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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 is this week host to the 10th annual rather on the nosedly named Eat Festival. Though to be fair, it could have been called with equal honesty the stuff your gob festival. But the city went with the more genteel Eat Festival. Which festival is happening today over in Charles Klure park, just south of the old Dauphinarium, across From the historic 100-year-old Hassan Bek Mosque, the main lawn of which Charles Kluwer park is now the temporary home of stalls set up by some of the most renowned and beloved fancy and pricey restaurants in the city. What are here called chef restaurants, Misadot Shef, which is how we say in Hebrew, what in America are called just restaurants, or if you want to be more precise in your nomenclature, restaurants are cut above Olive Garden or a Cheesecake Factory in that they have chefs. Ah, the mo. Just mo m, I always say. But I digress, and often enough here in this city anyway, the chefs at the chef restaurants are celebrity chefs who are, not to put too fine a point on it, chefs who have, or once had a TV show of some sort. So you see that they could have named it the stuff your gob with grub by that guy you saw on TV yelling at those women festival. But instead they rather classily I am now seeing, called it the Eat Festival. At which eat festival, if you hurry, because today is its last day, it having started on Monday, you can, if keeping kosher is not your concern, get for 45 shekels at which all the Eat Festival prices are capped at celebrity chef Guy Gamzo's new Noo Noo booth, a Mac and cheese roll, which is a brioche filled with macaroni and cheese that for vegetarians. And to me it sounds fabulous. Instead of eating Mac and cheese out of a bowl like a sucker, you get it in brioche. And for everyone else you can get your brioche with popcorn shrimp or pulled beef American style at celebrity chef Shaol Ben Aderet's Tarnegol Ha Cachol or Blue Rooster Stall, you can get your brioche with asado or a corned beef sandwich with onion jam on a non brioche hamburger bun. At Jerusalem celebrity chef Asaf Granit's Machane Yehuda stand, you can, for 35 shekels, cap be damned, get his famous polenta with ragu mushrooms and asparagus, and at celebrity chef Shahaf Sabtai's Pop and Pope restaurant stand, which is funny because Pop and Pope are spelled the same in Hebrew. So in order to know, you just have to know. At Pop and Pope you can get for 20 shekels Mekong cucumbers. At celebrity chef Yinon El Al's Lunel booth, you can get sweet malawakh. Of course, if keeping kosher is your concern, celebrity chef Moshik Roth's eponymous stand has Paris style hot dogs, yes, in a brioche, because we are not animals. And there are umami chicken dogs and Dutch chips. Or if you prefer, there are planchas of salmon and all manner of sushi at Ninihatchi. Another kosher place is celebrity chef Moti Yevdayev's Experience Azerbaijan operation, where you will find khorza dumplings stuffed with chopped meat and pomegranate. Not only that, but Moti Yevdayev has a sponsorship from the National Tourist Board of Azerbaijan, meaning that while you eat, you can watch a troupe of Azerbaijani dancers dancing traditional dance as Azerbaijani players play traditional Azerbaijani music on traditional Azerbaijani instruments. The pahlava dessert is vegetarian, by the way, as are, it must be said, dozens of stalls and booths and establishments at the Eid festival. And there are also vegan ones, so whatever you do or do not eat, you are likely to find something to your taste here. And arguably nothing captures the blessed, though still strange feeling of the insistence that life goes on in this city we love so well. Tel Avivo better than a festival drawing tents, tens of thousands of mouths a night to a park on the sea in the spring to eat fancy food in the least fancy way imaginable, standing in your flip flops while hobnobbing with celebrity chefs, the music of far flung places in your ears while you watch the dance of far flung places, all while eating the food of far flung places. All of this as a reminder that whatever other hard things are going on, the city and the world will always, if not today, then tomorrow, have all these other lovely human pleasures too, to offer up with us in the great underground volume that is the Serenity Studio here at number 12 Lesser Horry street, is a woman, I dare say, who knows more than most how much food served with grace and joy and whimsy and warmth can, especially in the right company and most especially in her company, remind you of what a blessing it is just to be alive. It is she who puts the host in show stopping, without which it would just be swapping, just as she puts the host in hospitality without which it would just be piality. I think you know that this most brilliant mattress de maison could only be mirrored Miriam Hershlag is the Opsint Blogs Editor at the Times of Israel, creating and presiding over the biggest and most profound forum of Jewish discourse and debate since the Talmud was codified. Miriam was in the past the anchor of the Israel Broadcast Authority English Language Television News and an anchor for the Israel Broadcast Authority English Language Radio News. Miriam, how you doing?
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I'm okay, I'm managing. And maybe I'll see you at my table sometime soon. It's been a while.
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Yeah, that would be nice. By the way, Susan and I are going to this thing this evening if you happen to want to show up for it. It's a fun thing. Also with us today, set your faces to stunned for the very first time in the Serenity studio and we are so thrilled and delighted is Thila Wenger Tila Wenger is Deputy Director for the Israeli branch of the Geneva Initiative, an Israeli Palestinian effort to raise support among Palestinians and Israelis for a two state solution. Tila Wenger has lived here in for one third of her life. 10 years. You do the math. Not long before that she went to a university famous as the alma mater of Aaron Burr, though he was already gone when she got there, he finished in two years. It was his parents dying wish before they passed. But I digress. Tehila Wenger's work focuses on Israeli Palestinian policy dialogue. She is rising into the anthropology PhD program at Ben Gurion and she is, she writes, a huge Eurovision fan, as I think you will register yourself later in the show. Working tirelessly ahead of Tehila's first appearance on the show, the Promise Podcast Crack research team discovered that her name, Tihila Venger or Wenger, anagrams to air with Angel, a clear reference to her slightly celestial bearing. And her first name, Tila in Gematria adds up to 450 obviously, which is equivalent to Isha Yechidab El Mina, a singular woman, while her Christian name and surname taken together Tihilah Wenger is 709, the same numerical value of Rishonah B' Ma' Ala first rate or of the highest order, Tsnua b', Halichotea, modest in her ways and also so Adonai Oz le hamo Yitz, God will give strength to his people, which phrase comes from Psalms 29:11 if you want to look for it. And Psalms is Tihilim and she is Tihilah, about which all that remains to be said is QED People. Tila how are you doing?
