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- [00:00]
Noah Efron
This is TLV1. This episode may contain explicit language. Welcome to the Promise podcast brought to you on TLV1, the voice of the city that was the birthplace and is today the home of Noga Erez, when she is home at all and not parapeted around the world, bringing music and joy and most of all, cool wherever she goes. Which Noga Erez this week became the very first Israeli woman ever to play Coachella or the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which has for 28 years, since it was started in 1999, brought to the Coachella Valley of the Colorado desert in California some of the hippest acts in all of indiedom. Your Bjorks, your Jane's Addictions, your Bad Bunnies, your Billie Eilishes, your Lana Del Rey's and your the Weeknds. And it was a moving thing in this year of all years to see the crowds get ecstatic over a very cool, as I say, save for Neta Barzilai, the coolest we've had, save for also maybe Emma Goldman and possibly Gluckle of Hamill and okay, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But still in the stratosphere of cool Noga Erez, who brought to the thing new stuff that she's never recorded before. Like this.
- [01:36]
Noga Erez
It's the dark season. It's the wild west from the Middle east, bro. Call this D. We really doing this. They going to put my face on the Statue of Liberty Got to get so high so everyone can call me. From the Middle East. They going to put my face on the Statue of Liberty Got to get so high so everyone can blow me.
- [02:12]
Noah Efron
And in the middle of it all, Noga Era is so moved. You can see it on her face.
- [02:17]
Noga Erez
She says, I just want to say one thing. You don't get to play stage like this every day. And I come from a very, very, very complex part of this planet. And to get us all here doing this was took kind of like that I didn't know that I had. I'm so, so grateful to be here. And. The descent time, I'm just heartbroken and sad because of things that are happening at home and around it. I just love this music thing so much. And right now doing this thing is exactly what I'm doing it for, is to put a bunch of strangers together and make them feel like a family united around something. Thank you so much for giving me this. We're doing it. This is Coachella.
- [03:37]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Un fucking believable.
- [03:41]
Noah Efron
And when the whole thing was over, someone brought Noga Erez's little baby just turned one up on stage with huge yellow big noise canceling ear protectors over her very little ears, making her somehow a super cool not yet toddler. And for a person that cool, Noga Erez looked so happy. And it was a beautiful moment. And arguably nothing captures the heroic and extravagant sociability of this city we love so well. Telviviafo a city forever pulling strangers together and making them feel like a family united around something better than our own hometown Queen of cool. Veni, vidi, vici ing Coachella. No doubt worrying before the event that she might be a Persona non grata, but leaving as one of the grata est people in the whole damn festival. Because while it may be true that everything is political, it is no less true that true cool like the dude abides. And with US speaking from TLV1's famed Ra' Anana Satellite Studio is a woman whose lovely prose, like a song by Noga Erez, grabs you with its rhythms, one word tripping over the next, and holds you with its understated melodies, dazzling you with its urbanity, sometimes with its irony, and always with its great style. It's winking and thinking, and it's also got some bite. It's also gorgeously realized that it seems effortless at first until it hits you that the effortlessness itself is a sign of its primo craft. Obviously, that woman behind such Erezian prose could only be Alison Kaplan Sommer. Allison has written for Politico, the New Republic, Foreign Policy, the Jerusalem Post, the jta, the Ford, and many other of your very best papers and magazines. She is a columnist with Haaretz. You have seen her on i24 television, Al Jazeera TV and the BBC. And of course you have heard her on NPR, PRI, and also the BBC, and of course on the Haaretz podcast that she hosts very often, two times a week, People and we know her as well from Netflix as Eustace Tilly's most favorite podcaster. Alison holds a B' naith worldtown Award for Journalism recognizing excellence in diaspora reportage, and a Simon Rocauer Award, the Nobel Prize of Jewish Journalism. Alison, it has been too, too long. How the hell are you?
- [06:03]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Well, I just realized that my ego took a great blow during that time because I hadn't been lavished with compliments the way that you do so beautifully in many and so now I realize that my self image had become completely deflated. I'd started, you know, berating myself a lot of self hate. And now you've just lifted me up again and you know my ego is floating on a balloon.
- [06:27]
Noah Efron
Hey, I just speak the truth. I call them the way that I see them now. As for me, my name is Noah Efron. I do not mean to boast, but I am in America for the first time in a very long two months, owing to trips being canceled and then new trips being planned, tickets bought only to have them canceled as well. I think this may be the longest interval in which I have not been here to visit my parents in 10 years. And owing to all the wartime restrictions at Ben Gurion Airport, fewer flights, each one with fewer people. We walked up to the secret security check, the W for those of you who are in the know, and two security people were just waiting for us and then we got to the luggage scanning machines and a woman was there just waiting for us. There was no line at all and we had our pick of tables at the concourse and we were the first people on the plane and Susan and I had the road to ourselves. And it was like in those old movies where the person strides through the airport straight up to the gate and the flight attendant says, welcome sir. As we settled into our seat on the plane, I thought everyone's always talking about the downside of missile attacks from Iran. But I gotta admit, I rather enjoy the upsides. And please believe me when I tell you I am not bragging. God knows my folks brought me up better than that. But I think I would have made a fine low level corporate executive in the 1960s, smiling broadly at the stewardess when she says, can I light that smoke for you, sir? Today we got two topics that are so terribly important that if we did live in the golden age of corporate culture, you probably would want to write an inter office memo about them. But first, we have this matter that we are following with alert, interest and great concern as part of an occasional series that we like to call the Promise Podcast offers a salute to the root pursued by acute, astute, resolute youth seeking to lay roots on route to refuting and permuting a future they wish to make. Reflections for Yom Ha Atzma ut I have mentioned this before. It's one of the things that often comes back to me and I often come back to. And lately more than ever. And now with Yom Ha' at' Independence Day coming in the next days, most of all, what I'm talking about is this. When you visit our home, you'll see above the stove, behind glass, on a hunter green mat, in a light cherry frame, a pamphlet Printed on jonquil yellow cardstock that says at the top, Gareen Pardes in English and Hebrew with a drawing of a tree. Gareen means seed or nucleus. And since the beginning of Zionism, a gareen has been a group of people who share a worldview and a plan to turn that worldview into something real and who hope to convince other people to do it with them. They are a seed. They mean to grow into something big and permanent. Now the body of the typed on a typewriter text of the pamphlet reads, Garin Pardes is a group of Zionist idealists planning to build a unique lifestyle for ourselves. The dream is to establish a creative, dynamic and socially responsible Jewish community on a kibbutz. If you have a moment, we'd like to explain what that means. Moving away from the fragmentation of Western urban society, we hope to weave our lives into an integrated whole. We want to be producers, providers of services and maintainers. We want to farm, to produce some of our own food. We want to work the land, do physical labor, integrate the Jewish relationship to the natural cycles of seasons and the land into our daily lives. We care about both how we produce things and what we produce. Our farming will be based on love and concern for the land. We will try to avoid the short sightedness of industrial agriculture. The industry we engage in will be useful, needed, ecologically sound and socially responsible. We are very concerned with what happens to anything we put our names on, how it affects people, culture and natural environment of the society around us. We seek an appropriate technology that is devoted to human needs. Of course, socialism is basic to us. Our incomes will be shared and distributed by and for the community. We reject the capitalist notion that some types of work are more important than others. It follows also that we want to break the sex role, stereotyping and undervaluation that accompanies maintenance and service jobs in Western society. These jobs will be done by both men and women. In all cases. We are extremely concerned with the quality of the work experience of the workers. Inherent in building a new individual and a new society for ourselves is a remodeling of the relationships between women and men. Subordination of women and the differentiated expectations of both sexes create barriers against confronting one another as equally unique human beings. We are forever striving to break down such limiting barriers. We want to be actively involved in our region of Israel from the day we arrive. We want to be in contact with our neighbors, other settlements, development towns, Arab villages, cities. We do not want to be islands unto ourselves. We have chosen kibbutz as a framework from which to begin. Yet we actively resist being self contained. We want to reach outward. On the other hand, we will avoid that feeling of being a cultural backwater by making our community a strong and wondrous