name of my own girl, just as if you were to look at the ketubah of my own girl and her boy you would find signed her Rotem or Soko in the event at the bottom as a witness as well. Rotem Orsoko, who to Susan's and my great pleasure has been a bat by it. A daughter of her house for years, a best friend of our girl who is also a daughter of her house. Rothem Orsoko is today a middle school teacher at the Amirim School in Kfar Vradim up north. Not long ago she taught at Ahmos Oz High School here in Tel Aviv. Yes, there is an Amos Oz High School. She was in the not distant past for two years a Shlicha, an Israeli emissary at the Shari Torah Congregation in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Maryland, where all good hearted people find themselves at one time in their life. She is part of a new community of teachers seeking to develop and lead a discourse on Jewish and democratic Israeli identity through Bible study, what is known as the Bible Project. And people, the things she did after October 7th when she grabbed her sleeping bag and just went somewhere, they would fill you with admiration, hope and gratitude as they do me. From setting up an alternative school for kids evacuated from Steiro, to managing an online community of 16,000 women whose husbands, sons and daughters were off fighting and volunteering with the Hostages and Missing Families forum, it was more than anyone Rotem that Mayor Ron Khudai was talking about. Rotem, so glad that you're here. Thank you for coming to be on the show. How are you doing?
- [07:36]
Rotem Bar-Or
I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. It's exciting to be here.
- [07:40]
Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Finally. It's something that should have happened before. And as for me, my name is Jo Ephron. I do not mean to boast, but Susan is off overseas and I am here alone with Lucy, Louisa May Allcat and Rocky Raccoon the Bunny. And not only can I not make the washing machine work right, which you could, you know, like roll your eyes and say, yeah, of course you can't make the washing machine work right. I also can't make the air condition work right and I cannot even make the television work right, which I like to think of as my own sovereign domain. My plan is to spend the next seven days in fetal position. And please believe me when I say I'm not bragging. God knows that that is not the way that my folks raised me. But you know how it can be kind of off putting and annoying when a guy is all like competent in everything, is always like, no, I don't need your help. I can do that myself. Well, that is definitely not the specific way in which I am off putting and annoying. Today we got two topics so crucially and just plain exciting that you might want to write us to see if you can get the movie rights for them. But first, we have this matter in memoriam. I got a WhatsApp this week from Anna Zelenska, my brilliant, beautiful French Polish philosophy professor at the University of Lorraine, friend and mentor in all matters of Israeli jazz. A WhatsApp that read quote I just got this picture from a friend, Korner Diesengov, Ben Gurion, plenty of books in Polish, I am told, end quote. The photograph showed a street corner filled with chairs and tables and most of all, boxes and boxes and boxes of books, thousands of books now scattered over a great expanse of the wide sidewalk. In the picture one sees people wading through the book, scavenging. Anna added a link to the Wikipedia page of Gabi Moked and said that apparently the books belonged to him, which made sense, as I knew that Gabi Moked lived on that street corner, and I knew that just a few weeks before he died, which, though he was 92 years old, I thought he never would on account of he was one of those people who had scores to settle and records to set right and things to get done, all working off what seemed like an endless store of passion and energy. It was hard to imagine him not being here. I met Gabi Moqued In 1988, when I was in grad school at the launch of a journal called the Tel Aviv Review, a journal he started together with one of my teachers, Amos Funkenstein, another intellectual giant of mythological stature, who, when Robert Alter eulogized him in Gabi Moked's the Jerusalem Review, which the Tel Aviv Review became after just four issues, after Amos died of cancer at just 58, he, Robert Alter, said of him, he seemed to have read everything in a dozen fields of knowledge, down to the obscurest secondary literature in the last footnote. He also had the unfair advantage of photographic memory, which enabled him to reel off long passages from the major philosophic and exegetical texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, German, Greek, and Latin American when the occasion called for it, end quote and Gabi Moked matched Amos Funkenstein in his mythological stature, his being too brilliant almost to believe it added to Gabi Moked's mystique that he was just a kid, six years old, when he was sent with his folks to the Warsaw Ghetto. His parents were Italian Jews by heritage, well bred from a family that had arrived in Poland from Portugal back in the 17th century. His father, Jakob, or Kube Munves, was a doctor, an infant internist at the Jewish Hospital in Warsaw. Well regarded, he was also the head of the Polish Communist Party's doctor's cell. And when the war started, undercover, he was a member of the Polish partisans in the ghetto. Kubo Moonves became the head of internal medicine and infectious diseases. At the cista Hospital at number 6 Genscha Street. And he taught at the underground medical school that operated in the Warsaw Ghetto. Dr. Kubbe Menves was also friendly with Janusz Korshak, who visited the Moonveses in their apartment on Solna Street. And when Janusz Korshak's orphanage was in need of medicine, it was Cuba. Moonves who got for them. Smuggled vials of at least some of what they needed. In 1943, through his communist and partisan connections, Kuba Munves arranged for his wife Magda, and Forgabi, who was now nine, to slip over to the Polish side of the ghetto walls. And they were spirited through the courthous on Leshnow street. And taken in by a family named Nowinsky, who were, among other things, patients of Dr. Kuba Moonves. The doctor himself stayed in the ghetto where he was needed. The family separated in the snowy courtyard of the hospital. Two incompatible accounts of Dr. Kube Moonves murder have reached us. In one, he was beaten to death with a pipe by SS officers just after the uprising. In the other, he died in Treblinka. Gabi Moked and his mother never saw him again. After they parted in the snow at the Ghetto Hospital in 1946, Gabi Moked, Magda and her new husband, a gynecologist named Teichner, arrived in Palestine, where they were greeted by Paula Ben Gurion, who was a relative of Magda. Gabriel was 12. He did not know a word of Hebrew, though it came to him quickly and well. When he started studying at the Shalvagh Gymnasium, which in those days was on Ranak street in Tel Aviv between Dizengaf and Ben Yehuda, just south of Arlazarov, and which had been set up by Gania and Mordechai Valensky, who were progressives in the spirit of John Dewey and who ran their school with what they called an open gate policy, meaning the lines between the schoolyard and the city were easily crossed. Though the communism that most of the kids got from their folks, it was not for school, where the principals insisted what would rule would be Humanistic and pluralistic values. At the Shalva Gymnasium, Gabi Moked's best friend was a kid named David Avidan, who would in time earn a reputation as one of the great, greatest Hebrew poets of his generation, which was later called the Generation of the State, meaning people who came of age as the state was coming into being, the generation including Yuda Amichai and Nathan Zach and of course, Gabi Moked, who in the event, was the person who coined the phrase the Generation of the State. It was David Avidan, by the way, who suggested to his friend that he change his name from Moonves to Moked. David Avidan published his first poems in a journal called Kol Haam, the Voice of the People and the Organ of Banqi, the Covenant of Israeli Communist Youth, the youth movement that Gabi Moked and David Avidan were members of, and David Avidan thereafter was championed by the assistant editor of Kol Haam for Literature, who in the event, was Gabi Moked. This one. David Avidan was 15 and Gabi Mokad was 16. The editor of Kol Haam was the great poet Alexander Penn, who lived on Dizengoff, around the corner and down just a bit from our place today. It was in 1950, when Gabi Moked had just turned 23, that the idea came for the Generation of the State to start their own literary journal, which Gabi Moked, David Avidan, Nathan Zach, the poet Maxim Gilan and others called Achav, meaning now capturing in the name of the journal the idea that the periodical was all about shaking off the past, which, depending on how you looked at it, could shade into patricide, as when Nathan ZACH Published in 1959 his famous and scandalous essay, essentially burying Nathan Alterman, Reflections on Alterman. The essay was called Alterman, who was still known in many circles at the time as Israel's national poet. And Nathan Zach buried him on the grounds that he was baroque and that his poetry was overly pretty, too theatrical, decorative, mannered and lacking in feeling. Nathan Sach said poetry should sound like life. It should pulse with life. It should be concrete, it should be personal, it should be emotional. None of this national ethos and national ethos, none of this silver platter shit. Gabi Moked always said he thought his friend Nathan Zach had gone too far. There was a lot to admire in Nathan Alterman, he said, and the thing caused Nathan Alterman great pain. He, Alterman asked his friend Yaakov Orland to set up a meeting with Nathan Sach and the two Natans gathered in Kossit, the cafe on Diesenghaf, where writers drank and wrote and