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Well, I just learned a lot more about myself than I thought I was going to on this show. And Noam is going to finals, so I'm doing great.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was. He was great. He was great. As for me, my name is Noah Efron and I do not mean to boast, but I think that lately about half of my social media feed is advertisements for AI companions or AI girlfriends. Here is one from an outfit called AI Dreams, though I got a hundred more like it from places like candy, AI crushon, AI daily, AI companion, emotica and so on. And this AI dreams one has got maybe an 18 year old AI woman dressed like a librarian, though with a short than you might expect from a librarian wool skirt. And she is sitting on a big mahogany table with gorgeous copper banker lamps and around her are strewn books. And the table is in one of those beautiful Oxbridge libraries with walls of old volumes and rolling ladders to reach the higher shelves. And the AI librarian stands up on the table. She's wearing maroon knee socks and no shoes and she says, if you're a
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man working all day and your girlfriend
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isn't sending you special pictures, I never do that.
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I'll take real care of you, big boy.
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See, she gets that in the library or in the archives. I am a big boy. And most all of my life I felt like that. Professor, Professor Emmanuel Rath from the Blue Angel. All self important, but deep down, just one Marlene Dietrich away from being revealed. To have all along been a debauched clown and a douchebag. And I sort of feel like this is exactly the message that the algorithm is sending to me over and over most every time I look at my phone. And I do not mean to brag, God knows my parents brought me up better than that. But a lot of people my age feel sort of disconnected from artificial intelligence. And I think that I am maybe young and hip enough in spirit that it is only AI that really gets me and sees deep, deep, deep into the Smythy of my soul. Today we are planning to have a disturbing discussion. And it may be only by comparison that the second discussion is not disturbing. It is not too late for you to put on a different podcast and enjoy your day. But first, we have this matter in memoriam. Last Sunday we were on our weekly family zoom when I got a WhatsApp from Ricky Lang that she and her husband were just a few blocks away in the car and I wrote back that I'd go downstairs to the corner and by and by a big white car pulled up and a woman got out. And I said, ricky? And she said, noah. And I smiled and she hugged me, a big hug. And she said, here's the book. And I said, I don't got the words to thank you enough. And she said, no, I should be thanking you. I want people to read about Ema. And I said, I'll send you the money by bit. And she said, good. And we hugged, this time, a quick hug. And then she was back in her car, which was soon down Nordau and making a right onto Haryar Khon. Rikki Lang and I had written back and forth for a long time about the book. The thing started months ago at the beginning of the war with Iran, after I heard at the gym, on the radio an interview with Maya Lang, Ricky Lang's daughter, about her grandmother, her Savta, Marie Nachmius, who just the day before died at 100. And Maya Lange said how Marie Nachmias had lived a hard life, but a remarkable and inspiring one. And she told stories and she said. She was a Savta who, when I was a kid, she was sort of high volume, one of those savtot that the whole house was always bustling. There was a rumpus and there were smells and tastes and screams. I remember I said to her, but Savta, why are you yelling? And she said, that is how I am. When I am not screaming anymore, you will know that I am in my grave. And at the end of a long interview, almost 10 minutes, and it would have gone on longer if it hadn't been for the hourly news, Maya Lange said that the family wrote a book about Marie Nachmias, and every shekel they get from it goes to people who need it. And if you want the book, there's no website and it's not in stores, but you can just ask her mother, Riki Lang. These days, she said, it's easy to find anyone. So I googled Riki Lang and there she was on Facebook. And figuring that she would not look at her messages until after the shiva for her mother was over, I wrote her a message that said, shalom. I was so sorry to hear about your mother's passing. She was an inspiring woman and obviously a woman of great love. May God comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. Jerusalem in due time, whenever the time is right. I would like very much to purchase from you the book you put out about her, which I think it would do me good to read, with blessings Noah. Then, to my embarrassment, just a few minutes later, I got a message that read, many thanks to you. At the moment, I am in terrible pain. I was very attached to my very special Ima. It is so hard for me. I printed a second edition of the book, which sold out the first edition just by word of mouth, and all the income goes to families that need it. I live in Kiryat Ono. You can come to me or I will send you the book by registered mail. The book is especially fascinating and contains 320 pages plus 32 of IMA's recipes. Kiryat Ono is right near Bar Ilan, where I teach. So we exchanged messages about how I could bike by on my way to school. But then there was the war and the bombings and the university was off. And then it was back, but it was back on Zoom and I wasn't going to campus. And we went back and forth for a while until finally last week, Ricky Lang called me and said, my daughter's in the hospital at Ichilov in Tel Aviv. And I said, oh my God, I'm so sorry to hear that. And she said, no, for you it is good luck, because my husband and I are driving to Tel Aviv. We will bring you the book. And I said, coming from Kiryat Ono, my house is out of the way. And she said, nonsense. And that is how it happened, that she came to bring me the book during my family Zoom, which I was very glad to have. In fact, I knew something about Marie Nachmias. Most of us do, because seven years ago in 2019, Ricky Lang wrote to Mary Regev, then the Minister Culture, and said that her mother should be picked to light one of the 12 torches representing the 12 tribes that are lit each year on Yom Ha' At's Maud Independence Day at the main official celebration on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. And Mary Regev and her appointments committee agreed, and Marie Nachmias got the invitation. The torch lighting event is very choreographed. There is a script and there are rehearsals. But when it came time for Marie Nachmias to light her torch, she started with the script, but then very quickly she abandoned in it. And she said, I, Marie Nachmas, the daughter of Shalom and Hannah Sabach, May their memories be for a blessing. Bless the state of Israel with all my heart. May God and the righteous hear me and may go up and rise up and may we go and multiply and may our soldiers no longer fall. Ya Rab with all of my heart and the Jews and the Arabs and the Christians and the Druze. May we all be like the fingers on one hand, all of us. God created us. May he give us peace. And may 10 million more come here in the next year for the Glo of the State of Israel. And I remember that moment seven years ago. Susan and I were watching the torch lighting ceremony like we do every year, and we knew that we had just seen something real and something beautiful. And I think everyone felt this way. It was not until I read the book this week, though, that I finally really understood what we had seen. Marie Nachman was a batz kunim, a child of old age to her parents, Shalom and Hannah Sabach, who, after three boys, wanted a girl very much. They lived in El Kaf in western tunis. It was 1926, and their youngest boy was born in 1910. One day, Chanis Abbach had a dream, and in it, a rabbi with a white beard and a certain radiance to his face came to her and bid her in the dream to go to the shook and buy certain medicinal plants. He gave her a list, and he told her how to make from them a dough and to eat it and to feed it to her husband. You will become pregnant, Binti, he said. And the daughter you want so much, the daughter your husband dreams of, she will come. And with that, in the dream, the rabbi left. In the morning, Chana Sabach described the dream to her mother, who asked her to describe in great detail the rabbi. And after she did, her mother left the room and came back with an old