center of hopes, work, dreams, myths, magic, memory, joys, loves and lives. Our community will be our expression, and we will express ourselves within and through our community in every aspect. From our work to our ritual to our study, to our individual and communal creative artistic efforts, to our sharing of skills and interest, to our political involvements. Judaism is our way of life. Studying texts, making Shabbat, celebrating Hagim together, these are essential to us. We will reopen the dialogue with rabbinic and other Jewish sources, entering into those worlds without abandoning our moorings in our time, our ways of reasoning, perceiving and valuing. But these Jewish sources halacha, agadah, codes, Tanakh, Zionism, Kabbalah will become our own sources for myth and meaning, moral direction and ritual, ways of thinking, acting and questioning. We will find out what Jewish sources have to say about communal institutions and all other aspects of we will be halachically involved considering halachah in our decisions. Though we won't define ourselves as necessarily bound by it, Judaism is a central reference point to our community. We want to live in a beautiful place, to wake up, wanting to look at the nature around us, to walk in it, work in it, sing in it, breathe in it. We will become different people. Our children will grow up differently. It is hard to talk about our vision. Our language and ways of communicating require that we break down our presentation into categories with issues and subtopics. But we want to integrate these things into an interwoven life, a whole what exactly will it look like? Feel like? We are inviting you to come along and make it happen. When we are asked again in 10 years, it may be easier to describe. For more information, call Jeremy Benstein Mazkir Garin Pardes 617-429-7724 Susan Warchaser 212678 or write Garin Pardes care of Hamak Shimim, 50 West 58th Street, New York City 10019 End quote on the front panel of the Garim Pardes pamphlet is a cartoon drawing of our friend Marshall standing in overalls, leaning on a guitar. Underneath Marshall is a quote from the Book of Midrash on Leviticus Vayikra Raba 13 QUOTE A Pardes an orchard is planted, a row of figs and of grapes and of pomegranates and of apples, and on the Inner panels of the pamphlet, there is a drawing of Susan holding a hammer, building something. There is A sketch of 12 people sitting around the big table, covered in books and their thought balloons. Say, your talking affects our relationships at work as well. I talk about you because I care about you, but it is gossip. According to the Chafetz Chaim, it is Lashon Hara. Enough talking already. Learning how to talk together will take time, maybe forever. What did he say? I don't know. I'm so confused. More doing, less talking. We need to talk more. You cannot be an employer and still committed to halacha. You are imposing socialism on halacha. They address different issues. The worker has to feel fulfilled. And that comes from many sources. What about my art? Our life is our art. Anu bano artsa livnotu liba notba. We have come to the land to build and be built by it. End quote. And when I read this pamphlet on the wall, and I do that often, waiting for the water to boil, I think two opposite and true things. First, I think how naive we were when we wrote that kids in college who knew nothing about nothing, we did not understand all that well how the world works. Also, as kids in college sometimes do, we overestimated our talents and our capacities. We exaggerated the plasticity of our character, thinking that force of will, really wanting it, was all that was needed to change ourselves and the entire world. Quote unquote. The fragmentation of Western society and capitalist notions of who ought to get paid what and sex role stereotyping. I think we did not see how hard it is to overcome these things, no matter how sincere you are and how beautiful and how flush with energy at 20 years old you are. In this way, we maybe had a little bit in common with the first chalutzim or pioneers who thought things like we will raise our children together in children's houses and the very idea of what family is will change. We will have them take showers in cold water and they will grow up with Spartan strength and self sufficiency. And they did those things. But then they did not get the results that they expected because, well, people have a nature that can't be so easily reshaped for a long time. When I quoted the Garin Pardes pamphlet, it was to make fun of my young self for the pretensions that I held while still seeing that something about those pretensions was, well, beautiful. When we wrote the pamphlet back when I joined Garin Pardes, I could clearly see where my life was heading if I did not do something if I did not join Garian Pardes, it felt predetermined. I was almost for sure going to be a professor of something somewhere, some sort of Luftmensch, living in a nice house, having nice stuff, whatever. But if I came to Israel in a gareen, to a kibbutz, I figured everything would be different. I would be a different man. I would work with my back and my hands. At the end of the day I would shower off sweat and dirt. I would go through the army, I would create things that were bigger than me. I would be earning a spot in the annals of Jewish history. And of course, socialism would be basic to me. I would do what I could to build this place. And even more than that, I wanted to be built by it, into someone more open hearted, more alive, into someone good. And of course today the pamphlet is professionally framed on the wall of our lovely kitchen in our lovely apartment in our lovely neighborhood. And I am a professor of something somewhere with a podcast, a Luftbench, a man of hot air, in my case, talking into a microphone and paying expensive overseas shipping rates to keep up subscriptions to the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harpers, and Mother Jones to read on Shabbat and all week long in the bathroom. All of which makes the pamphlet not just a ribbing of our younger selves by us now, but also a gentle but pointed joke prepared with great patience by us when we were young, on us who are no longer young, along the lines of we set you up to do something extraordinary with the one life God in the universe gave you and look at what you made of it. And now there is another not at all gentle joke that we can see in this pamphlet with all our criticisms, criticism of the rabbis and the politicians who put the name religion or Torah in the names of their parties. A lot of us no longer believe that this place, of all places, is a place where we can reopen the dialogue with rabbinic and other Jewish sources entering into these worlds without abandoning our moorings in our own time, our own ways of reasoning, perceiving and valuing, making Haggadah, Agadah codes, Tanakh, Zionism, Kabbalah, rich sources for myth and meaning, moral direction and ritual, ways of thinking, acting and questioning. Like it says in the pamphlet, lots of us do not believe anymore that we have within us whatever is needed to build warm and decent and peaceful relations of respect with our neighbors, not with Palestinians, not with Lebanese, Syrians, Persians and Egyptians. Some of us do not believe that Israelis even want peace, even just in principle. Also, all the Stuff about how here what community meant and society and work and exploitation. All the thoughts about how those things could all be different, how we could be less exploitive, less alienating and less alienated. A lot of people don't believe that stuff anymore. One way of saying all these things, and more besides, is this. Lots of people, including lots of my friends, no longer believe, as we believed back when we wrote the thing on the Wall, that Israel is a place you ought to want to have shape your character, that Israel is no longer a place you ought to want to be built by all of those headlines and the stuff on social screaming that Zionism in Israel are irredeemable, unfit for society, anti democratic, genocidal and all those things, even if you know that there is a mobbish know nothingness to them, they get under your skin. And then there's all the damning stuff you get from people who know lots and care lots about Israel. Stuff about the judicial reform and about haredim not going into the army but still wanting more money for their kids schools than the rest of us, and about Ben GVIR and young men in yarmulkes beating with pipes and clubs and sometimes doing worse, the farmers and shepherds, women, men, kids, old folks. And you can think that sometimes the criticism is too harsh and catastrophizing, but you cannot think that there is nothing real and worrying behind it. And if you're like me, you may also think that after October 7th, for reasons that you can understand but can't see is enough, we did something that should never have been even, something that we considered doing, which is attack Gaza and Hamas ceaselessly for more than two years in a way that was bound to leave so many people dead, only a quarter of them Hamas fighters and Islamic Jihad and the rest, and so many people hurt, and so many without homes and livings in schools and mosques, which might make you feel that there is something indecent now, an indecent joke about nostalgia for old dreams of this place, remaking us into something better than we were and remaking Judaism into something better than it was, and remaking work and love and and community and all the rest. But it is Yom Hatzmaut this week, the city, like most cities around the country, Tel Aviv Yafo canceled all the big concerts in the big city squares because who's to say when Iran will fire more missiles? But still it is Yom Atzmaut this week, and I have been feeling the heavy weight of the last few years and it has sent me back to the framed pamphlet over the stove and finding that it moves me. For one thing, the people who wrote that pamphlet are Susan and Jeremy Benstein and Don Futterman and Alone Schwartz, and there are others, Amy and Marshall Brin. And the people who drew the pictures in it are Susan and Miriam Herschelag. And today Miriam runs, like I always say, tongue in cheek, idly, but it's still true. The biggest forum of Jewish debate since the Talmud was codified. And Susan is the feminist obgyn that, as