gossiped and fought. And the older Nathan said to the younger one, referring to himself in the third person, alterman is so much of a nothing, a nothing, a nothing, a nothing. No virtues at all. Everything about him is worth nothing, Everything. Still. Gabi Mokhed published the essay, so go figure. The journalist and literary critic Elie Eshed has written that Akshav is the most important journal in Israel's history, and though it's hard to figure out how you can measure something like that, he's still probably right. Achav did a bunch of things that no other journal ever did. It brought modernism into Hebrew, bringing into the language the greatest of modernist verse. Poem after poem by W.H. auden, Dylan Thomas, T.S. eliot, Wallace Stevens, Robert Lowell, E.E. cummings, HD Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Rainer Maria Rilke, Bertolt Brecht, Czeslaw Milos, Moishe, Lieb Halpern, Yaakov Glachstein, Pablo Nerudo, C.P. cavafy, John Berryman, Mahmoud Darweesch, Sameh El Qasim, Nizar Kabbani, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Fairlinghedi, Sylvia Plath, Adrian Rich, Delmore Schwartz, Anne Sexton, Joseph Brodsky. And this is just a small fraction of the list. Achav was also the first to publish lots of Israel's most important and radical poets. This was its most important contribution. Dahlia Rabikovich, Jonah Volach, Mayor Wieseltier, Maya Bejerano, Yuda Amichai, Don Pagis, Aaron Chabtai, Roni Somek, who is our house poet, and so many others. I spent the day yesterday at Beit Ariella Library going through all the volumes of Akshav, a mind bending thing to do. And the thing that I got most from it was that the journal was a thing and its opposite. It was, especially at the beginning, a publication with a mission. Shaking up Hebrew literature and shaking it down, also getting rid of an old elitism and replacing it with a new elitism. It is what you might expect from a brilliant kid who learned his first words of Hebrew just a decade before and had notions about what the language could and should be doing. And it was just what you might expect from a kid who got his start editing the Journal of the Covenant of Israeli Communist Youth. It was a thing with a party line, but it was also, right from the beginning, the opposite of that, going out of its way to have on its pages too, the poems and prose of the people on paper. It was out to bury. There were in the issues poems by Leah Goldberg and Alexander Penn and Orizvi Greenberg and Avram Khalfi and Zelda. It was also, for a thing aiming to be the beating heart of a new Hebrew culture alive to how much Hebrew culture was in need of everything else. It was one of the first journals devoted to Hebrew literature to print Yiddish poetry in Hebrew translation. It was one of the first journals devoted to Hebrew literature to print Palestinian poetry in Hebrew translation. It was also the first journal to devote a whole issue to Hebrew science fiction, something that his more snooty colleagues took as a sign that Gabi Moked's literary judgment was faltering. But he said there is room for this too. In the canon of Hebrew literature. He printed articles taking seriously popular songs are Einstein above all else. This too was Hebrew culture. Gabi Moked printed the diary of Ktsetnik, the survivor who fainted at the Eichmann trial after starting to testify about Planet Auschwitz, his memoir from his LSD treatment in the Netherlands for his death camp Traumas. For all its party line bluster, Archav was an exuberantly Catholic affair, finding beauty and meaning and instruction everywhere else and bringing it all home to Hebrew and also finding beauty in those parts of our own past that official state Zionist party line often overlooked. Achav had a great deal about the Holocaust, essays and poems seared with empathetic concern, rejecting that cheap to the slaughter calumny that people here so often told ourselves in the 1950s and 60s and up until, well, until Yuda Politker and Yaakov Gilad put out their record, efer Vavak in 1988. Akshav, like I said, got the depths of Yiddish. It felt the insult of Mizrachim, and it registered the achievements of Sephardi culture. It matters that Akshav was published with some breaks along the way to shore up funding or to find a new co editor after bridges were burned with the old ones. It was published from 1953 to 2014 for 57 long years during which the Thing was held together only by Gabi Moked's strong will and strong vision that never failed. And the Thing was always, always, always brilliant. In 1988, like I said, Gabi Moked and Amos Funkenstein launched what was essentially an English language version of Akzav. At first it was called the Tel Aviv Review and then the Jerusalem Review, though the Thing had two additional purposes, Gabi Moked said, the one being to show the world the subtlety and richness of Hebrew literature, and the other being to be a bridge between the Jewish culture thriving in Israel and the Jewish culture thriving everywhere else, mostly in America. Which two Jewish cultures were, to Gabi Moked's deep concern, growing ever more alien one from the next, even as he watched the nine volumes of the Tel Aviv, Then Jerusalem Review are astonishing things. I know of nothing with their ambition that goes as wide and as deep as they do. Take, for instance, the 363 pages of the first issue that starts with a statement of aims that says, among other things, that the journal, quote, seeks to transcend the barrier of language and to foster a genuine dialogue between Israel and the Diaspora. The journal will not exclude controversy. All contributions will be published solely on their intrinsic merits, end quote. The pages that follow have four poems of Solomon ibn Gavirol, the great 11th century Sephardi poet and philosopher, one being the Forsaken Lover. Quote she loves to make men suffer. They groveled at her feet. She caused them bitter torments. But oh, her lips were sweet, her eyes were polished lances or swords to slay the foe. She stabbed me with her glances and cruelly laid me low. Not the rabbinic literature that they taught me in yeshiva. And there's an essay by Amos Funkenstein, theological interpretations of the Holocaust. And there's an interview with Isaac Bassevis Singer about dybbuks and whatnot, and a cycle of poems by Abba Kovner, the leader of the Vilna Ghetto uprising called Sloane Kettering about his cancer treatment there. And an essay by Amil Habibi, the Palestinian writer and politician, called your Holocaust and our Catastrophe, or Nakba, this was in 1988, and an essay comparing the poetry of Avraham ibn Erzra, Peter Abelard and John Donne. And there are poems by Roni Somak and Yuda Amichai and David Avidan. And it is all so beautiful and so perfectly well done, the world we would like to see between two covers in the photographs of the books and papers strewn on Dizenghaf earlier this week. And there were hundreds of photographs that I saw posted to Facebook by people made so sad by the sight of it. In all the photographs, among the thousands of books, you see clearly the volumes of Akshav and of the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Review. Gabi Moked must have had the unsold back copy stowed in his apartment, which, even as he lived there, was a mess. It was a jumble of books and papers everywhere. A few years ago a German journalist named Sara Fanti spent months trying to get Gabi Moked to agree to an interview, and when he finally did, he invited her to his apartment and this is what she wrote. Quote Books and magazines are piled everywhere, even between the lowered blinds at the window, two rain soaked books are wedged to let a little light into the small apartment in the heart of Tel Aviv. Here lives Gabriel Moqued, an Israeli philosophy professor and one of the country's most respected book critics. The part about being a philosophy professor is true. In the 1960s Gabi Moked wrote a doctorate at Oxford about the great Irish philosopher and natural philosopher George Berkeley. Berkeley, California is named for him, though they mispronounce it, and who is generally thought of as the father of immaterialism or idealism, though Gabi Moked has his doubts about that. And Gabi Moqued's day job was as a professor of philosophy in Beersheva, though literature was always his main occupation. And like his apartment, Gabi Moked's family life was often a mess, and it had more than his allotment of tragedy ought to have been. Starting with his father, of course. But then again, in 1984, when Gabi Mokhed was 50, he was called to his mother Magda Teichner's apartment on Ben Gurion, just around the corner from his own apartment on Diesenghaf, and when he got there he found her tied to a chair, dead, killed by a burglar, the police figured, though they never found out who it was. Gabi Mokhed married three times, first in the 1960s to a poet he published named Ofres Shunit, who, a few years after she and Gabi Moked separated, gave birth with her new husband, Avraham Perlmutter, to Inbal Perla, the great, probably lesbian lead of the punk rock band Hamachefot the Witches, who died in a car crash in 1997 when she was just 26. And then he was married to Daniela Doron, who would go on to become a famous and revered journalist and satirist, and with the man she married after Gabi Moked, Aharon Shami. She is the mother of Guy Shami, the great guitarist for the pioneering rock group Mercedes Benz. And then he was married to professor of medieval Jewish literature Tova Rosen, with whom he had two boys, Oren and Yonatan. After Gabi Mokad died, the poet Aggie Michol posted on Facebook that he, Gabi Moked, had for years tortured Tova Rosen by refusing to give her a get and leaving her an Agunah unable to marry. And maybe this is why, in his last years of his life, Gabi Moked was estranged not only from Tova Rosen but also from his two boys. A few years ago Gabi Moked was on the radio explaining that he'd worked in up debts for unpaid taxes and there were folks trying to evict him from his apartment