photograph. Is this the man in your dream, Binti? And it was. That is my brother, Channa, her mother said. You never knew him. He was a tzadik. Run to the shuk. Buy what he told you. Do exactly what he said. And that is how Marie Nachmias came to be born. Her nickname, from when she was a baby was Princess Marie Nachmias. Young life was charmed and easy, though it would later become and stay hard. Her father, Shalom Sabach, ran a successful bakery and confectionery shop and the family did not want. When she was 6, she was sent to a French school where boys and girls learned shoulder to shoulder, and where Jews, Muslims and Christians did, too. And Marie thrived there for a variety of reasons having to do with both family and business. The Sabachs moved to Constantine in Algeria. And they were there. Marie was eight when the Constantine riots, some called them pogroms, broke out in August 1934, a mob of hundreds attacking Jewish homes and torching Jewish businesses. A reporter from the JTA described a scene of utter desolation and horror of Jewish girls with their breasts cut off, of little children with numerous knife wounds, and of whole families locked in their homes and burned to death. End quote. After that, the Sabachs moved to Tunis and Shalom Sabach started his most successful baked shop of all. It thrived. Marie went to the Jean Jacques Rousseau school, which she loved. Again, everyone there was together. Boys, girls, Muslims, Jews, Christians. Madame Alive was a wonderful teacher and there was so much for her to learn. By now, two of Marie's older brothers had moved back to the city with their wives. One of the brothers opened a photography studio and the shop in time grew in renown and the Sabachs were a great and respected clan. It was now, when Marie was in her teens and bright and vivacious and very beautiful, that suitors began to call. And Marie was headstrong. She broke off one of the engagements her parents had arranged for her and tried to break off a second. But this time her mother Channa would not allow it and a date for the wedding was set and before that, a date for her henna. Marie was 16. This was in 1940, three months after Walther Nehring captured Tunis and the city was filled with soldiers. And local men were drafted too into the Nazi army. And on the evening of Marie's henna, dozens of Nazi soldiers came to the Sebach's house. And they drank and drank and ate of the pastries and cakes and petit fours. The book says the look of the home cooked food and the comforting smells roiled the spirits of the soldiers who had not been home for a long time. After the soldiers left, it came to Salam Shabach that they would be back. And he told Marie to stay up and to get dressed and that at his word she was to go to the roof and then jump from rooftop to rooftop across the neighborhood until she came to the home of relatives some ways away and to hide there. At 2 in the morning, when the soldiers returned, Shalom Sabach gave Marie the word and she was off to the roof. And then from roof to roof, Shalom Sabach, from the upper floor window, poured acid on the soldiers. As the book reports, seven innocent and pure brides decided to be married on that same night. Six of them did not know that a painful and cruel fate awaited them on their wedding night. One by one the German soldiers, aided by local men, found them, raped them and slaughtered them. They killed them all, save for one bride. That bride was Marie, Marie's Marriage to Albert Nachmiaz, who became an admired X ray technician in Ferryville, Tunisia, not far from Tunis. Her marriage was a harsh one. When their first child was a girl and not the boy he expected, Albert refused to see her for long months. The couple had three more kids in Tunisia. Then, after Albert got mixed up with something foolhardy and dangerous, the husband of a woman at the hospital was out to kill him. Now the family moved to Palestine in 1950, part of the great North African Aliya. And like so many others, there was the DDT and the insults and the condescension, and the family spent years living in the mud and squalor of a transit camp, theirs in part a skana, before they finally took a place in Afula, where Albert got an X ray tech job at Haemec Hospital. Over the years, the couple had three more kids. The seven kids grew up in a small place in Afula, and then a place small too, but less so in Afula Elite seat. A moment that changed Marie Nachmias life and the lives of many other people was in 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. It is described in a chapter in the book called the Pledge. The day before the war broke out, the day before YOM KIPPUR In 1973, Marie Nachmias saw her youngest kid, Shaul, packing. She asked him why, and he said he'd been called up to the reserves. Marie begged him not to go, let the others go. But Saul said, what if? Everyone said that? And she relented, pouring a glass of water on the path leading to the house. An old Tunisian custom on the order of he who walks away on spilt water is destined to return after the war started. The next day, Marie Nachmias was inconsolable, saying, shaul, sha', Ul, come home to me. Sha', Ul, her neighbor, said, marie, you have four boys fighting in this war. Why do you cry and worry for Shaul alone? My heart cries for Sha'. Ul. She said she did not know why. When Sha' Ul was brought to the hospital, shot in the back through his stomach, holding his intestines in with his own hands, the doctors did not think he would survive. He was to stay in the intensive care unit for three months. When the doctors finally told her that Cha Ul would in fact survive, Marie Nachmias made this pledge a last to God. Every mitzvah, every good deed that I come across, I will take upon myself. You returned my Sha' Ul to me. I will return. This act of grace to other people before the war and again after. Sha' Ul's job was in the social services department of the city of Afula. Soon after, he got out of the hospital and back to work. At 8:1 morning, Marie Nachmias got a call from Shaul, who said, I need your advice. He said, a one year old was just brought to my department. A man came and said, I cannot take care of him. His wife was in a state of depression and there were 10 other kids in the house besides. And the child was not growing, he was not well. And the man put the baby on a desk and he left. Marie's answer was, ya', arabi. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Don't you see, Sha'? Ul? God heard me. This is my mitzvah. This is what I asked for from God. And he even said, sent him to me via you. Bring the baby to me. And Marie Nachmias raised the baby for a time. She saw now that this was the mitzvah she was meant to fulfill. And after that baby, there were 51 other babies and children that she fostered, sometimes for a year or two, sometimes for 15 years. There was David and there was Sarit, and there was Ronen and Shai and Tamara, and the list goes on. And there was Ali. He came to live with Marie Nachmias after a social worker friend named Susan called and said, I have a complicated case. I have a father here whose two year old was admitted to the hospital when he was six months old after he choked on a seed and was without oxygen for a long time. His brain is damaged, he is in a vegetative state, and the family cannot care for him and the hospital cannot keep him. Marie Nachmia said, what is complicated? Bring him to me. And Susan said, the family is from Wadi Ara. They are Bedouin and they do not feel comfortable giving their child to be raised by a Jewish woman. And Maria Nachmias asked to speak to the father, and the two spoke in Arabic on the phone. And Maria Nachmias said, how many months were you in your mother's womb? And the man said, nine. And she said, your boy, how many months was he in your wife's womb? And the man said, nine. And she said, how many months was I in my mother's womb? And the man said, nine. Marie Nachmia said, what does all of that mean? It means that we are all of us human beings. We are all the same same. And we have one God who made us all the same. Now bring me your boy and I will take care of him as if he was my own. And the man did, and Marie Nachmias did, and the doctors thought the boy would live only a couple few months. But he lived with Marie Nachman for years, and she cared for him and she fed him and she washed him and she spoke with him, always spoke with him in Arabic, and the family they came to visit every week. And when finally Ali did die, as was sure to happen, happen, her last words to him in Arabic were, thank you for coming to me, boy. Thank you for giving me the skhut, the privilege to take care of you. Go in peace, my Ali. It was some years later when the phone rang and a voice she did not