someone told me a little while back, makes it possible, if you happen to be a woman, to live in Tel Aviv. And in her time, she has kept kindled the fire that is our Chavurah, the first egalitarian chavurah in Tel Aviv, in the city and maybe in the country, though now there are lots and lots in the city and in the country. And Don, as you know, he runs this NGO to give kids of immigrants from, say, Ethiopia a decent start at decent schools. And Jeremy's a founder leader of the Heschel center for Sustainability, a place that did as much as any place to make people here see the sanctity of nature around. And he has written a groundbreaking book about the Hebrew language. And Elon, he started a think tank, a thing called Shaharit, which brings together people left and right, religious and secular, Mizrachi and Ashkenazi, creating common cause. And when you look at it that way, the pamphlet seems not so much as an inventory of dopey dreams now long forgotten, as it seems like a plan, a work plan, a life plan. And when you look at it that way, for all the things in the plan that we did not do, a lot of the things we said in the plan that we would do, well, we sort of did less grandly than we imagined as kids, but still beautifully. And like we wrote, we kind of did them together. All of us appear in each other's iPhones and often enough in each other's living rooms, because I think, like we wrote, we could never have managed to do any of this without each other. But my point is not that we somehow led lives that maybe amount to something and not nothing. It's that we somehow led lives that maybe amount to something and not nothing, because we were shaped by the country and built by it. Those things we saw back then that this is a place where new kinds of Jewishness could and would sprout and grow and thrive and spread. That turned out to be true. And in the past decades, we have seen an explosion of new Jewish forms, an Explosion bigger than maybe anywhere, anytime in all of Jewish history. New Jewish music, new Jewish book, new Jewish poetry, new Jewish painting, new Jewish film, New Jewish stage, New Jewish clothes, new Jewish food, new Jewish architecture, new Jewish technology, new Jewish tattoos, New Jewish apostasies, New Jewish Orthodoxies. And what we saw back then about how here, somehow a different sort of community is possible, a different sort of collectivism. We were imagining something like kibbutz, I think. But what we did not, could not imagine was how after October 7, all over the world, young people made their way, as if by some instinct, to airports to fly back home to join their units. Susan was at Kennedy Airport trying with some desperation, to find a seat back on a plane that first week. And she told me how hand trucks brought in stacks as tall as a person of pizza to feed the people who showed up and were just lying about in the airport now living in the airport until they were on their way home. And those tens of thousands of Hamalim, of those the things that people started to help people. The huge warehouse at the Expo in Tel Aviv that collected millions of items, shirts and pants, pajamas, toys, diapers, bottles, books that tens of thousands of volunteers sorted each day, morning to night, and distributed to tens of thousands of people who needed them. Or the vegan restaurant around the corner from us that became non profit all of a sudden on October 8, driving vegan meals to soldiers and lots of other people. The free supermarkets, the free babysitting services, the mobile Shiva units, the people who cleaned houses for free. The army of cars cruising, looking for someone who needed to go somewhere, anywhere. The thousands of Airbnbs whose price was set on the app down to zero for families who escaped their homes under attack. The people giving away guitars and mandolins and violins. The professional writer eulogy writing teams, the breast milk network, the wedding planners, the memorial photo album project, the clothing mobile, the free surf lessons, the free online therapy networks. The list is in the thousands of genius ideas that people did. And they did what they did for months and months and months. And during this time, money meant something different than it had before, and work meant something different than it had before. And that thing that we wrote all those years ago about how, quote, our community will be an expression and we will express ourselves within and through our community, in our politics and our economy and our Yiddishkeit and our labor and everything else, suddenly there was this, in a form richer and more realized than even us at 20 ever dare to imagine. October 8th was a terrible day. And every day since it has been terrible too. But While that is true, it is also true that on October 8th and every single day since, the country looked a lot like what we described as our utopian vision decades ago, even as we were crazed with grief. We had no idea, of course, when we wrote the Garin Pardes pamphlet, what we meant when we wrote that our kids would grow up differently. But by God, they did, with a genius for friendship, taking buses up and down the country to see each other, to go to a demonstration or to hear a lecture, and. And traveling around the world to see one another and to help one another, and to be with one another, as in after October 7, becoming vegan and raiding each other's closets in a what's yours is mine and mine is yours sort of way, doing things in the world that matter, speaking Hebrew so beautiful it pricks your heart. Walking the Israel trail, reading Torah on Saturday mornings, attending bar on Saturday night, and being. Being utterly at home here and in the world, seeming somehow more than I ever have been, like integrated wholes. And of course, it is true that the young people who wrote that pamphlet would see a lot in Israel today that would make them heartsick. They would see that we have too easy a capacity for shortsightedness and too great a tolerance for injustice and especially for suffering, especially when it comes to people who we see as them and not us. They would say decades have passed and our world is still broken. They would say, don't make us sit down and write another pamphlet. But I remember those kids. I know those kids. They would say, we do not have the freedom or the right to ignore all that has been accomplished here, all that is beautiful. They would quote to you, Rabbi Tarfun, in Pirkei Avod in the Ethics of the Fathers, saying, lo aleha hablach halik more. You don't have to finish the work, but you can't give up on it either. They would say, we're only kids, but even we see that 78 years of independence is a heartbeat. It's nothing. You can't look at how far we still have to go without also seeing how far we have come and seeing how much of it is splendid. They would say on Yom Atsma, utterly celebrate, hug your kids, look outside your window and see how beautiful this place is, and see how much you have been blessed in this life to have had a chance to do something together with people you love, to build this land, and maybe most of all, to be built by it. Chag Hazmaut Sameach. Today, two discussions. The first might as well. Face it, we're addicted to war. As the New York Times runs an opinion piece with a piece of opinion described therein, captured by the headline. For Israel, war is the only answer, arguing that, quote, war is Israel's go to response to geopolitical challenges, not just the strategy, but the norm, end quote. And that we, or at least our leaders, have become fond of, quote, unquote, never ending war. That so we will wonder. And our second discussion, love and life as the annual World Happiness Report is here. The annual World Happiness Report is here. And despite the objective abjectitude of our circumstances, war, death, fear, international sanctions and censure, once again we turn up close to the very top of the list of the world's happiest societies, landing specifically at number eight, which is 15 slots higher than the United States, which, I remind you, is the country that has the secret sauce. What could explain this strange fact, aside from the obvious, the long standing Jewish trait of always being satisfied and never having criticism of nothing. And for our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra 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, we will discuss the open letter sent to the Jewish Book Council, Original Originally, by 42 writers of Jewish books, from Antonio Angress to Rachel Zucker. That's A to Z all the way through the outfit, including one who has appeared on the Promise podcast. That's Moriel Rothman Zecher, which open letter criticizes the JBC for being, quote, unquote, disproportionately vocal about antisemitism and for having, quote, unquote, remained silent on the violence committed by Israelis in Gaza and amplifying Israeli voices, quote, in the current political landscape where Palestinian voices and Jewish voices that support the Palestinian cause are unlikely to find mainstream representation, end quote. The number of signatories of the letter has since grown to over 100, and we will talk about what to make of the letter and what we think its impact might be and should be. But before we get to any of that, listen to this.
- [32:25]
Noga Erez
Hey, your rose. I don't like the smell It's a perfect world but it feels like hell. Cause the things I need are within my reach but the things I want are escaping me and it's taking me way too long just to get right here I can see that the grass is green the sheets I think got a dream to live While I live my dream Always standing at the door like bite I'm living but I don't I just have to take the key up Let myself a doll. What's the problem? Just a bit of masochism never hurt I get big complaining Pessimism is a form of art I don't like it like before it's too pretty if you take it and why not have fun with the force Stuck in heaven I don't like it like before like before
- [33:44]
Noah Efron
that song is stuck in heaven the newest of Noga eras, who, like I said, rocked Coachella so hard and so beautifully this past week. That is New Music of these Odd times. And we will listen to more such new music of these odd times over the course of the show. And now it is time for our first discussion. So, Alison, might we as well face it? Are we addicted to war?