and money was raised and Gabi Moked stayed where he was, though in the end he was pretty much alone save for his friends who were older and frankly by now mostly dead, and his admirers who were younger but not the sort of people who you could ask to help you with your tax bills. All of which is maybe the reason why in the end Gabi Mukhed's apartment was cleared by dumping everything, his tens of thousands of books, his countless letters and files of incomparable historical value onto the street, where trash trucks in this shockingly efficient when it comes to rubbish city cleared them to landfill in just an hour or two. And before I got there, after getting Anna Zelensky's alert, even though from the moment I saw what she sent to the moment I arrived on the corner of Diesel Golf and Ben Yehuda, not 10 minutes had passed. I got off my bike and stumbled around checking the picture in my phone to make sure I was in just the right spot, and after I was sure, I noticed that at least three other people my age were looking into their phones at pictures, wondering if they were in the right spot, and we were all a little forlorn after we realized that we were in the right spot but that it was all gone. Forlorn was the general feeling, too, in all the Facebook posts with the pictures of the tumble of books out on the street. I asked Susan why it made me feel so sad to see that picture, and she said, well, you know, it was this whole life in books and papers, and then it was just tossed carelessly on the street like it had no value. And Susan was right, that was what I felt, and maybe it was what the other people felt on the corner of Dizingaf and Ben Gurion. But in the days that have passed since then, I've come to feel something very different. Gabriel Moqued edited Akshav for 57 years, and you cannot devote 57 years of your life to a journal now named NOW without understanding that there will come a time when you will belong to the past. Look, I'm a historian, and I'm the last to deny that it is a tragedy that whatever notes pass between David Avidan and Nathan Zach and Gabi Moked that were in his apartment are now in landfill and not in archives. I get that. But Gabi Moked was after something different than just being remembered. Gabi Muqed was after changing 57 years of now in ways that would set us off on new paths so that later nows would be different than they otherwise would have been. And in this his success was astonishing. In the now that we have today, there is no one who would think that Ari Einstein does not have a place in the Hebrew canon. There is no one who would think anymore that Avram Sutzkever, Moishe Leeb Halperin, Yankev Gladstein, Dvoira Fogel, Kadja Molodovsky, Anna Margolin and all the other Yiddish modernist poets do not deserve a place on our shelves. There is no one who thinks anymore that the trauma of survivors should be elided ignored. There is no one who thinks anymore that science fiction and Hebrew is some sort of abomination beneath the dignity of the language itself. There is no one who thinks anymore that Israel Israel somehow replaced diaspora culture. And there are many of us, though far from all of us, who think that our Holocaust and their Nakba, for all they are different, are still quantumly connected in a way that we will have to be physicists of the soul, talented enough to puzzle out. The trucks came and carted away books and papers of incalculable value. That is bad news. But the good news is that the now that we have today is in so many ways a Now fashioned by 57 years of now dreamed up time after time and put into words and pressed into our imaginations by Gabi Mokad and the brilliant people he surrounded himself with and that that now holds within it so much richness and offers good hope and enough hope for the different and better nows that still await us. Yehi Zichro Baruch Today two discussions, our first being blitzed as today is the last day of the last legislative session of the 25th Knesset, which was elected on November 1, 2022, which feels like a lifetime ago. And though this Knesset has ruled for almost four the last Knesset to complete a full term was the 11th Knesset, which governed from 1984 to 1988. Its last week has seen what every single news source has described as a blitz of legislation, which legislation is almost all very controversial, including a law preventing the police from detaining ultra Orthodox draft dodgers and a law declaring that Torah study is a foundational national value, and we will one try to understand why all this legislation slayton is coming all at once at the last possible minute and b try to understand where these new laws fall on the continuum from really, really lousy to maybe not quite as lousy as you think when you get right down to it. And our second discussion Being America Imagined as former Prime Minister and present head of the Opposition Yair Lapid writes a beautiful and haunting essay in the Atlantic, what he calls a love letter to America on its 250th birthday. And we will try to figure out how you first sees America and why, and then more broadly ask what place America holds in the imaginations of Israelis more generally cleverly exploiting the fact that Rotem got on a plane and moved to America for two years as a shlicha like I mentioned. And for our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters in our special special extra discussion, the link to which you can find in our show Notes on your podcast app or at patreon.com promisepodcast on the world Wide Web. And continuing the theme of Explo wrote them this time her calling as a teacher, we will talk about what impacts our three years of endless wars have had on kids and their parents and their teachers and their schools. I'm holding out hope that the impacts are all super positive, but we will have to wait and see. But before we get to any of that, please listen to this.
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Rotem Bar-Or
Seem.
- [34:00]
Noah
Out. That song is Yadaimalarosh by Adi Budpika. Brand new music of these unsettled times. And now it's time for our first discussion. So Linda, I'll be honest, as always, right now at this moment I am blitzed. Ain't nothing wrong with that, right?
- [35:06]
Linda Gradstein
Definitely not. And as you said, the final legislative blitz. And that's how the financial paper Globes describe the goings on at the Knesset this week, the last week of the parliamentary session and the last week the Knesset will operate before the upcoming elections that will take place. It was also decided this week, on October 27th, 7th, 103 days from now, as I record these words, the metaphor of a blitz from the German for lightning and usually meaning a pitiless attack of great intensity. Think of the Nazi blitz on London, turned up over and over in basically all the papers and on all the TV stations. Yediot, Ma', Areev, Haaretz, the Marker, Khan, Channel 12, Channel 13, they all had items about the legislative blitz, meaning the one after another controversial bills brought by the government in this last week of legislating before the election campaigns Begin. Among the laws passed in the Blitz, just before the clock ran out on Legislatin, were a highly redacted version of the very controversial Basic Law and Torah Study, a law that would suspend the investigation and arrests of yeshiva student draft dodgers. While that passed, it was immediately put on hold by the Supreme Court, a law that significantly weakens the power of the Attorney General by allowing ministers to reject the Attorney General's position, positions which are currently binding. The opposition has already appealed to the Supreme Court against that law. A law that allows gender separation for advanced degrees, a law undoing a law passed by the prior government under Naftali Bennett that decentralized the granting of kashrut certifications, a law allowing national instead of just regional commercial radio stations, and a law adding two months to compulsory army service for men, taking it from two and a half years to two years and eight months, which is a lot of legislating for just one week, which you might think is an admirable thing. But there were critics both of the laws that were passed and of the haste with which they were passed. About the second matter, leader of the opposition Yair Lapid said this is a going out of business sale of the state. Why, he asked, did the government wait until the last week of the parliamentary session to ram through all of these laws in so unseemly a way way of what the laws said? There was all sorts of criticism. Probably the most controversial of all the laws was the new Basic Law about Torah study that after a lot of back and forth editing, was slimmed down to 10 words in Hebrew that translate into these 18 words in English. Torah study is a foundational value in the heritage of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Earlier versions of the law stipulated that Torah study is equal in importance and status to army service service and were intended to strong arm the Supreme Court into accepting the de facto exemption from army service of yeshiva buchers. The version voted into law shed the language that would push the Supreme Court in that direction. But still, to lots of people, the stain of its earlier purpose was like the blood on Lady Macbeth's hands. Out, out, damn spot. There were strong objections to all the other laws too, although each of them was really only a pale version of the law they had started out to to be. Also, as Avigdor Lieberman, head of the opposition Yisrael Beitenu Party, said this week, the next government, if the polls turn out to be accurate, will overturn all the laws passed this week. So there's that too, which leads us to Our questions. Rotem, do you share Yair Lapid's queasy feeling that there is something unseemly to the wholesale passage of lots of major laws in the last week? The Knesset will be in session before elections, and what do you think about the actual laws that got passed?