recognize said, Mrs. Marie, I do not know if you remember me, but I remember you well. I remember how you took care of my brother and how much you helped my parents. And I am getting married soon and I would like to invite you to be our guest of honor at my wedding. Wedding. Will you come? After she said what she said, lighting the torch. Six years ago, a group of 58 women and girls got together to perform what Marie Nachmias had extemporized on Mount Herzl, now set to music, a song, I think, because they like me. And I guess all of us felt something like thank you for coming to us. Thank you for giving us the zchut, the privilege Glitch. It. Sa. Today two discussions. Our first disturbing discussion in order to know as this week a New York Times columnist named Nicholas Kristof published an opinion piece called the Silence that Meets the Rape of Palestinians, based on interviews with 14 West Bank Palestinians and describing, quote, a pattern of widespread Israeli violence against men, women and even children by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency, and above all, prison guards. You have probably heard all about this, as lots of people are talking all about it, and we will try ourselves to puzzle out what we ought to make of it and understand from this essay that is disturbing for all sorts of reasons. And our second discussion, Jerusalem retold as today, as we record on the 27th day of the month of Iyar, moved up from the 28th, when it normally is on account of Shabbat, we mark Yom Yerushalayim, though it will also be marked tomorrow in some way a holiday created after the 1967 war and the recapture or reunification of Jerusalem. Which holiday has been vexed and ambivalent since the first time it was marked and remains so today, though, unlike in the past when all sorts of Israeli Jews found meaning in it. Lately it has mostly been a holiday of religious Zionists. We will wonder why this is what we ought to make of the day and what we are celebrating, when and if we celebrate Jerusalem Day and why. 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 shamelessly exploit the fact that we have Thi Hilah here to talk about the Geneva Initiative which he Deputy directs and which is one of the great enduring peace initiatives. Having come to the world in 2003 in the aftermath of of the Oslo peace process, a very different time at a very different time to talk about peace, we will hear from Thi Hila what it is like to wake up Each morning in 2026, turn on your computer and do what can be done to advance peace. But before we get to any of that and in honor of Jerusalem Day, please listen to this. That song is Yerushalayim Jerusalem by Achayot Jamshit, the Jamshit Sisters. It is the first of three songs called Yerushalayim Jerusalem by three different artists that we will listen to over the course of the show that we are recording on Yom Jerusalem Jerusalem Day. And now it is time for our first discussion. So Miriam, I think Susan cried when she read this article in the Times. Easy to see why, right?
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It's a very difficult read. New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof published an op ed this week that drew a lot of attention around the world. It's called the Silence that Meets the Rape of Palestinians, and it describes what Christoph calls a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women, and even children by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency, and above all, prison guards. The article is based on conversations Kristof had during a recent visit to the West bank with 14 men and women who said they'd been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces. Of the 14 people he interviewed, nine were adult men, two were women and three were boys. The women described being stripped, groped, beaten while naked, and threatened with rape. Some of the men described being sodomized with batons by prison guards, mocked and humiliated. Others said their testicles were squeezed or beaten. The peace cites reports of police dogs being coached and deployed to rape prisoners. The boys who had been arrested for throwing stones said they were threatened with rape and beaten in varying combinations by the people who arrested them, interrogated them or guarded them in jail. Jail Kristoff writes that what he heard fits a broader pattern of sexual violence described by the un, by the Geneva based group Euromed Human Rights Monitor and by other human rights groups. He says there is, quote, no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes, but he argues that sexual violence and threats of sexual violence against detained Palestinians are systemic. A lot of the reactions to Kristof's op ed were fairly predictable on social media. There were posts like the one from an X account called Outside observer, which said Kristoff interviewed 14 separate survivors who all testified to their abuse in ways which corroborated each other Israel is the vilest society in history. On the other side, pro Israel media watchdog Honest Reporting called the piece journalistic malpractice, arguing that Kristoff relied on pro Hamas propagandists and on claims that were demonstrating fictionalized Chen Mazig, an influencer and senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute who has become one of Israel's most visible defenders since October 7, tweeted that the Times is using the words of a man credibly accused of sexually harassing children and an organization led by a man who denies the rape of Jewish women to build a case that Israelis are sexual predators. A lot of criticism was aimed at the New York Times itself, reflecting what critics see as the paper's broad, broader bias against Israel. Here in Israel, though, Christoph's op ed did not initially receive all that much attention. At the Times of Israel, we reported the Foreign Ministry's response, calling the article, quote, one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press. That quote, circulated widely afterward, but there were no major discussions on radio or television news. Politicians largely didn't comment on it. It wasn't raised in a Knesset debate. Coincidentally, evidently, or perhaps not Less than a day after Kristof's article appeared, a much larger and oddly overlapping story about sexual violence dominated attention in Israel. An NGO called the civil commission. On October 7, Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children released a 300 page study two years in the making, meticulously documenting horrific and systematic sexual violence committed by Hamas against Israelis. Now, Kristof's prison abuse allegations did get some buzz on Israeli social media, journalist Shachar Ilan, formerly of Haaretz, wrote on Facebook, quote, as a reporter, as an editor, and as one of the more experienced investigative journalists in Israel, I believe this is journalistic work, exceptional in its seriousness, grounded in dozens of testimonies as well as a long series of international and Israeli daily reports. Moshe Radman, one of the leaders of the Kaplan protests against the judicial overhaul and now a Knesset candidate with the Democrats Party, wrote, I know it is incredibly difficult to talk about this, or even to imagine that such things are being done in our name, especially when it involves soldiers or members of the security forces who are all our children, brothers and loved ones. But it is our moral duty at the very least to acknowledge these things and to demand that they be investigated. Not to prejudge, not to decide in advance who is guilty, but certainly to demand answers. Both Radman and Elon urged people to push for the truth. Sunlight, Radman wrote, is the best disinfectant, and it seems to me we have quite a bit to disinfect before the infection poisons all of us psychologically, socially and morally and internationally. Their posts each received thousands of likes and hundreds of comments. Some expressed deep concern about the allegations Kristof reported. Others expressed deep skepticism, many calling the article a blood libel, many criticizing Elon and Radman simply for sharing it in the first place. This borders on treason, one person wrote to Shachar Ilan. Are you with Israel? Another asked Moshe Radman. So look, none of us can say for sure whether the incidents Kristof described happened exactly as reported, supported, or how widespread such abuses may or may not be. And the fact that we cannot know for sure, at least not right now, what is true, what is exaggerated, and what may be false. That's part of what makes an article like this so difficult to process. Tehila, how do you read an essay like Nicholas Christoph's and how should we as readers try to understand understand it?