- [34:06]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
War Might as well face it we're addicted to war. Sorry, had to do that.
- [34:11]
Noah Efron
Of course you did.
- [34:13]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
The headline of an op ed in the New York Times the other day was For Israel, war is the only Answer. Its thesis is quote, in most countries that have been at war, ceasefires are a welcome development, or at the very least, something to which leaders aspire. But for Israel's maximalist leaders, ceasefires are too often seen as getting in the way of efforts to finish the job job. The author of the essay is Mehrav Zahanschein, who used to write for Haaretz. She's written for a lot of other places since she writes that, quote, war is increasingly Israel's go to response for geopolitical challenges, not just the strategy, but the norm. This because, quote, for Israel's leadership, if war is the status quo, the job is never done and you can never lose because you are always still in the fight. That is all Mr. Netanyahu is actually offering. Israel is a never ending war. This approach, one may infer, might have obvious appeal to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is admired in legal problems and who was caught unprepared on October 7, and who maintains costly and mostly unpopular political alliances with ultra orthodox leaders. He is only too happy to see these facts cloaked and occluded by the fog of war. But it is not just Prime Minister Netanyahu who, according to Meravi, find something necessary, inevitable and maybe even good about never ending war. She writes that, quote, much of the Israeli public has bought into this approach. She writes that with the exception of the head of the Democrats Party reserve, Major General Yair Golan, quote, there is almost no one on the political landscape in Israel challenging the country's tendency to treat war as a tool of first resort in statecraft. The Times essay ends with this this leaders should strive for peace, not war. They should look to end wars, not perpetuate them. Turn to them as a means, not an end. When war becomes the norm, everyone loses. So, Noah, has war become an end unto itself in Israel that our leaders, with our support, seek to perpetuate and not bring to a close? Has war become the norm here?
- [36:23]
Noah Efron
I think not. We have been at war for two and a half years in a very, very intensive and we cannot at this particular moment see the end of it, at least not the end of the war in Lebanon, which could come at any moment if it's forced upon us by the United States, but could not come for months or for years. So I understand why Mehrav writes what she writes, and one hears this in many quarters. But I think that it's not true. I think that it's not the only or the best interpretation of what we're seeing around us. Which is to say, I think that among Israel's leaders, maybe tragically, mistakenly or maybe accurately, there is this perception that this is a historic moment. And it has become a historic moment because of the war that started on October 7th or after October 7th. And it has remained a historic moment because of how things have developed this very, very strange concatenation of circumstances of having Donald Trump be Donald Trump and having him be where he is and having this sort of odd license by virtue of being basically seen as a rogue state by most everywhere in the world. It gives Israel a certain amount of freedom. And by the fact that Iran seemed weakened at this particular moment, it seemed as though all these things lined up in such a way that, that it's that this was a time when you could do this big thing which Prime Minister Netanyahu and many others have been talking about for 20 or 30 years, which is to try in a foundational way to change the structure of Mideastern politics where and to remove Iran as the center of a fairly broad effort to lead ultimately, as they say, quite forthrightly, to destroy Israel in the span of our lifetime. And so I think that we are seeing a war that is going on for longer than anyone ever imagined Israel could fight a war. The common knowledge, which I think was almost universally accepted before this war, was that Israel can only really stand, sure, short wars. And the first war in Lebanon, which dragged on in a low level way for years and years and years, was seen somehow as proof of that dictum because we did not do well in that war. I think the fact that we now have this war going on for a long time is an exception that does not disprove the rule that ultimately, you know, ultimately this situation is untenable for Israel. Israel cannot, cannot live with forever wars. And I think that the Prime Minister as well as everyone else knows that this is true. I think the Prime Minister feels the pressure from the people in the reserves. I think that the ultra orthodox leaders are very, very well aware that this war is terrible for them because it only highlights the degree to which their refusal to allow their young people to serve in the army has a real cost for everyone El in the country. I think that there are a lot of people that, that Merav assumes want nothing more than for this war to continue forever, who in fact would like understand that they cannot have that and, and in fact would rather have the opposite. But I take it that you, Allison, probably see things differently.
- [40:31]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
I don't think I see things that differently from, from you, Noah. It's interesting, you know, in my many, many, many, many Haaretz podcasts where I've been talking about this, the war endlessly and you know, asking a lot of commentators and experts, whenever I ask, okay, is this the best thing for Israel? A lot of the times the response is what is Israel? Which Israel are you talking about? Whether this is something that Benjamin Netanyahu wants and is good for him, is good for his government coalition, is good for the leaders of the IDF, or is good for the people. And so I think, you know, in this essay for MEV to extrapolate that yes, perhaps indeed Netanyahu, for his reason, reasons, favors endless war. If you go down to the grassroots of Israeli society and say that, you know, tell people, or you ask people, is this a situation that you want, perpetual, endless war, I think you'll find quite the opposite sentiments. You know, the, the ones who are paying the price and are and are quite exhausted. I do agree with you that this Iran war was an opportunity to be seized not only by Netanyahu was that view popular. But you know, through the, to the grassroots where we saw the than 90% approval rating that we had this opportunity to, to try to eliminate our greatest existential threat. We had an American president who was convincible and could be brought on board. But no, I don't think that Israel Israelis are happy to see a government or a policy in which it's not just that war is the tool of first resort, but almost the tool of only resort and it just seems like redux on what's happened in Gaza. Like, yes, we want to hit, to hit hard, to show people that if you mess with Israel and if you attack us, you're going to get attacked back, that we have the sword and that, you know, people who want our destruction or, or want to harm us should also fear us. But to have that be the only tool and to have zero vision for any kind of, you know, diplomatic accommodation or end game in, in ending this thing. Like, I definitely don't an accurate portrayal to say that, that the majority of Israelis don't want their leaders to articulate some form of ending the, the endless war. But I do have more sympathy than you might think, Noah, for thinking that when the grass gets, you know, overgrown and overrun and starts choking us, that yeah, you do need to mow the grass as they say, you need to, you need to address threats. And I think that that was the lesson of October 7th. You can't just look the other way and say that they're not there. So I don't think necessarily that Merav gets it right. I look around Israel right now, I don't see a society longing for more and more and more endless war at all.
- [43:34]
Noah Efron
You make a really good point and you made a number of really good points. But I think that, but the conclusion that we can and should draw from our continuing wars is that there is something disastrous about the very, very deep skepticism about diplomacy, about the fact that diplomacy could ever work. So much so that people that Netanyahu and his government, but also many others are extremely reticent to turn to it. And when you get to the moment where you are negotiating, then it seems as though you have lost something. I think that I do not credit that to a lack of vision or a lack of a long term plan. I think that it is a profound distrust of our enemies first, but I think it's also a profound distrust of, of the world and a really profound distrust of diplomacy. But because you will never be able to reach any kind of state where you can live peaceably for the future, that you are capable of foreseeing without diplomacy. There's something harsh and, and ugly and frightening about that skepticism being such a basic part of the decision making about war and peace and about how we ought to relate to our neighbors. And so and you brought that out. And I think that had that it is, it appears in this article that Mehrav wrote in the New York Times. Had it been the place where she went let us but both understand where the Skepticism over diplomacy comes from. And explore why that skepticism ultimately is scuttling of our, of our ability to imagine, hope and bring a better future, then I think it would have been, then I think it would have been a more valuable contribution to the discourse.