- [39:04]
Rotem Bar-Or
So this legislative blitz right before the Knesset's resource seems to me like a calculated tactic of rushing dozens of complex bills through at the last minutes. And it seems like it's just designed to overwhelm us. When there's a new scandal or major law passed every single day, it becomes impossible for the public or even the opposition to track, let alone understand, the full impact. It creates a state of collective fatigue where nobody can even remember what we were angry about yesterday. But honestly, a lot of these laws are just a direct spit in the face of the serving part of Israeli society. While Reservist families are collapsing under the burden of this war, the Coalition is passing laws that look like textbook electoral bribery. They're giving the ultra Orthodox parties whatever they want just to keep their political block intact, completely ignoring the people who are actually carrying this country on their backs, and even the ideologies of a lot of their own voters. There is a massive, shameful conflict of interest here. These politicians are literally voting on policies that shield their own communities and family members from the repercussions of this war, whether it's a burden of military service or economic cuts, while demanding that our families continue to sacrifice everything. A lot of these laws just seem to be personal. Personal revenge, personal gain, personal interest, instead of the actual purpose to serve the public.
- [40:38]
Noah
Well, I think that I agree with everything that you're saying about all of these laws, except the kind of weight of the value that you attach to them. Because I think that you're clearly right, that this is something that's being done in order to position the present coalition, and particularly the Likud, under Netanyahu for the upcoming elections. That, by the way, is something that always happens before elections. There's always a legislative blitz at the end of every session. I'm sure if you went back to, you know, 1951, you would find that this is true, too, because this is the last opportunity for the ruling party to use the Knesset to say to the voters, this is what we believe in. If you vote for us, this is what you get. So. So I agree that what we're seeing, all of these laws obviously, are meant to say to the ultra Orthodox communities. We in the coalition, we in the Likud are your greatest supporters. And you have to imagine that whatever government is formed after the election, you need to stand with us. Clearly they're saying that. And clearly they're saying we believe that the ultra orthodox don't need to serve as much as other people and that we also believe that at the same time they shouldn't be penalized financially for that. So that their schools should be, and their kindergartens should be funded as fully as anyone else's kindergartens, even if they don't serve. That was one of the laws that was passed, is giving more funds to pay for kindergarten teachers, because right now the ultra orthodox have twice as many kids for every teacher who's funded by the government as the rest of us do. So a bill was passed for that. So all of these things are in fact doing exactly what you said. I just don't understand, literally don't quite understand why that A isn't a normal thing and B is not a bad thing. I mean, you can disagree and I disagree with you with the content, but basically, for the government to say, this is who we are, this is what we stand for, you should vote for us. If you believe in this. I don't see what's wrong with that. I just think that they're persuading people like me, and maybe people like you not to vote for them, and they're persuading their voters to vote for them. Seems like politics kind of at its purest form. So I don't get why you or why everyone is so upset about literally everyone. So, yes, I understand that I must be wrong about this at some level, but I literally don't get what everyone is screaming about. Linda, can you explain to me?
- [43:21]
Linda Gradstein
Yeah, well, I think there's this sense that countries laws are. It's somewhat. Especially the basic law, given that Israel has no constitution. And the basic law functions as a quasi constitution. And so changes to that basic law are a really, really big deal. And I feel like there's this sense that, oh, let's just cram it through. And in that sense, I agree with Rotem that I understand what you're saying, Noah, but I think the fact is that the fact that they. First of all, Netanyahu didn't come to a lot of these votes and didn't vote in favor, which to me says something happened.
- [43:55]
Noah
Yeah, often he came and then was not there when they asked the vote.
- [43:58]
Linda Gradstein
Yes, when the vote happened. Which says something about how even he sees these. The fact that the election is being held on October 27th, where if you take away the two, you've got October 7th. I mean, if I was in the leakud and running, I would try to not have anything to do with October 7th. So it shows that they see this as so important that they're willing to even have a date that I think looks very bad for them. But I. I think there is something unseemly in just kind of ramming through these laws without. Without really having any kind of discussion about them. And I think they're laws that could have influence on everybody's lives. I just want to make one more point about the content of the law, about not arresting the Yeshiva students. I talked to a friend of mine who's lived in Israel for 50 years, and she says she has never felt as alienated from Israel as she feels now. Two of her kids live abroad, and she said that for the first time in many, many years, she's actually glad that they live abroad. And there's something very sad because she feels that I think she was specifically responding to the content of this law. But by making the original content of making Torah study equivalent to military service, I mean, my son is doing the. I don't even know how many is doing reserved duty in Gaza yet again and is sort of back and forth, forth, and it's just not fair. He's 25 years old and he's stuck. He hasn't been able to move on with his Life because since October 7, he's basically been in Miluim. And it's just not fair. He said that if his not going to Meloim would be part of a movement against the ultra Orthodox draft, then he would do it. But he said if he doesn't go, all he does is it means he, you know, it affects the other people on his team even more, which is why all of these nice young kids are all going.
- [45:55]
Noah
I want to hear from you, but I just want to add, surely it has to make a difference that what you mentioned is not even remotely the law that was passed.
- [46:03]
Linda Gradstein
Yes.
- [46:03]
Noah
So there was within the Likud, they decided we don't believe in that either. We do not. And the law that was passed is a law that. It's a little bit hard for me to understand how anyone can object to it. It just seems to me to be an empirical fact that the Torah is a foundational part of the culture.
- [46:21]
Linda Gradstein
I agree with you, Doa. The one question I would have is, what does this move, this whole idea of Haredim not serving, does it move it forward or not? I don't think people are Objecting to.
- [46:32]
Noah
You're right, that that's the hope of some people, though it seems extremely unlikely to do that. But I'm sorry I wrote them.
- [46:37]
Rotem Bar-Or
I just wanted to add to Linda, I think what, what seems to be, you know, inherent to these laws and the fact that Netanyahu didn't vote in many of them, supports that, is that it doesn't even align with the ideology of a lot of the voters, original voters of this coalition. The fact that there are a lot of people who are serving and have been in hundreds of days of reserve duty that have voted to this coalition in the past and are now seeing the fact that they will just have more and more put on their backs and, and the coalition just goes towards the ultra orthodox parties instead of supporting their own voters. I think that is an important thing to note.