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C
So the conversation that I've seen developing around the Kristoff peace on the Israeli side, to the extent that there is any conversation, is either just dismissing it out of hand as lies, a blood libel, anti Israel propaganda, et cetera, or some of the more serious engagements will pick up on a few of the specific claims or sources cited in the article, which have a reputation of being biased against Israel and or have been known to spread inaccurate information in the past. The context for this generally overall dismissive response by Israelis is that first of all, Israeli empathy for Palestinians is almost non existent right now, as is of course, Palestinian empathy for Israelis. We've just gone through multiple years of high intensity conflict with no clear resolution in sight, and it's quite hard at the moment to make Israelis care about what's happening to Palestinian prisoners who may be implicated in the atrocities committed on October 7th. We just don't have the emotional capital. That's not where anybody wants to put their feelings and feel focus.
- [41:47]
B
Yeah.
- [41:48]
C
Add to that the fact that from the Israeli perspective, global institutions abandoned Israeli women and other victims after October 7th and denied mounds of credible evidence of widespread sexual violence used by Hamas. Miriam, you pointed out that Kristoff happened to publish his article at the exact same time that an independent commission published the most comprehensive report to date about Hamas's use of sexual violence against Israelis. There is something about the timing there which feels. Feels off. It immediately raises questions about whether there is motivation here to redirect attention. And for many Israelis, the timing alone feels like a weaponization of narrative before you even get to the content of the piece. So all of that is creating an atmosphere where it's very easy for Israelis to say, this isn't true, this isn't real. We don't need to take this seriously or really look into it in any way. I'm going to try to be incredibly careful about what I say next because when it comes to an issue of so much sensitivity, people are going to fixate on one detail and that is misleading, or that they perceive as biased and use it to delegitimize the entire conversation. But this is what I really want to say. The barest possibility that any of these allegations might be true should be horrifying for all of us, regardless of political background or ideology. I'm not an expert on sexual violence. I don't have the background to evaluate the truth of these claims. And I certainly don't have the expertise to understand whether we're dealing with isolated incidents or a systemic issue. But as someone who cares very, very deeply about this country, about our institutions and rule of law and our moral character, and who is hearing increasingly from a variety of sources, some of which I personally do tend to trust, that there are real abuses occurring. I want these allegations to be looked into by independent experts that Israelis trust. And I want to feel sure that any instance of sexual violence being used against anyone, and I don't care who they are or what they did, anyone, will be met. Will be met with severe consequences.
- [43:42]
A
Yeah, absolutely. I would go even a teeny bit further and say that while it is absolutely true and really important that we don't need to say to make clear that we don't know what the fact of the matter is in these particular 14 cases, and we don't know what the facts are beyond it, I think there's really good reason to think that something like the things that are described in this article really do happen. There's good reason at least to have that be a serious worry that immediately makes us want to do what you were saying, Tila, of really investigating. And what are the good reasons? Like for one thing, we all saw the video from Stateman, that kind of improvised jail that Gazans were being held in Gazan tour arrested most of them on October 7th, 8th, 9th, that first week, though others were added since then. And that improvised jail that was being guarded by reservists who had no training in being guards. And we saw the video, which was difficult to entirely make out exactly what was happening, but we saw one prisoner being pushed against the wall surrounded by seven or eight guards and clearly being beaten up. And possibly, possibly worse than that. It could be that what was happening behind that wall of backs that we see in that video.
- [45:14]
B
But we also heard from the doctor who treated the person.
- [45:17]
A
Right, exactly. So the doctor, I'm sorry I interrupted. We heard from the doctor who said that this person had been showed signs of having been sodomized with a club of some sort or something like that. So we know that. And then beyond that, that I have to say that I've talked a few times about my time in the reserves, which was mostly spent in Hebron for 10 years running. And it ended after I had a six week stint in the reserves where I was a prison guard, a prison that they had just thrown up out of barbed wire in, in Hebron. And nothing like what is described in this article happened there at all, I should say, from the very beginning. But what did happen is that I found myself very often standing in front of a group of, I don't know, 15 or 20 boys to men, maybe ages 14 to 20, who were in the hot sun baking in the summer in Hebron in Israel. And these people, they terrified me. I was thrown in there with no training at all, just like guard, as though it was the easiest thing in the world and I was often alone and I was really, really terrified and I did not know what to do and I felt the pressure of trying to figure out ways to demonstrate that these people shouldn't beat me up and murder me. So anyway, this position of not knowing how to do this, being in terrible conditions and having complete power over other people who terrify you, who you feel like could kill you, it's really bad. It's really, really, really, really bad. And then another reason is because we know what the human beings are like. Like we all grew up in a world after Philip Zimbardo had done his experiment at Stanford, or Stanley Milgram had done his experiment, or we all grew up seeing Abu Ghraib, and we all grew up seeing those hooded British soldiers, you know, beating up Irish prisoners and attaching electrodes to their genitals. We all, we have heard this. How many times have we heard this? And so obviously we know that such things happen among the human beings, and we know that we are human beings. And we know that, like you were saying, Tehila, that some of the people who were, who are being, you know, who are in the prison are people who may or may not have had something to do with the murder or rape of friends and relatives of the people doing the guarding. So how could this possibly not be happening? Well, I mean, hopefully, maybe it is not happening. But anyway, when this comes up and 14 people tell this journalist this, then my first reaction isn't to find all the. All the reasons that there are, and there are good reasons to not believe these particular things, but to figure out a way to have a serious look at ourselves. But the last thing I'll say is that what's so fucked about this is that the Kristof article is two things at once. At one time. It's a j' accuse that we should take really seriously for the reasons that I'm saying. And in the other, the other thing it is, is part of this ongoing campaign to utterly delegitimate Israel to the point of persuading people in the world, possibly with the power to do it, to dismantle Israel entirely. And so it's really hard to ignore that too. And you feel like, okay, so what are. It's. Our job is to say, yes, yes, Nick Kristof, we will immediately investigate this because this has the. And feel of being true. How can you say that in the world now, the way that international politics are. But how can you not say that if you care about us?