- [45:52]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
But, Noah, when I talk about vision, I mean the lack of an ability of the government to articulate, articulate goals for the conflicts that are short of total victory, total disarmament of Hamas, them, you know, not being in power anymore, regime change in Iran, when you're not able to articulate anything short of that, then there's just, you know, there's, there's no starting point for diplomacy. Diplomacy becomes completely ruled out and therefore are. You don't have, you don't have leaders that can, that can even talk about, okay, we're going to excuse my French, kick the shit out of you. Unless X, Y or Z happen, you just have. We're going to keep, continue to kick the shit out of you, and we're going to weaken you and weaken you and weaken you until you come to your knees and you bend down and you surrender and, and you're not a threat anymore. None of that is realistic. Right.
- [46:50]
Noah Efron
Right. I, I think that there's an implicit, implicit vision in there that I think I can understand where it comes from. The implicit vision is that there is no diplomacy that will lead to peace with Iran as it exists now, for instance. And as a result, what we can do, our vision, is that we keep Iran at bay to the very best of our capabilities and do whatever we can do to bring about some kind of change in regime. If, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu's dream of having the son of the Shah come back and run Iran, if that were to happen, that would be different. I don't think that he believes that that will happen, but I think that he believes that the best that it is possible to do is to weaken Iran, hopefully, and then just wait. And, and that is a dismaying vision. But I don't think it's a lack of vision. I just think it's a bad vision. I think that it will not lead us to where we need to go. But I think that that's. And so that's why I think that one of the keys here is the deep, deep, deep cavernous skepticism that Netanyahu and many others on the right, and not just on the right, also in the center, have about many of the regimes around us. And if you look at Lebanon, I mean Lebanon right now, there is a chance, and history tells us that it's unlikely to be realized. But there is a chance that the Lebanese government will actually enter into a peace agreement with Israel and do what is possible to be done to squelch to destroy Hezbollah from within. That is Benjamin Netanyahu's vision. Because I think that he thinks that anything other than that, anything that involves relying on the goodwill of the leaders of our neighboring nations, the leaders of Iran as it now stands, the leaders of Hamas, and on the goodwill and activist aid of Europe, anything that relies on those things is destined surely to fail because those people cannot be relied on. All they want, ultimately, save perhaps for the Europeans or at least some of them, all they want ultimately is for Israel to be destroyed and they are biding their time. So I think that that's his, his, his vision.
- [49:35]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
So that is a vision of eternal war, basically. Because if you say we can't rely on them by making agreements with them, we can't rely on the guarantees of other nations to force them to stand by agreement. So basically it is a vision of eternal war and letting the grass grow and then continuing to cut it.
- [49:53]
Noah Efron
I don't think so. I think that. That it's a vision of being willing to fight for as long as we need to in terms of. Through the generations. But it's a vision based on the principle that shit happens. And that the government that we see in Iran now and for the past 47 years before that, there was a generation of a government that of course had been installed by imperialist powers, but there was a generation of a government that was friendly to Israel and that could happen again. And so all we can do and all we must do do is continue to survive, continue to weaken a regime like Iran until shit happens. And we don't know exactly what that is, but we will be opportunistic when it happens again. I'm not advocating for this, but I think that that is. I think that that's just clearly the vision that Benjamin Netanyahu has. And the. And I will also say that I do not think it's a crazy thing either. I think that. I think that at my more happy view about the potential of bringing along, through complicated and hard diplomatic paths, bringing along regimes that are fundamentally not trustworthy and are fundamentally committed to destroying Israel. My happy view that such things are possible, you can make peace with enemies who are real enemies, deep, and are not gonna change their antipathy for, for Israel might be wrong and Benjamin Netanyahu might be right. And the danger of Benjamin Netanyahu's view is exactly what you said it's like, okay, maybe all we're doing is ensuring generations of regimes that are all committed to destroying Israel by virtue of being warlike. And maybe de facto it means that we will forever fight and paying the
- [51:47]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
price of being viewed as, you know, accurately, a country that only wants war, that kills the chops off the heads of its enemies, that kills Nasrallah, that kills Khamenei, that, that goes out and, and kills and assassinates people. And what that cost is going to be in terms of the sympathy and support of, of the countries that were sympathetic and supporting us and, you know, won't go into the whole, you know, erosion of support in the United States that's been happening over the past three years. So that's the question, you know, if you look at the, the big picture, is it making us safer or might it even, you know, by, by being so tough and warlike and, and averse to diplomacy, it could be making us ultimately weaker instead of stronger.
- [52:37]
Noah Efron
You be right, sister. Now listen to this. That song is Halabai New by Per Tassi and Khan. And now it's time for our second discussion, which we are calling Love and Life. And here is why. The annual World Happiness Report is here. The annual World Happiness Report is here. And we could not feel gladder, more joyful, delighted, rapturous, exultant, contented, blissful, elated, gleeful, jubilant, buoyant and cheered about it. Our affect on this matter is purely positive. This because Israel once again again ranked high on the list of the world's happiest countries. We are eighth after Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Costa Rica, surprisingly, Sweden, Norway and Holland, way ahead of, say, the United States at 23 and Canada at 25, the UK at 29, France at 35, Japan at 61, China at 65, Greece at 85 and India at 116. What's more, Israelis under 25 are the happiest of all. Israelis, Israelis and the third happiest young people in the world. Young people in America are in 60th place by way of comparison. It is true that we came in eighth place in last year's survey and as high as fourth place just two years before that. So if we as a nation were more downbeat sorts, gloomy, dejected, despondent, despairing, wretched, anguished, troubled, discontented, melancholy, and like Jean Valjean, generally more miserable, then we might say that our happiness is stagnating or even slightly diminishing over the years. But what is striking about this year's finding is that, like every year's rating. It is based on data collected over the prior three years, meaning that this is the first year when most all of the data were collected during wartime after October 7th. So even staying the same high up on the list while people are killing and dying, while we're told not to talk in Hebrew when we travel abroad because we might get beaten up or worse if we do, this kind of finding is just remarkable. Remarkable. What explains it Now? It's important to say right off that the happiness ranking is something of a misnomer. It doesn't so much measure a fleeting psychological state of happiness, which, if we're honest, we can get in spades from MDMA or microdosing LSD or ketamine or cocaine or meth or opioids. Now note, the Promise Podcast does not endorse cocaine or meth or opioids, though it does heartily endorse mdma, microdosing LSD and ketamine. But I digress. The happiness ranking aims to rank something deeper than the flush, fleeting feeling that everything is cool, man, and instead to measure something that Aristotle called eudaimonia, which lots of people translate as happiness, but when they do, they add a note saying that the concept does not refer to emotional happiness, but rather to the state of flourishing or living well or living a good or virtuous life. And if Aristotle is too fussy a touchstone for you, you get the same idea, I think, from my favorite Aristotelian band and Bare Naked Ladies. We're loving life, we're loving life we love it so much that we want
- [57:35]
Noga Erez
to live it twice we're loving life,
- [57:38]
Noah Efron
we're loving life it's like a pizza and we want another slice we take
- [57:43]
Noga Erez
it high, we take it low we ride a roller coaster anywhere it goes we're loving life, we're loving life we love it.
- [57:53]
Noah Efron
So the way the Gallup people who put together the World Happiness Report put it, what they are comparing from place to place is not so much happiness as quote unquote life evaluations, meaning how satisfied people are with the lives that they lead and how much meaning they find in them. The researchers hypothesize the satisfaction and meaning are products of a bunch of things, and especially these six social support, health and healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity of those around you, an absence of corruption and having enough of the basic stuff that people need now. Alison, my question for you is this what explains why after three years filled with miseries of war and violence, which came after a year of operatic political conflict over the judicial reforms. After two years of a pandemic, we here in Israel still feel like we are thriving or flourishing more than most anyone on the planet. It is easy to exaggerate the importance of a finding like the ones we find in the World Happiness Report. So I'll ask you this. What, if anything, that matters do we learn from our surprisingly happy results at this really, really lousy time?
- [59:13]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Well, no, I'm really happy to hear about those results. See, yeah, so I don't like to be too self referential, but this really happens to be a subject in which I've sunk my teeth into deeply in the past. In 2013, I believe this time it was a OECD happiness survey. There was a real wave of articles unbelievably looking at the fact that Israelis were so damn happy. Guess what number Israel came in on in this OECD report in 2013?