- [47:30]
Noah
Well, see, so I completely understand that and I understand the people who are angry at these laws and I understand the people who are angry at the ultra orthodox. And I do not understand how that translates into being angry about this week, because this week seems to me to be one of the least hypocritical weeks that I've ever seen in politics anywhere ever, where basically what the coalition, what the Likud is saying is, vote for us in October and this is what you get. And they could have said, look, we don't really believe in this either, but at this moment we're being forced to or whatever. But they didn't. I mean, there were individuals who said that. What they said is, this is who we are. And these laws are completely meaningless in the sense that that after October 27th, we'll have a new government. Either it will look politically similar to the one we have, in which case these laws will take effect, but then they could have passed them then, too, or will be a very different government that, you know, headed by the people who are now in the opposition. And just like Victor Lieberman said, every single one of these laws will be changed back in the first week will be undone. So it seems to me to be a very clear statement by the coalition of this is who we are, an honest statement of this is who we are, that the voters can decide and then the voters will decide if these laws stand or don't. So I sort of celebrate this week. To me, it just feels like, oh, this is a step forward in Israeli politics, not a step backwards, because it clarifies what we're voting about.
- [49:09]
Rotem Bar-Or
That's a very optimistic view.
- [49:12]
Noah
I don't know if it's optimistic because I worry that the side that I don't support is going to end up winning and that this is who we are is very unpalatable, is something that I think is dangerous and that I hate as the identity of a government. And thinking about starting four more years with a government that believes that is unnerving. Though I do think ultimately the opposition is going to win and all these laws will be struck down. But I just think that this is what I hope for in politics, is presenting to the people of the country a really clear picture of what it is that they're voting on. And I can't imagine having clarified the picture more than through this week.
- [49:55]
Linda Gradstein
But, Noah, you don't feel like there's a sense of. I really had a sense that everything's getting crammed through very quickly. And I really kind of felt like, what are you guys trying to pull? And I think I would have felt the same way if it was laws that I agreed with. In other words, just, just, you know, there's a way to legislate things. These things take time. Let's make sure that we really understand what each of these laws is. And I think they have implications. You know, the one, the Attorney general one, the one on gender study and whether or not they're reversed. I think they say something about where, you know, where at least this government sees Israel going, but I, as a citizen, feel kind of taken advantage of. I have to say I disagree with you your view.
- [50:41]
Noah
I think that save for the one law in the bunch that I agree with that we haven't mentioned yet, which is giving pretty substantial government support to people who are suffering from PTSD because of the war, save for that one bill, which is quite new. Moshe. Carrie, as far as I can tell, proposed it last week for the first time, or I'd never heard of it. Every other bill has been debated for at least a year, and most of them for. For most of the last three years, at whatever level of attention the war allowed us to pay to Parliament, and they're all so reversible at this particular moment. None of these laws are gonna take effect before we, the voters, have a chance to reverse them.
- [51:21]
Linda Gradstein
Does that include the one, the Basic Law, that you can reverse it?
- [51:25]
Noah
Sure. They just have to vote that that's not the case if they want it. Absolutely. And by the way, I will say
- [51:30]
Rotem Bar-Or
that of the Knesset, you know, the
- [51:33]
Noah
whole thing of basic laws is bit. A little, little bit unclear and up in the air. I do not think that you do need two thirds, but I could be wrong. About that, the basic law that was probably the most important one in our lifetime, that was passed in 1996 about human dignity that is the basis of so many of our civil rights rulings over the past 30 years, was passed of a vote of, I believe it was 24 to 12 at 2 in the morning. And so the idea of this vote, which was passed by a vote of 54 to 52, if I'm not mistaken, or maybe 56 to 52, after a year and a half of debate, it feels, and after it was very, very substantially revised and redacted, it doesn't feel so outrageous to me. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure that you're right. You're describing something that everyone feels. I mean, take what I'm saying with a grain of sal. But I still do not fully get the anger, except that I feel like it's partly just ambient anger that's out there that's going to attach to whatever happens, whatever we read in the newspaper, we're going to have that anger for. But maybe, maybe I'm wrong.
- [52:47]
Rotem Bar-Or
So I do, I completely understand your point and I haven't thought about it that way, so thank you for that. But I did have a question. So I know about one law about the public transportation idea that they wanted to change it to municipal control control, and they did not discuss it this week because they had to vote on all the other laws that they were trying to pass. So I don't know if there are other laws like that that should have been passed and were debated for a long time and do actually have an important effect and could have made a significant difference in Israel that were put aside for, for these laws that were passed. And another thing is, so these laws might not have an effect until the next government, but it's wasteful still. There is the plus side.
- [53:43]
Noah
Wasteful of what?
- [53:46]
Rotem Bar-Or
Resources. So as a teacher, I will say the Ministry of Education puts out new teaching courses and new programs every year and sometimes in the middle of the year and sometimes, sometimes. And you know, they change things up all the time. And although a lot of these don't go into effect, it still forces, you know, the professionals in the different ministries and the people that are in the different places that are affected by these laws to prepare for the possibility that the next government that will be elected will continue these laws. And so they will have to go into effect. And, and that's wasteful in my mind.
- [54:31]
Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The democracy is in general super wasteful, and elections are super wasteful. But you know, but I'm not making light of what you're saying. That is an important point, too. Now listen to this. Adam. That song is Adam v' Chava by Elia Narkis. And now it's time for our second discussion, which we are calling America Imagined. And here is why. Former prime minister, foreign minister and finance minister, and present head of the opposition, Yair Lapid just published a beautiful, haunting essay in the Atlantic, what he called a love letter to America on its 250th birthday. Its title is American Loneliness, and in it the Israeli politician explains how and why most everyone's got America all wrong. He writes, quote, the conventional wisdom is that the United States is violent, dispirited, trapped inside an identity politics of its own making. Conspiracy theories, algorithms, incel forums, pornography, immigrant hatred in the land of immigrants, social networks that are a pathetic imitation of human society. The world has turned upside down. Conservatives now want to change everything, while progressives want everything to go back to the way it was. Everything has already been said about this dystopian portrait, except perhaps one it is not true. The eulogies for America are not insight. They are more closely akin to malicious gossip. Perhaps it is easier to see this from the outside. End quote. After that, Yair Lapid explains how the rugged and lonely individualism that most people see as the basis of all that is wrong with the world's only superpower is an inevitable feature of a country built by immigrants from all over. He writes, quote, they all came. The tired, the poor, the yearning to breathe free, and also the brilliant, the ambitious, the restless, the unpredictable. They did not come to be together. They left together in order to come. End quote. Yet Euri Lapid understands why one would want to leave behind mandatory solidarity in exchange for a little freedom. You can maybe feel a little wistful jealousy when he writes, quote, do you remember the question of whether a tree makes a sound when it falls in the forest with no one to hear it? In the forest where I grew up, it could not have fallen in the first place. The trees around it would have gently wound their branches about. About it to help it stand. In America, though, trees are just trees. You can cut them down or climb them, end quote. Which carries with it some important implications. Yair Lapid writes that, quote, america is the place where the individual precedes the tribe and the story precedes history. And because this is true, Yair Lapid says, loneliness is not a glitch in the system. It is the raw material from which the system was built. And what a system. Yair Lapid writes that the American century gave us the computer, the Internet, the smartphone, space travel, modern medicine, cinema, rock and roll, Hemingway and Faulkner, consumer culture, AI. Although Yair Lapida adds, the American system has also produced, quote, inequality, cultural aggression, religious fundamentalism, racial conflict, drug culture, and the sign on I84among the gray silver sagebrush covering the high desert of id, Idaho, guns on sale now. Still, Yair Lapid writes, if there is bad to take with the good, what America offers is worth the price. Quote. In Europe, as in the east and the Islamic world, elder leaders and stern clerics speak with contemptuous fury about the Americanization of their countries. They argue that ancient and proud civilization should not have to bow before Coca Cola and Taylor Swift's incident. But their young people see something else entirely. They see a world in which the future is whatever you make of it, America is permission, permission to break a trail where no one has walked before. End quote. Rotem, I am so glad that you are here for this discussion, in particular for lots of reasons. One is because you are one of those young people who see things. Another is because you gave up a couple of years of your life to go to America as a shlicha, like I said. And while I'm sure lots of people look to you to bring a little of Israel to America, you also had lots of time to try to make sense of what America was to you, an Israeli, and maybe to us. So that is my question for you and also for you, Linda. Obviously, Israelis think everything about everything. There's no Israeli view of anything. I know that. But I think that Yair Lapid might be right, that when some, many Israelis look to America, they see something that is very different from what they know, what they grew up with, what we. And given that almost 2% of Israelis have actually uprooted themselves and moved to the United States, and that almost 1 in 20 of us make a point of visiting America each year, it seems to be something different that has some appeal. So let me start with you. What did you expect of America when you moved there, and what did you find? And to the extent that you can say, what do you think America is in the imaginations of the rest of us here?