- [49:35]
B
I think this is a worthy conversation, but I have to say that I think the Kristof piece should be virtually disregarded other than as a prompt to have a conversation about a. It is, to me, a completely invalid piece of writing.
- [49:53]
A
How come?
- [49:53]
B
Because it is framed. First of all, because it's in the opinion section. This is not the first time I feel this way. I think very carefully about where content belongs in a reporting organization. And it's one thing to have an investigative piece done by. Usually in this case, it would have been multiple journalists seeking out all kinds of levels of response and information verifying, fact checking, going through the most rigorous things you could go through talking to veterinarians about how dogs are managed in cases of torture, but very much a very thorough thing. I don't think that's what happened here. And the fact that it's framed and then sort of excusing it because. Well, it doesn't have to be quite that way because it's in the opinion section. So the normal thing to do is you'd have the investigative piece and then Christoph could talk about the people he spoke to and how he feels that this is equal, which is the other part of this, that this is parallel or a sort of symmetrical case in the moral universe that shows that Israelis are matching Hamas behavior. He starts and finishes his article with this and he drives it home. If you watched his video voiced piece about it, it's even stronger. He says, you know, well, we condemn, we of course we condemned Hamas, you know, the Palestinians abuse of Israelis. But this is going on day after day in the piece, in the print, he says day after day and the spoken, he says day after after day after day with no proof that this is going on day after day. So to me it's like a legal case with the, you know, it's the evidence of poison fruit. In other words, it's, it should.
- [51:47]
A
The whole fruit of the poison tree.
- [51:50]
B
It is the fruit of the poison tree in, in that the whole, the whole process is to me illegitimate. And, and all that said, we are living in a time when the police minister encourages torture, officially encourages torture, including starvation. Or you know, I guess it wouldn't be our starvation. I don't need to exaggerate to talk about how evil this stuff is. We're in a climate where Kahanism is rising, where Jewish terrorists are attacking innocent Palestinians with impunity and where. Yeah. Where terrible things are happening. And I agree exactly what you said, Tehila, about the lack of will, the lack of even, I would even call it, emotional bandwidth to care deeply about people who we associate with the kind of brutality that we're still reeling from. So, you know, it's a bind. But you know, Nicholas Kristof is not going to be the one that makes us look, you know, do a proper self examination.
- [53:01]
A
I want to hear what you have to say. Tila Tuba table. Just a quick question, Miriam. So do you think that nothing that is in this article is probably true? Like, do you feel sure?
- [53:12]
B
I'm sure some of it is. Of course I think things in this article are true, but I treat it as a very problematic piece that I think More than anything, is not there to give us good reporting on exactly what's happening happening. It is entirely there to create a moral equation of symmetry. And there is nothing that you can do to convince me that what was perpetrated, you know, by, by Hamas as policy, as planned, as encouraged, as videoed, as photographed and put up on, on social media as a photo form of torture and the kinds of crimes that were committed, nothing can convince me that even this. You know, look, we know the prison services to begin with are very problematic. They're desperately trying to recruit people on the radio. There's all these ads to get people. We know that the, that it's problematic, but he's not going to be the one that's going to make me rethink the whole thing. We know that this is all happening.
- [54:21]
C
Yeah, Spotify keeps trying to get me to sign up to the Israeli prison system and I think they're missing their audience there or not.
- [54:30]
B
Maybe it's just what they need.
- [54:32]
C
I'm, I'm actually going to follow your lead and, and take a step back from the article and not get caught up in the weeds of, you know, which parts are true and which parts aren't and what is the agenda behind it, and really just use it as a jumping off point for the discussion that I think Israeli society desperately needs to have and that this piece probably is not going to allow us to have. But maybe I'm wrong and I want to go back to something you said, Noah, which was how could this not be happening? And you quickly corrected yourself and said, well, I hope it's not. But I think one of the things I'm most concerned about is an internal Israeli response that says, and I've seen this in a few places, look, we as a society, we're not perfect, but because the claims are exaggerated or the sources and evidence are flawed, we can dismiss most of this and pay lip service to the rest. We can say, yes, this should be looked into, it's not ideal, but without any real, any real follow up or demand from our own institutions and leadership and society. And I've actually seen a number of responses to the article which are 90% condemnation of the content of the piece and then 10% admission we should look into this. Exactly. Maybe some of it is true and needs to be looked into. And my response to that is if any piece of that article is true. And the most thoughtful, intelligent, pro Israel responses that I've seen have acknowledged that there is at least some truth to some of these allegations that should be enough to shock us to our core. And these, these relativist arguments cropping up about, well, this is what all societies in conflict do and commit and turn into. That doesn't interest or appeal to me in any way. This is my society. I'm not comparing it to any society. I'm holding it to my own standards. And if you genuinely, genuinely believe that sexual violence committed in some scope by your own society is an inevitable aspect of. Of indefinitely prolonged conflict, then, I mean, my God, you should be spending every second of every day of your life trying to end this conflict, not for the other side, but for preservation of basic human decency on your own side.
- [56:33]
A
Yeah, I was not trying to say that relativist argument.
- [56:38]
C
I realize that. Yeah.