- [59:47]
Noga Erez
13.
- [59:48]
Noah Efron
5. Just guessing.
- [59:50]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Number 8. Oh, exactly the same. So basically, you know, we're going on the hypothesis that none of our recent troubles has done anything to sort of like, you know, lift us out of that position that we were in, what, 13 years ago. So that's pretty consistent happiness level. So at the time I wrote a column that turned into like probably my most viral column ever asking exactly this question. So I can look at what I said then and then just think about whether, you know, what we've been through, this terrible war, these terrible, extreme experiences, has done anything to change these factors. And I was talking about Dr. Happiness. Tal Ben Shachar, who is an Israeli researcher who taught the most popular course at Harvard about happiness at its time. And Back then in 2013, I noted that he believes that the top predictor of happiness, happiness is spending time with people we care about and who care about us. And so I pointed out in my column, we have our regular Friday night dinners. We're geographically small, we friends, family, co workers. If anything, people care about us too much. They're too in our face, they're too annoying. But all of this contact prevents isolation, which is a leading cause of unhappiness. So let's think about the war. It kind of of put us more in contact, right, with people who cared about us. It made us care about our neighbors more, you know, these strangers. I remember your, what a country last week, Noah, talking about the impromptu community underground in your, in your shelter, you know, caring. So, so this factor one would say that the war experience enhanced or, you know, reinforced being close to people who care about you and who you care about. Another Shahar ism is quote, happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Now, the war took away a lot of pleasure. Although, you know, as a Tel Avivan, you know, people were sort of like, grasping onto pleasure. They were, you know, taking it where they. They could get it. And wow, we had lots of meaning. Or we were, you know, thinking about the meaning of things a lot. So, again, the war didn't do a lot to disrupt this, this happiness factor. And, and, and back when I was writing about it in 2013, I said I had another factors of, like, comparing ourselves to people who were even more miserable than us. And in the war situation, even though we were suffering, you know, we looked at the people in Gaza, now we're looking at the people in Iran and saying, wow, we've got it bad, but they've got it even worse on the, on the other side of the war. And then the other really superficial reason that I said that Israelis were happy back then when I did my analysis, was the weather was the beautiful sunshine, beaches, and all of that. And yes, in fact, when we emerge from our shelters or wherever it is that we're taking cover against the missiles, we come out and we go outside. The sun is shining, people are out and about in Tel Aviv or wherever they happen to be. There's beaches, there's coastlines, and we can immediately emerge into the sun. So that sort of my pseudo, pseudo academic thinking of, okay, this is why we've always been happy in these kinds of surveys. And has the war done a lot to change those factors? Probably not so much. What do you think of my. My pseudo intellectual analysis?
- [63:23]
Noah Efron
Oh, there's nothing pseudo about it. I think that you're right. I think that exactly this kind of definition of, of happiness is something that if you look at like you did and you break down practically what this war and these wars have been like for us, it does. You know, our experience of the last few years does nothing to diminish, like our sense of meaning, our sense of connection, our sense of that we can rely on other people. I talk about it a lot. I talked about it already today, before we started having these discussions about how meaningful what happened on October 8th and beyond was here within the country when so many people were so deeply, deeply devoted to finding ways to helping one another. Something of that atmosphere has persisted. Some of that atmosphere was measured directly by the data results, which include that October 8th and the two years that followed, seeing all the people protesting for the hostages, seeing the hostages come home and feeling their Heroism and their decency deeply and feeling like it was somehow intimately a part of our own lives. All of those things give a lot of meaning. And so it's not at all at all. It's not at all surprising. I find myself, by this definition of happiness, which. I am deeply Aristotelian about this point. I started out my studies in philosophy and it was partly being enamored of Aristotle. Exactly about this point, by this definition of happiness, I think that we truly are it just as. As eudaimonius, as happy as. As we ever have been. And it in fact surprises me that we're not even. That we don't come out even higher. I. I would add using Aristotle again as a guide. And I forgive me, I know how terrible that sounds to say how just like highfalutin and. And fancy and self efficient.
- [65:48]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
I didn't know you and Aristotle were a thing, Noah.
- [65:50]
Noah Efron
Yes, Aristotle.
- [65:52]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
You guys are tight.
- [65:52]
Noah Efron
He's my gift. Damn. But one thing, that one way in which he would give us caution, I think before, certainly before celebrating these results, but also before interpreting them just the way that I interpreted them, is that in one of the passages that is a big touchstone for me in his book where he sets this out more than anywhere else, which is a book called the Nakamachean Ethics, which is a book that he wrote for his son, what in Hebrew we would call a tzfa ruhanit. It's like a moral will that he set out for his son. And one of the things he says, not exactly in these words, but almost is that how can you judge if a person is happy? You can't know if a person has lived a happy life until you see how his children have grown up and thrived. And one of the things that I think cuts against the interpretation that I've just given and that you and that many other people have given to this data is the fear that many Israelis, not all, but many Israelis fear feel for their children. And when you read those surveys wherein a shockingly large number of Israelis say that in the right conditions they would consider moving permanently to somewhere else. One of the reasons that people give is that they are worried that their children will live a life of eternal war if they live here and they're worried about. About watching their own children grow up to raise their own children into war. And so much so that it makes them consider leaving the country and that can live alongside this life of meaning that we both described. So it's very powerful to be here and there's. There Are you can feel as though you're part of this very thick weave of, of people. And it's a beautiful and moving feeling. And still, if you feel as though your children have no hope of being able to live a life where they do not know where the bomb shelters are, then you might decide to leave.
- [68:28]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
And so, or encourage your children to leave because there are people, you know, many our generation and older, who aren't going anywhere. No, I don't see you ever going anywhere. But, you know, because you are happy, you know, in this happiness survey way. But when you look at your children, you think, do I want to continue to have them live in this country beside me together, or do I want to make the sacrifice of encouraging them not to make their future in this country? Because we don't think that, that it's, you know, their potential happiness can be sustained in this current situation. Situation.
- [69:06]
Noah Efron
Yeah, I think that that's exactly right. And so, so I, while I do think that these, that these data reflect something remarkable and true and very beautiful in my eyes about Israeli society, I don't think that it's a, it's a source of just comfort, pure comfort for, for me, because I, I think that like, this is a pretty deep measure of happiness. I admire the people who have gotten to this point. I have a doctoral student who's just finishing her doctorate about this, in particular about happiness indices around the world and about the history of them changing. It used to just measure how rich you were. It used to massively weight GDP in its measures of happiness. And it has changed to something much deeper and much more Aristotelian. But there's a deeper level of Aristotle that if you go to that, I think that we would end up being lower on the list and that it causes us worry. And it feeds back to what you were saying in our last discussion about Netanyahu's vision or non vision, whatever it is, of not believing that peace is possible and believing that continuing war is inevitable and also acceptable, maybe in this particular way, way, this particular extremely important way, it is truly not acceptable, which
- [70:35]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
is why the upcoming elections feel so fateful. And it's such a, you know, cliche that, oh, these are the most important elections of our lifetime. But really I know many people who are saying, you know, if this election does not turn things around, if we have four more years of this kind of direction, that is going to tip the scales for them, I think, in terms of, of, you know, happiness. But in, in terms of whether they feel that this kind of happiness that we've been experiencing in Israel till now is sustainable and whether they think that their children will experience it the same way that they have.
- [71:12]
Noah Efron
Yep. Now listen to this,
- [71:48]
Noga Erez
Because.
- [72:52]
Noah Efron
That song is Tilim Utma Ot by Hagar Yafet. More music of these strange, unnerving days, all of which you can find in all the usual places. And now it is time for About A 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, possibly even flute the US as we wended our way through our worlds over the last little while. Alison, what is your RD country?