- [61:27]
Rotem Bar-Or
Those are big questions, I will say.
- [61:30]
Noah
You're speaking for a whole country.
- [61:32]
Rotem Bar-Or
Oh, yeah.
- [61:33]
Noah
Not just your generation.
- [61:34]
Rotem Bar-Or
Everyone's on my shoulders.
- [61:35]
Noah
Speak first for your generation, then speak for all of the generations.
- [61:42]
Rotem Bar-Or
So I will say that my initial expectation was to find the ultimate capitalistic, individualistic dream, the land of endless Opportunities where everything is big, successful and hyper efficient. And I will say that despite my American sounding accent, you shouldn't let that fool you because I do not actually have any American family or connections. And I arrived to the States with very little knowledge, you know, not based on movies. But we did actually have a few sessions that the Jewish Agency had us go through of cultural differences. And one classic example that I remember from there was the phrase of that is interesting or that's an interesting idea. And they told us that, you know, while as Israelis we might think that when we pitch an idea and someone says that's an interesting idea, we're like, great, let's go on ahead. Full steam. You know, this is a great idea in America. If you hear that sentence, it's actually, oh, that is terrible. Do not go through with this. We are not, you know, behind that. So I did have to learn how to read between the lines very quickly. When I arrived in the States, I did find those endless opportunities that I was expecting. The scale of what you can achieve is just awe inducing. But I also found a flip side. There is a certain superficiality to American society. A real struggle to see complexity. Complexity. I feel like it's a very Disney culture. There are clear good guys, clear bad guys, and almost no room for the gray areas in between. In my experience, Americans oftentimes have a tendency to take their own domestic stories, like their racial dynamics, and copy paste them onto complex global situations, expecting the rest of the world to fit into a neat American and mold. It actually reminds me of a classic joke. What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
- [64:03]
Noah
What? Bilingual?
- [64:05]
Rotem Bar-Or
Yeah, bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
- [64:09]
Noah
I'm guessing trilingual, right?
- [64:11]
Rotem Bar-Or
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
- [64:14]
Linda Gradstein
American.
- [64:15]
Rotem Bar-Or
Yeah. And while this is, you know, a funny joke, it feels like it's. It is kind of true. There is a real insularity there, a belief that. But the American's perspective fits all. You can see the duality in how the country functions. I like to think of America as a massive, towering ship. During COVID we saw the downside of that size, right? The bureaucracy was so heavy, the system was so rigid, that turning the ship to react to the crisis took forever. It felt. Felt paralyzed. But, and this is the advantage, once that giant ship finally shifts its weight and steers in a direction, it moves with unstoppable, unmatched power. Israel, by contrast, is a tiny speedboat. During COVID it pivoted instantly, reacted on a dime, and adapted in seconds. But a Speedboat also gets tossed around easily. We are so busy dodging the immediate waves that we struggle to maintain a steady long sleep term course. To sum it up, and of course, we could continue talking about different aspects of the United States and its people for many more hours. I feel that America is, on the one hand, this incredible shiny empire. It's one of the greatest experiments in the world and there is a lot to learn from it. But at the same time, it's also rigid, simplified, and often struggles to see past its own reflection.
- [65:49]
Linda Gradstein
So I think that my response to this is obviously colored by the fact that I left America in my 20s to make a life in Israel. So I obviously, you know, as. And as did you, Noah. So we actually said that there's something in Israel that we prefer to whatever there is in America. And I think that for me, what that is is that that I felt like in America you can make a difference in the world by what you do professionally and by your family. And in Israel you can make a difference just by living here. The fact that you packed your bags and came here makes a difference. And culturally, we all kind of joke about the fact that Israelis sometimes have no filter. First of all, it's interesting that Even after almost 40 years, I say Israelis meaning not me meaning rote, meaning native Israelis. And people still refer to us as Anglo Saxim, which, you know, Anglo Saxons, which makes no sense at all. And, you know, I'll meet people on the street and my Hebrew is pretty good, but I do have an American accent. And people will say, oh, when did you make aliyah? Or even worse, will insist on answering me in bad English, which drives me up the wall. And when I say to them, why aren't you speaking to me in Hebrew? And they say, we want you to feel comfortable, we want you to feel at home. And the fact that people will. You'll get on a bus carrying a baby, and the first old lady will take the hat off the baby and say, the baby's too hot. And the next old lady will put the hat on the baby and say, the baby's too cold. What kind of mother are you? And the fact that in the supermarket somebody will ask you, how much did you pay for your apartment? And then tell you that you paid too much and that they would have paid much less. And if you're on a flight with Israelis, they will all be comparing prices about how much they got their package deal for. But there's something I don't know. The chaos and you just. The American individualism on one hand is nice, but I think it can also be very isolating and very lonely. And here I love the passage that you read Noah about the tree wouldn't have fallen because the other trees would have wrapped around and held them up.
- [68:06]
Noah
I mean, that sounds so haunting that I did.
- [68:10]
Rotem Bar-Or
It was beautiful.
- [68:12]
Noah
And yet, I mean, it was unnerving to me. First of all, I have to say I have been growing more impressed by and more warm toward Yair Lapid slowly over the last 10 years, but very steadily. I think that the man now has genuine depth. He's thoughtful. I mean, this essay is also beautifully written. But that passage in particular I found a little bit upsetting to realize how straightforwardly for him, having grown up in this forest where you could not fall because the other trees would wrap themselves around you, how ambivalent he is about that. Because I, like you were just describing at the end of what you were saying. Linda, for me, I mean, one of the reasons why this essay so resonated with me is there are a lot of things to say about America, a lot of ways that America and Israel are different. And he chose to, in this essay, to focus on one particular important parameter thing, which is that there's a kind of communalism here that I think is really unintelligible. If you grow up and just live in America and have never been in one of these other societies where that is like Israel, where everyone is where you're so deeply wrapped up in community and you have no real privacy and you have no real autonomy and you cannot really break free from it ever. And everywhere you go, you'll meet someone who knew your parents or your brother or was in the army with you. There's just like no way to escape it. To me, that is the single thing that I find most moving and meaningful in a moment to moment way about living here and the reason why I love living here so much above all the other reasons. And then to see that for Yair Lapid, it's something that. About which at best he's ambivalent, about which he has regrets, and he wishes that he was one of those, you know, atomistic individualists in America who could like, stumble into a new town where no one knew anything about him and just go and get a place and talk to no one. If he doesn't choose to not talk to anyone for days or weeks or months, and that that is what he finds beautiful about America. It was unnerving because I guess now I'm turning to you, Rotham, because it suggests that there is. Is a price to this thing that I love so well, that I don't feel, maybe because I was lucky enough to grow up in a place without that, where trees fall all the time. And so that I, you know, till my last dying day, I will never be able to not appreciate that. But he suggests that if you grow up here, maybe it's a fucking drag.
- [71:19]
Rotem Bar-Or
I think it's a. The grass is always greener on the other side side kind of situation. I remember vividly my sister moved to the States to study her for her PhD, and she wanted to buy a condo because it was, you know, a few years. And she asked my cousin who, who, who does live in the States to help her with the financial credit or something like that, because you needed to buy a house. And my cousin said, of course. But I will never be able to tell anyone about this because the idea that I would risk my credit for a family member is ludicrous. And no. And, you know, everyone would think I'm insane for doing this. And I realized that as an Israeli, that is just the. The basic thing that you would do and the basic expectation from everyone. And, and I love this. I really appreciate it. And I did miss that a lot when I was in the States. But I do understand how people would also find it to be suffocating from time to time and would want to go someplace to have that anonymity and to have that, you know, freedom of. You don't have to think about what your mother's best friend is going to think about you when you do any sort of decision, because she will hear about it from your cousin's husband, you know, whatever.