- [56:39]
A
What I was trying to say was that there's. Was that Israel is not the vilest country in the world, that the world is filled with horrors going on all the time, and that we're not exceptional in the sense that we're somehow singularly moral and we're not exceptional in that we're somehow singularly immoral. And we are in a set of circumstances that is absolutely the most likely to generate this kind of immorality and to allow it to continue and to make it difficult to investigate. And that requires us to be all the more vigilant about it and to. I do think that. I do. I don't think that it's relativist to say that human beings, we know. Well, we have been taught in the 20th century and beyond and before then that human beings are capable of these terrible things and that we need to take seriously the fact that we as human beings are capable of these terrible things and pay attention to the signs that it's happening. Which is why I don't see how we can exactly ignore this article for all of its problems. It raises this issue in a way that I think makes it necessary for us to look at ourselves in response to it regardless, and investigate ourselves. I think that my Zionism, frankly, is like. Is Zionism that says what it means to have actual agency. Zionism is a revolution of Jewish agency. What it means to have actual agency is sometimes you gotta say, I'm going to look into this and I'm going to understand these things that we are doing even if they're bad, even if they're evil, even. And that that is what I'm committed to as a human being in a sovereign state that wants to create a good society, but understands that societies all the time, in all sorts of ways, go bad. Now listen to this. That song is Yerushalayim by Mem, who is Matan Hassan. But Mem is so much easier. And now it's time for our second discussion. So, Tila, I know that on Facebook my relationship status with Jerusalem is set to. It's complicated, but now we have this whole day, so what should we understand from this?
- [61:00]
C
So tomorrow as we're recording, this is the 28th day of the month of Iyar when we mark Yom Yerushalayim Jerusalem Day. Although the main events of the day are mostly being held today, Yom Yerushalayim commemorates the day in 1967 when Israeli paratroopers entered the Old City through the Lions Gate and reached the Western Wall. If we back up to 19 years earlier, when the fighting stopped in 1948, Jordan controlled the Old City of Jerusalem. Jerusalem. In the final days of May that year, Arab League soldiers destroyed the 18th century Khurva Synagogue in the Old City, the Eidz Chaim Synagogue and Yeshiva, and then all the other synagogues that remained in the corridor. For 19 years, Jews were essentially banned from the Old City. Their return in 1967 was celebrated by many Jews in Israel and around the world, with some interpreting the victory not just as an unprecedented military accomplishment, but as an actual act of God, a moment of direct divine intervention in historic process. In the euphoria of having overcome an existential threat and a very real fear that this tiny new country was about to be wiped off the map, that feeling now switched out with the triumph of complete victory over all hostile forces and the territorial gains that occurred when Israeli forces pushed back three major Arab armies and Israel annexed East Jerusalem. We did this without fully annexing its residents. Today, around 40% of Jerusalem's population is Palestinian and most don't have citizenship or the right to vote in national elections. In a parallel to Jordanian actions in the Jewish quarter almost 20 years earlier, Israeli forces immediately bulldozed the residential area of the Mughrebi Quarter next to the Western Wall. After taking control of the Old City. It was a step that offered renewed access to a key Jewish holy site after years of being cut off from it. It also unilaterally established facts on the ground without process or dialogue. A year later, in May 1968, the Israeli rabbinate announced the establishment of Jerusalem Day to mark the meaningful and to many miraculous return of Jews to the Histor of the ancient city. Four months afterwards, Knesset ratified the government's decision to memorialize the anniversary of the taking. Some would say the retaking of Jerusalem as a national holiday almost from the start, Jerusalem Day was controversial. Ahead of the first celebration, Teddy Kollak, then mayor of the city, said that he opposed celebrations because they were likely to offend and upset Palestinian residents of the city. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Foreign Minister Aba Evan both opposed celebrating the day out of concern that it would attract unwanted international attention and criticism, primarily to the act of annexation. The City Council overruled the mayor, the prime minister and the foreign minister. And on the first anniversary of the conquest of the Old City, tens of thousands, some said more than 100,000 came from all around the country to pray at the Western Wall, take part in a memorial service for the fallen, to consecrate the Peace Forest at Amona Netsiv, and to take part in a ceremony at City hall where Levi Eshkol, despite his initial objections, was made an honorary citizen of the city and where Abba Evan and Ted, overcoming their own misgivings, gave celebratory speeches. Prime Minister eshkol said, For 20 years the world was silent about the destruction and desecration of the Old City. But today we hear in the un, in the name of the status quo, criticism of the unification of the city and of our building. It is impossible for us not to ask why now, after 20 years of silence. For years, Jerusalem Day was a mainstream fixture in the Israeli national calendar. Schools marked the day, teaching songs and poems about Jerusalem. Jerusalem youth movements sent buses of young people to the city from all around the country. Soldiers came in to keep order and also joined the celebrations. Parks filled up with family barbecues. Over the decades, though, Jerusalem Day has shifted in nature, going from, as the Hartman Institute once put it, a day of unification to a day of division. Now it has become a holiday celebrated primarily by religious Zionists. That is a complicated category. Chaim Katzman Sal pointed out in his dissertation that the political, religious and ideological spectrum encompassed by the label religious Zionist is much wider than we often give credit for. But since we are making generalizations here, in any case, we're basically talking about men in knitted kipot and women in mitpachot or wrapped head coverings and skirts. In the big weekend edition last week for Makori Shon, a paper mostly written and read by religious Zionists, there were at least a dozen articles about Jerusalem Day, what it means, what to do, what to wear, what to eat, etc. In all of the other papers, combined the mostly secular press and the ultra orthodox press, there were exactly zero articles about the day. One significant factor in the polarization of the appeal of Jerusalem Day within Israeli society is the fact that for the past 15 years, since 2011, the most talked about event on Jerusalem Day has been a parade through the city known as the Dance of the Flags or the Flags March. The tradition actually started in 1968 when Rav Zvi Yehuda Cook and his students from the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva marched to the Western Wall. Lately, especially since 2011, the event has grown much, much bigger and has taken a sharp turn in character. These days, as many as 50,000 Israelis, mostly young men, march through the city, including the Old City's Muslim quarter, flying Israeli flags, singing and dancing. And in what has now become a consistent aspect of this march, there are groups within the crowd who also scream racist slogans like mayor Village burn. A Jew is a soul, an Arab is the son of of a whore. It rhymes and scans in Hebrew, not so much in English, or simply death to Arabs. Palestinian shopkeepers and residents of the Old City know that they need to close shop and stay indoors. Those who don't or can't stay home risk being spat on, threatened, and sometimes physically assaulted. This year ahead of the day, a group of respected rabbis from the religious Zionist community published a call to preserve the dignity of the day and avoid provocations. The call's language is not particularly clear. It does not mention Arabs. It does not explain what exactly it means by provocations. The does use the language of Mamlachtiyut, of respect for the law in the state that was a fixture of religious Zionist ideology for many years. But there's a real question about whether that remains an ideological commitment for the younger generation in the community and to what extent they feel obligated to abide by rabbinic authority on issues like this one. We will find out today. And given current trends in other arenas of the conflict, I am not betting on these particular rabbis winning the this round, although of course I hope I'm wrong. But ahead of the day, I have two questions for you and a request. My first question is, why did Jerusalem Day become almost exclusively a holiday for religious Zionists? My next question is for those who find themselves alienated by the flag march, can and should Jerusalem Day be marked? If I were framing that question to myself, I would ask, can Jerusalem Day be redeemed? But given the loaded nature of the word redemption in this context, let's stick to the first version. And my request is this. What is your Jerusalem? Regardless of whether you celebrate this city at a particular time or day, what about this place do you want to celebrate?