- [73:13]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Well, I haven't been on the podcast in so long, you know, throughout this entire war, it made me sort of, okay, let's look globally at this war experience and, and see how it's affected me, you know, in terms of myself and the war. So we spoke about Israeli society as a whole. Now is when I'm going to navel gaze and, and think about how it's affected and changed me. I really, really, really wish, Noah, that it didn't take the hard stuff, the difficult and extreme situations and challenges to make us grow and evolve and learn about ourselves. But really, I found, I don't know about you, that our growth only takes place in extreme crisis and bad situations when we're able to fall and get up again. So I feel like the war has made me learn a lot about myself, and I'm not sure all the time whether to be happy and proud of these things or a little bit worried and troubled by them. So I turned out, strangely, to be one of the tough, fearless ones. I felt no fear, no panic when the sirens went off. I didn't limit myself at all. I have the option of recording, as I'm doing now, to record long distance from home or drive from Ranana into Tel Aviv into the studio to record. And I chose to drive to the studio. I would have these days where there would be a couple of sirens at home and I'd go into the shelter, I would drive and there would be a couple of alarms on my way, and I would experience different anthropological experiences in various shelters along the way. You know, meet new people, go new places. And then in Haaretz, at the workplace, you know, the. The siren would go off. We have a whole newsroom inside a shelter there. We just, like, move and work there. And when I podcast at Haaretz, the podcast Studios are on -2, so believe it or not, we would have a siren alert and just Continue recording as if nothing was, was happening.
- [75:05]
Noah Efron
Wow, that's.
- [75:06]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Yeah, yeah. So I was just kind of like, you know, live life, carpe die. And you don't know that you're going to be one of those people until you're actually faced with those situations. Noah, you mentioned the, the empty airport as a silver lining. I, like, really looked at the silver linings. As a Tel Aviv lawmaker, really, the biggest silver lining, I have to say, was parking. In Tel Aviv, there were always parking spots, and even when sh. You park illegally, nobody had the wherewithal to give you tickets. It was great. I highly recommend you continuing those municipal policies. But traffic, man, no traffic in or out of the city. Oh, it was, it was crazy. And my final silver lining was all of the amazing, cool restaurants that you used to have to, you know, not be able to get reservations on or like, stand in Long islands, long lines to get their good food, no problem. So I wouldn't recommend it. I wouldn't say like, oh, I love war because of these silver linings. But there were those things to, to look. And I do confess again on this, is my toughness a good or bad thing? There were nights when the siren would go off and I would just turn around and keep sleeping. And I said, wow, you know, it's a, it's a figure of speech. I would literally rather die than get out of bed. I was actually risking literally dying than, than waking up and, and get out of bed. So, you know, I just kept looking at the objective odds. They said that, you know, the odds of a missile hitting you and you significantly harmed from it were about the same risk that you take when you get in the car and you drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And you don't say, maybe I'm not going to drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because of that. 60 kilometers, I believe, was, they say, you know, you can drive 60 kilometers, and that is the same amount of risk you take of something terrible happening to you as you take of not being in a shelter during a missile attack. And again, I wasn't right. I didn't justify it when it was, you know, easy and convenient and normal to go into a shelter. I did, but I, I just didn't feel the panic. I just didn't feel the odds. The most harrowing moment I was the night of the Seder. One of my daughters is genuinely frightened by the, by the, you know, missile attacks and, and wanting us to do the right thing, which is you pull over to the side of the road, you distance yourself from Your car, which could explode, and then you get down on the ground. And the Iranians weren't dummies. They knew that a lot of Israelis were going to go out and about and get on the road to, to head for the, the Seder no matter what, as we did. And so we were pulled off on the major highway of the country, Route 6, next to Rosha Iron, and we could literally see in front of our eyes the missile landing in Rosha Ayan and the smoke coming up in front of us. I have put on social media a picture of my daughters, like, huddled by the road, and one of them sort of had her hand out. And so we aied a matzo ball in the hand in the scene of, of our, of our missile attack experience on the way to the Seder. We are thirdly differently from other wars. I don't know if it's because I've been in the country and had the experiences. I had no desire to flee to, you know, jump on the latest plane or boat and escape abroad, as many of my friends who are much more sensitive did, and I don't blame them for it. But I know now from many, many experiences that it feels easier to be here and going through it than sitting abroad and, like, be glued to the news and whenever is it happening? And I also, also maybe think it had to do with, you know, being in Trump's America while the US Was also involved in the war, that it didn't feel like going home to the homeland of the US Was going to feel like much of an escape. So I look back on that and reflect, have I become tough? Have I become too tough? Have I become numb? Am I just lucky that, you know, randomly I got through this unscathed? A missile could have landed on my head just as easily, and my life could have been turned upside down and could I really control that? So, yeah, I lived my life. I went to work, I even went to social events thrown by people who feel the same way I do. You know, sitting, sipping cocktails, munching, talking with your friends. And, oh, yeah, a siren goes off and you take your wine glass and you go into the shelter and then you, you know, come back out and continue this. I think for me, at least, it was inevitable. You can put life on hold completely, maybe for a day or a few days or even for a week, week. But 41 days, you know, we had to come back to it. We had to get through it. We had to live it. So weirdly, Noah, you can be the judge if this is Good or bad, it made me a more, I think, calm, tough, stable person, you know, this was another silver lining of the war for me, I guess. You know, discovering resources and toughness that I didn't think I had. Was it worth it? Probably not. But definitely what didn't kill me made me stronger.
- [80:06]
Noah Efron
Well, that's. That's really nice to hear. That's cool.
- [80:09]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Is that a silver lining of. Of these experiences? I'm not sure. Do you. Do you share that? I'm really curious.
- [80:16]
Noah Efron
No, that wasn't my experience that it. I didn't. I. I didn't experience the. The war harshly. I mean, we were sleeping every night in a. In a shelter. That was a lifestyle change. But I didn't feel as though I somehow rose to the occasion or that it had very much of an effect on me one way or the other. I was inspired by a lot of things in the war and also being more involved in what the city did. I was very, very impressed and inspired by the seriousness of the response and by the care and the humanity of it all. But personally, no, I'm the same Shlomo that I ever was. Yeah, what you gonna do? But it's funny, like statisticians, I love that. That this is. That staying in bed for during a missile attack is just as dangerous as driving 60 kilometers. It's like, how. How exactly do you get to these comparisons? It's. It's the same as eating sushi that you get at the 7:11. It's the same amount of danger. It's the same amount of danger. Anyway, risk assessment.
- [81:31]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Risk assessment.