- [72:59]
Linda Gradstein
So I think it's also important that most of the examples that he gives in that piece are from sort of rural America. They're not from cities, they're from places that, I mean, I've never been to Kansas or Nebraska or wherever it is that he's from talking about. So I also think when we talk about America, I'm not sure there really is an America. And especially. And he said that people helped him change a tire or whatever. Well, that's standard practice in Israel. Americans, what is it? Something like, I don't know, at least a quarter of Americans, it might even be more, don't have health care and can't afford to go to the doctor. I mean, there are certain animals alienating things about America as well. So I think it's, you know, obviously it's beautifully written, but I think it was a little bit of an exaggeration about this idea of rugged individualism. You know, there's definitely a downside to that as well. Just like as you said, Rotem, there's a downside to, you know, the Israelis sort of everybody being in everybody else's business. But I realized that after decades here, I've become Israeli when I'm faced with some type of problem, whether it's the fact that my air conditioner doesn't work. As you said, no at the beginning, instead of trying to solve the problem myself, I'm like, okay, who do I know who has contacts who can help me solve this problem? Who do I know in the Ministry of Education? Who do I know, Noah, Hint, hint, that can solve my parking tickets in Tel Aviv? And that. That's this very like. Well, of course you ask people for favors, and of course, you use whatever connections you. And I don't know. I think it's great. But. And, you know, I think you're right that part of it is the grass is always greener on the other side.
- [74:51]
Noah
And to his credit, Yair Lapid recognizes that there's two sides to both of those things, and he acknowledges it. He just thinks that there's something profound and beautiful in the anonymity and other things that America affords. Also, he mentions, by the way, in this article that twice a year he flies to America and rents a car and drives around a place that he's never been to before, where he knows no one. He learned that Robin was murdered from the TV in a motel on a hard bed. He said, oh, in a hard. Yes, sitting on a hard bed in the middle of nowhere in the United States. It's an astonishing thing. Also, like a kind of profound philosophical exercise, I think, that he does, of just trying to understand himself and the world he lives in, and ultimately, I think, trying to understand. To understand Israel and what he likes and what he'd like to change, first as a writer and then, but for the last more than 10 years, as a politician.
- [75:53]
Rotem Bar-Or
But I would actually say, Noah, about something that you said before, I do believe after living for two years in the States, that it's important for people to live in a different culture at least once in their lives. I think that a lot of Israelis do not appreciate. Appreciate, you know, basic health care as something that we obviously have because they've never experienced something else. You know, we don't necessarily appreciate the community, the strong sense of community that, you know, everything that we have here, unless we live outside.
- [76:36]
Noah
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I sometimes feel like I moved from the most parochial country that I've ever been to to the second most parochial country that I've ever heard of. But yeah, now listen to.
- [77:36]
Rotem Bar-Or
Kishima.
- [78:27]
Noah
That song is Lehovoti by Anat Melamed. More unsettled music of these unsettled times. You can find all the music you heard on the show this week in all the usual places. And now it is time for our Vada country segment. This is a part of the show in which each of us describes something that may be surprised or amused, delighted or enchanted and sourceful, or possibly even fluked us as we wended our way through our worlds over the last little while. Linda, what is your or what a country?
- [78:53]
Linda Gradstein
Well, this week my daughter Rafaela was given her mph, her master's in public health, which she got with distinction, I might add, after three years of really hard work and working, continuing to work full time at the Hadassah Research Foundation. And first she said to us, I'm not sure I'm even going to go. I said, well, I'm going. So whether or not you go is immaterial, but I'm going. And. And there were about maybe 65 total graduates. There are a couple of other small MA programs. And it was in an auditorium in the dental school at Hadassah in Karam. And so she came home and said, well, the auditorium doesn't seat that many, so I'm only allowed to bring three people. So, of course, being American, my husband and I went, we said, in the end, none us of our other kids could go, but we said only one of you could go. We're only allowed three people. And of course we follow the rules. Now we get to this auditorium.
- [79:53]
Noah
Choice kind of thing.
- [79:54]
Linda Gradstein
Yes, well, and we get to this auditorium and you know, every other graduate had brought between 10 and 15 people, and there were balloons and there were babies. Many of the graduates actually have kids, and a couple of them actually broke, brought their babies or toddlers up onto the stage with them when they received the degree. But there were several really beautiful moments. The dean of the medical school is a guy named Ellie Pekarsky, and he asked all of the graduates to stand, and they were sitting with their families and they stood and he said to them, you know, I always say this at graduations, but in your case, it's really true. You are all going to going to make our world a better place, which was very nice. And then he said, please turn to your families and applaud them because all of you are only able to be here because your Family supported you during. During this whole process. And that was really nice. And then there was actually a short lecture on E cigarettes and whether E cigarettes should be looked at as a terrible thing because it's smoking or as better than actually smoking and looking at all. It was very interesting, all the research. And then there was a music interlude with. Including. With slides with the words, you know, broadcast, you know, put up on the. On the. On the wall. And one of the songs they chose kind of surprised me because it was Ye Tov Everything Will Be okay, which is, you know, the famous Israeli peace anthem that was written by the late poet Yonatan Geffen. And the music was composed and originally performed by singer, songwriter David Broza. And the song was written in 1977 following Egyptian presence Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel. And there's one verse that talks about Sadat coming to Israel and Israel saying, let's make peace. And he says, sure, just withdraw from the territories. And as they started playing this song, my husband Cliff turned to me and said, this is kind of political. I'm sort of surprised that this is what they're playing. And then when they got to that verse, they actually skipped it, which I thought was interesting. And there were. In the public health program, there were 60 graduates. And a. About half of them were Arabs and half of them were Jews, which in itself was really just lovely. And they had each graduate, because it's a small graduation, go up on stage to get their degree given to them by both the dean of the Medical School, Professor Ellie Pekarsky, and the dean of the School of Public Health, a woman, Professor Gen Stein Zamir. And there was a picture. They had a professional photographer. They took a picture of each graph. So the first person called up and they did it alphabetically, was an Arab man. And he went up and happily shook hands with the dean of the medical school and then put his hand over his heart as a gesture of respect, but not to shake hands with the dean of the public health school, because she's a woman. And the next person was a Haredi woman. So she kind of hesitated about shaking hands. Hands with Professor Picarski, and happily shook hands with Professor Zamir. So after this first two, the Professor Picarski very, very sweetly and nicely said to each graduate, may I shake your hand? And if they agreed, then the picture was of them shaking hands and him handing over the degree. And if they hesitated, then the picture was of them standing side by side without shaking hands. And it was just done in such a lovely way. Way and, you know, during all of this, there were toddlers screaming and balloons popping because people bought balloons and flowers. And we, of course, brought nothing because we're American and we think a graduation is sort of a very solemn, you know, and there was something so beautiful about it. But I thought that this is probably the only place in the world where the person granting the degree has to ask, may I shake your hand? And where the answer is different, depending if you're an Arab or not Arab, if you're religious, if you're secular. It was just a beautiful kind of slice of Israeli society.
- [84:18]
Noah
Oh, how wonderful. And congratulations.
- [84:21]
Linda Gradstein
Thank you.
- [84:21]
Noah
Yeah, graduations are beautiful. So, Rotem, what is your WADA country?
- [84:26]
Rotem Bar-Or
So this week I went to a parlor meeting at a neighbor's house to talk about one of the largest initiatives, as they proclaimed, to try and make sure that the elections will go smoothly and without anyone trying to influence people while they're doing it. So there's a project called Zehazman, this is the time. And they are trying to recruit 40,000 civilian volunteers throughout the country. Country to make sure to be in the polling places and outside of the polling places to make sure that people can reach the polling places in a right way. And they are actively trying to make sure that every person who wishes to vote come October 27th will be able to do so in the way that they wish to vote. And it was a whole evening, and they, you know, they explained about the, the problems that they foresee and the idea of why they, they think that this is important and about a few different initiatives they, they, they, they did before and stuff like that. But I just thought, and it actually, it is connecting to the conversation that we had before. The fact that the civilian organization in Israel is so strong and the civic duty that we feel and the power that we feel about changing and upholding the country to our standards is immense. And it was just incredible to see.
- [86:29]
Noah
So that's beautiful. So I was in America and a little homesick when I saw in my feed a notice for a show. It said, Rotem Bar or Salome Kabbalah Shabbat welcoming the Shabbat B' Ayin Hase' Ara in the eye of the storm at Neveh Shechter, the beautiful conservative shul and study center at the edge of Neveitzedek here in Tel Aviv. And when I clicked on the thing, a tech said, and I'm quoting here, it's not so comfortable on the ark. Rotem Bar or and Salome are holding together what we need to find comfort amidst the discomfort because the flood is not necessarily behind us. The first step is to be together, to find a song that raises your spirit, to find a way to hold one another up. So I wrote to Susan to see if she wanted to go. And of course she did. And tickets were bought. And last Friday afternoon we biked over while we were waiting to go in, having white wine in the sun with some old friends and some new friends who were there. And when the doors opened, we got seats in the front pew, pew, because we were in the beautiful sanctuary, the chairs, guitars and amplifiers set up in front of the Aron Kodesh, the holy Ark, which was carved, fretworked cherry wood of flowing branches and leaves and tendrils, at the top of which are the words of the sun, I have set the Lord always before me. And the room filled up almost precisely. Every single seat was filled. And there was a seat for everyone, save a few people who stretched out on the floor in front of what would be the stage. And the people who came in were every age. There was a baby, two pews behind us, and sitting on the floor right next to my feet was a girl, must have been five. And there were people in their 80s, but mostly the people were young, in their 20s maybe, wearing flowing, loose things. And on a Friday afternoon, in the beautiful, maybe sanctified room, they were all of them, so beautiful it pricked your heart. And I had the thought that we were maybe the only people in the place wearing shoes, though that was an exaggeration, but only a little exaggeration. After a time, Salome and Roten Bar Orr walked out, also barefoot. It did not actually occur to me until this minute that Roten, his name is almost exactly what your name was, all these things.
- [88:56]
Linda Gradstein
I actually thought it was her. I thought it was her at first,
- [88:58]
Noah
save for the bar. Anyway, so they were barefoot and they were also beautiful. And they each sat down in a chair, each chair near a plugged in acoustic guitar. And they started to play and the talk and the thing lasted for two hours. And most every moment, every song was full, saturated with meaning. But our time here on the podcast is short, so I'll just tell you about a few moments, like when Rotha was baor. He's picking at his guitar ahead of a song, telling about a trip he took to the Kineret, to the Sea of Galilee. And he says, sharing a secret, Something I believe in strongly, something that means something to me, is why doesn't he say it already? I'll say it already that we are surrounded by infinite beauty. Really, we are surrounded by infinite beauty, but we have work to do. A bit later, Salome was telling how she had a long time, two years, which is a long time if you are 27 years old, like she is, where she hadn't written a song, they just didn't come. So she went to the desert for the weekend with friends. And at the end of the weekend, when the friends left, she decided to stay and to write a song for her sister, whom she loves. And she told us that she ate five grams of mushrooms, what she said was a mountain of mushrooms. And then she's alone in the desert with her guitar, outside of her tent. And then all at once a jeep roars up and in it are three young guys, and they start talking her up. Does she want to go with them to a rave over those hills? And she tells them that she just took a mountain of mushrooms and she's writing a song for her sister, who she loves. And the boys in the car, in the jeep, they get it right away, she says, they say to her, you write your song and we'll stay here and we will just make sure that no one comes to buy so you can do what you need to do. And they do that, and then she does that and the song comes and the sun goes down behind the mountains, and you start to feel that infinite beauty thing. And then at the end of the show, Rotem Bar or thanks Nevaeh Shechter the place. And he thanks the sound man and he goes on. And it sounds like this. I am lucky because I'm not alone. I am lucky because I am not alone. What does it mean, not alone? We are connected, all the things, all the songs, all of us. And then Rotenbar or. And Salome say, in perfect union, like they had rehearsed it, Thank you for us not being alone. Here's a song that I wrote about you start with a whistle. Who build the future, not us. Who? From this ravaged earth we will grow I want to plant a tree in your heart. If not us, who? Who will draw in the springtime? If not us, who will love? If not us, who? Not us in here, If not us, who? If not us, who? If not us, then who?
- [94:47]
Rotem Bar-Or
I love this song.
- [94:50]
Noah
Yeah. And that brings us to the end of our show, thanks to Itay Shellam, our station manager, without whom there would be none of this. Thanks to Achibo Lim, my favorite band from Kibbutz Geva. They give us the music at the start and the end of our show. Thank you Linda. Thank you Natalie. Thank you. You wrote them. We'd like to thank all of our Patreon supporters for your generosity and support. It keeps the show going and it keeps the station going and it keeps us moved and grateful and forever in your debt. And we'd like to thank all of you out there just for taking your valuable time to listen. And we'd like to ask you to like us on Facebook and then drop us a line best through patreon.com we are eventually going to answer. After you do that, go to Apple Podcasts and give us a five star review. Maybe one that starts with this There is maybe some comfort in the thought that someday the corner of Nordau Boulevard and Benu Huda street will be covered higgledy piggledy with old abandoned scripts from the Promise podcast amongst Red Bull empties. Finish that any way you want. But before you do that, remember that today as we record on July 16, we celebrate the Feast of Gandolfus of Tongarin, also known as the Feast of Gandolf of Maastricht. Gandolfus was, of course, as I know you know, the 6th and 7th century bishop of Tongeren and Maastricht, Tangerine being a province of Limburg located in the eastern corner of the Flemish region of Belgium, Maastricht being in the Netherlands, about 18 km away, and Gandolfus is to this day a patron saint of Maastricht. It is said that early in the 7th century Gandolfus organized pious villagers to rebuild the town of Tongarin, which was laid waste by invading Frankish pagans and barbarians, which efforts God helped by causing causing packs of furious wolves to attack the Franks, tearing them limb from trunk. What's for dinner, honey? One imagines one wolf saying to another, why Franks? But I digress. And it is also said that in the year 10,039, the body of Gandolfus, along with another bishop named Manulf, spontaneously arose from their graves. Although some historians dispute this claim. And I hope I do not need to tell you that I absolutely love the Feast of Gandolfus of Tangerin and or of Maastricht. It is probably, probably my favorite day of the entire year, what with the ritual reenactment of the running of the furious Anthrovor wolves and the rising of Gandalf and Manulf. I hope I don't need to say that the Feast of Gandolfus of Tongarin should not be confused with the Feast of Gandolfus of Metz, which, according to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, is celebrated on September 6th. It's an entirely different thing, an entirely different Gandolfus people. But if you ask me, Gandolf of Metz is really the inferior Gandolfus. But I guess tomato, tomato, you think what you will. If you ask me, I will tell you that I look forward to the feast of Gandolfus of Tangurin all year round. And wonderful as it is going to be, I know that just like that, it will be gone like the liver of some frank beset upon by wolves. Not so. The Promised Podcast. We will be back for you next week and every week reminding you that while some dead things miraculously rise back into life life, there are things that you would have sworn would have been dead by now, and frankly, good riddance to them. But they somehow inexplicably keep on going and going on this, the Promise Podcast.
- [98:28]
Rotem Bar-Or
It.