- [81:31]
Noah Efron
Risk assessment. Yes. I would love to be a statistician, though. My phone shook with a new WhatsApp message from Rob Joe Wolfson on the bema across the room that said, this promised podcast episode is writing itself. And it was. We were in a shul that I'd never been in before, filled to standing room only on Pica Een Street, a tiny street I'd been on many times before, but somehow I'd never notice this big building covered with signs and plaques, the biggest of which, just off the entrance, had a big map of Romania in ash gray with columns of names as if rising from the gray ash like smoke. And above it, it said, quote, our father, our King, do for those who succumbed in fire and water to sanctify your name. These are the names of the victims of the illegal immigrants ship Mafkura, which was sunk by the enemies of our people. May their names be blotted out. And on it were tens of Children of the orphans of Transnistria and refugee survivors from all of occupied Europe on the eve of the Holy Shabbat of the torah portion vaetchanan, the 16th of AV 5704, August 5, 1944 end quote facing the that is a marble slab memorializing the same thing, reading on top the ones sanctified by the Mafkura, May God avenge their blood. Among them 150 orphans of Transnistria who perished on their way ascending from Romania to the land of Israel in the waters of the Black Sea. The 16th of AV 5704, 1944. And under that there are hundreds of names. So surname first Kahana, Shifra, Katz, Zaev, and so on. Near that is a memorial plaque containing the names of the members of the Maccabi Hakoach Iasi, Hebrew Sports Club from Iasi, Romania, who were murdered in a pogrom on June 28, 1941, which plaque hung for some years on the wall of the Iasi synagogue after the war, until the communist regime forced it to be removed sometime in the 1950s and some somehow it was taken to Tel Aviv and hung outside the shul. Opposite that was another large sign that said in very large letters on the top in eternal memory, and under that Our Father, our King, do for those murdered to sanctify your name. Do for those butchered for you. The 10th of Tammuz, July 5th, 1941, the day of memorial for the Holocaust of the Jews of Serbia. And on either side of the sign were columns with the names of cities on the right, Lapusna, Tagina, Kahul, Ismail and Satata Alba. And beneath that a tally 206,958 Jews, December 28, 1930. And on the left Hotin, Yedanets, Soroka, Baltzi and Orchai, with a tally of 227 Jews from May 1942, all of which grabbed my attention as I walked up the narrow path the door of the shul. And it carried special meaning on this day, because what I came for was to hear Rav Yaakov Yosef, Elhanan Gutman talk about his family and the Holocaust and what came after the Holocaust for his family. The shul is named Beit Hakneset, Beit Yaakov Yosef, the house of Yaakov Yosef Shul, like its rabbi, named after Yaakov Gutman and Yosef Gutman, in the event, uncles of Yaakov Yosef and Elhanan Gutman, whom he never knew, and Rav Gutman, day to day he goes by the name Rav Elhanan, he told the story of his grandfather, Rav Zvi Hirsch Gutman, who was a renowned rabbi in Bucharest, the latest in a line in a Hasidic court that reached straight back to the Magid of Mezrich. He was an elui, a prodigy, preaching in shuls all over the countryside. When he was just 14, getting ordained by three great rabbis of Romania by Sen. And when he moved to Bucharest, he was the youngest of all the 20 odd rabbis there. He was 26 years old, quickly earning a name for himself for the out of the box creativity of his rulings, finding solutions, for example, when a husband refused to give his wife a get. And almost right away, the hard cases mostly came to him. When he was 27, Rav Zvi Hirsch Goodman founded the Romanian Mizrachi, the organization of religious Zionists. Around this time time he took over the old Beth Midrash of Kalia Moshilor in Bucharest, raising their generations of students until the place was burned to the ground by Romanian legionnaires, the pro Nazi iron guard on January 21, 1941. And on that same night the legionnaires took from their home Rav Zvi Hirsch Gutmann and his two oldest boys, Yaakov Gutman, who was 27, a doctor of legal letters, and Josef Gutmann, 25, a journalist holding a PhD in modern European literature. The legionnaires tortured the Gutmans and then dragged them outside the city and shot them, killing the boys. But Rav Zvi here somehow survived, though he was captured on his way home, taken to the police station, lousy with legionnaires, surviving again by miracle, his second miracle of that terrible night that felt anything but miraculous. Rav Elkanan Gutman told the story of his grandfather and his uncles and his father and his aunt, how they survived the Holocaust and how they survived the years of communist rule. Afterwards, he told how his father, Rav Ephraim Gutman was arrested and thrown into jail by the communists for teaching Zionism to the kids in Bne Akiva, the youth movement that he ran. This was in 1954. And when word got out that there were protests all around the world, US President Dwight Eisenhower sent word to party leader Georgia Georgudze that Ephraim Gutman must be let go. And Rav Elkhonan Gutman said here in Tel Aviv, at the Great Synagogue in Allenby the there was a hunger strike by prominent Romanian born rabbis, politicians, artists and writers to free Ephraim Gutman. It was reported around the world and it mattered. The man who put together the hunger strike and who got the word out was Yitzhak Artsi, who would later become a city councilman in Tel Aviv and then deputy mayor and eventually a member of Knesset. At the time he organized the hunger strikes, Yitzhak Artsi's wife Mimi was pregnant with their second kid. Their first kid was 5 years old at the time. His name was Shlomo. The singer Shlomo Artsy. It was then that Rabbi Joe sent me his WhatsApp. Rav Elkanan Gutmann told how his grandfather, Rav Zvi Hirsch Gutman came to tel Aviv in 1961, settling in a small rented apartment on Pekin street, using an old two room shed schoolroom to daven in on Shabbat until the school closed. And he told how Yitzhak Artsi, once the school closed down, now he was deputy mayor, told them to just take it over, just move in. He'd take care of the paperwork. In time, his boy Ephraim inherited the shul from his father, raising money and building the new building on the spot. And eventually Rav Elkanan Gutman took it over from his father. Through all those years, it was a center of Romanian Jewish life in Tel Aviv. It's one walls are covered inside and out with memorial plaques. Rav Jo Wolfson, who was the person behind the evening, he introduced it by saying alongside many other beautiful things, that the walls of the shul are all memorial plaques. But what goes on in the shul now, that is just all life. He told a midrash about a passage that brings together three people you wouldn't expect to see side by side in a single passage. Noah, Noah, Daniel and Judah. Job. What do Noah, Daniel and Job have to do with each other? Rashi says that those three men between them saw three different worlds. A world built, a world destroyed, and a world rebuilt. That's what you see, Rav Joe Wolfson said here in the Yaakov Iosefjul. A world built, a world destroyed, and a world rebuilt.
- [89:48]
Alison Kaplan Sommer
Wow.
- [89:49]
Noah Efron
Yeah. And that brings us to the end of our show. Thanks to each our station manager, without whom there would be none of this. Thanks to Ashibo Lee, my favorite band from Kvitzkeva. They give us the music at the start and at the end of our show. Thank you, Alison. Thank you, Natalie. We'd like to thank all of our Patreon supporters for your generosity and support. It keeps the show going, it keeps the station going, it keeps us moved and grateful and very much in your debt. And we'd like to thank all of you out there for taking the time to listen and ask you to like us on Facebook and drop us a line. We are going to to answer. After you do that, go to Apple Podcasts and give us a five star review. Maybe one that starts with this an answer to the prompt. What is unusual about The Promise podcast? ChatGPT sycophantical suck uppy. ChatGPT wrote, among many other things, quote it embraces digression as a method, not a flaw. The show wanders, but the wandering is productive. A discussion might move from municipal policy to a childhood memory, to a philosophical question, to a joke about supervisor supermarkets. End quote. Relatedly, a guy goes to the manager of a supermarket and says, I was walking down aisle seven and a big tower display of toilet paper toppled down on me. And the manager says sir, I am so sorry, are you hurt? And the man says, oh no, I'm fine, it's just soft tissue damage. Not, not, not. Finish that any way you want. But before you do that, remember that today as we record on April 16, we celebrate world Voice Day. So stipulated way back in 1999 by the Brazilian Society of Laryngology and Voice, which initiative was quickly adopted in many other countries. Argentina and Portugal came first, and in 2002 the American Academy of Autolaryngealogy embraced the day, and soon more than 55 countries were marking the day with hundreds of autolaryngealogical events. If you go to to the site worldvoiceday.org missionstatement and I know that you will go to that site, you will find there this quote the voice is like a gem with facets reflecting multiple scientific disciplines and practical and artistic concerns. Both humans and animals depend heavily on voice communication, so voice science incorporates physiology, biology, and bioacoustics. The voice provides the main tool for both semantic and emotional communication and is therefore relevant to auditory perception, psychology, neurology, cognition, linguistics, and phonetics. It is a crucial tool not only in education, but also in the daily work of about 30% of the entire working population. End quote. About which I would have thought that it's Even more than 30% who use their voice in their work. And obviously I adore World Voice Day. I am not made of stone. They had me at the gem with the facets reflecting multiple scientific disciplines and practical and artistic concerns. But even though where I am it's like five in the morning and World Day Voice Day is maybe just 20% over if you start it at midnight still already I know that all too soon it will just fade away like that sustain at the end of A Day in the Life by the Beatles, where the voices dissolve into that long fading piano chord not to be back for a whole nother year. Not so the Promise Podcast. We will be back next week and most every week, reminding you that while the human voice is a miracle, able to communicate so much through the slightest shifts in tone and rises in pitch, still sometimes you find yourself thinking, but why don't they have anything worthwhile to say on this the Promise podcast?