- [67:43]
B
Well, you asked why it's a religious sort of exclusively a thing for religious Zionists. I spoke to the religious a little bit to the religious Zionists in my extended family and I asked them if they clock this event as a place of triumphalist violence against Palestinians. And they're like, no. Our kids went, they were in B'.
- [68:10]
A
Nai.
- [68:10]
B
Those who were in Biva went. It's a youth group thing. It's really fun. Everyone has sweet memories. And then they kind of outgrow going to these events. And the violence is on the fringe, which is such a different perception than what I've had about it. But why is it exclusively religious? I think it started first of all, as you described as religious and politically right wing event. And it continued almost on this inevitable trajectory that mashes up religion and politics in the particular way that that community does. And it also views the achievements of the Six Day War as a miracle, as really miraculous. You know, with Hara Bayt be Adenu, the going up to the Temple Mount,
- [68:53]
A
a miracle in the sense of God in God's hand and all that.
- [68:55]
B
I mean, we chant halel and in the service, that's an addition that reflects half, which depends on your community. No, a full hollow, actually, with or without the brachot, the blessings. That's the one. Whatever. That's the debate. But that shows the sort of the overwhelming emotional significance with which that's reflected in the community. To me, what's interesting is that actually that there isn't a wider dedicated victory celebration for the entire public, given that you don't have to be that religious to be very moved and to kind of see some God's hand in what happened. But just the Six Day War was an astounding win. We increased the size of Israel fourfold in that war and it was over in how many days was that? So that I think is almost the question is like, why aren't there? And you can say, well, we have Yom Ha', Atzmaud, we have Independence Day for that anyway. And we don't need this performative sovereignty, which is really what I think people are finding. So, and the next question is, you know, if you're alienated, is there something else? I love this question. What could we do? So the first thing is, the best thing I've seen on Jerusalem Day is the Tag Meir people who go into the, into the Muslim quarter and hand out flowers. Flowers. And it is so beautiful. I cry whenever I see that. I think it's just good People who actually take a risk to be out, put their. With their bodies out, are showing, you know, our doing the Heschel walk, you know, praying with their feet. But if I had to invent a celebration, instead of a flag dance, I'd have a hat dance that celebrates the fabric of Jerusalem. I don't know. Do you remember when they opened the new Takhana Merkesita, the bus station, There was actually this thing that was called the Hats of Jerusalem. And I loved it so much. It's not up there anymore. And. And so that's my. Jerusalem is the place of hats and cultures and oddness and just this, you know, that woof and weave of an incredibly diverse cultural experience where you find all kinds of odd, wonderful people. And look, Jerusalem. You ask personally. Jerusalem has been critically important in my biography. It's where I established my professional life. It's where I fell in love. It's where I gave birth to my son. I love the mountain air, the Aver, Harim, Talul, Kalyan. I like old stuff. I like hats, which is to say I like tribes. And when Jerusalemites are cool, they are cool in the absolute best ways. They're artists and they float a little off the ground. And they are philosophers and dreamers. So, you know, so many of them come from this religious vernacular that speaks to me. And then there's the whole world of other cultures that I love there. So that's my Jerusalem. Given the demographics, I don't know how much longer it's all going to hold, but it's a place I love very much.
- [72:17]
A
I think that part of the reason why. Why Jerus. At least part of the reason why Jerusalem has a kind of meaning for religious people that it doesn't for others is because religious people, it's just so much a part of your life. Like you. You. If you're religious anywhere in the world, you know where Jerusalem is. You know the direction of Jerusalem, because you pray to Jerusalem every single day and you talk about Jerusalem. And the Jerusalem Day has lately also become a day of commemoration and a sort of celebration among. Among Ethiopian Israelis to mark the fact that they had the. To mark the long marches and paths that they went traveling towards, towards Jerusalem. And for them, it was, you know, today on the radio, they had had the special where they interviewed, you know, Ethiopian after Ethiopian to talk about what it was like and people dying to the left and to the right and marching to Tzion. They were marching to Jerusalem. They were not marching to Israel. And then there's a big celebration with the president today in the afternoon there. So the reason why Jerusalem was important to them is the same as the reason why it has so much meaning, I think, to so many religious Jews is because it is really, if you're religious, the state of Israel is not a category that's part of your religion, but tion Jerusalem is a category that's part of your religious life. And I think that that matters. And for the rest of us, we were, you know, I think that a lot of people, a lot of people back in 1967 were hugely moved by the paratroopers who came to the Wall and the crying at the wall and the Wall is in our hands. And that was, like you said, Miriam, kind of both a celebration of sovereignty and a sign of return and a feeling as though history, the stars were lining up in a way that meant that we would have a future here. There was a lot of power to it, but it was mostly power that was aligned with a kind of nationalist meaning, which you get well enough on Yom Atzmaut and you watch the planes flying above you, you know, over the beach in Tel Aviv or over the beach in Haifa or anywhere in the country, and you feel that. And Jerusalem doesn't feel like it's so special. I feel somewhat in between on these things. I mean, I always define myself as basically a secular Jew who cannot live up to the very, very demanding secular regime of not keeping Shabbat and not keeping Kashrut. But for me, I'm very ambivalent. I've always been very ambivalent in some ways about Jerusalem. And when you speak of it, Miriam, I think that it's beautiful and I listen with longing and admiration to what you say. And I think that that's the way that I also would like to feel about it. And when I think of Jerusalem, like my Jerusalem, I think of two opposite things. Like, on the one hand, I think of Rehavia, the place where Agnon, where, like Agnon, was religious, but the place where the great Hebrew University professors, Martin Buber, used to walk through the streets and arguing coffee shops. And so I like, think of the old secular Hebrew Universityists, culturalists from Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe, these. These great titans of Jewish thought and today their legacy, which is the National Library, which is for all that I have not spent time there, I must admit, b', Avenothai, I think is one of the great institutions of the Jewish people right now. And clearly, like deeply Jerusalem, in a way, like the place where all of the wisdom of thousands of Years of Jewish history meets up with all the wisdom of the world. And it's in this place and it's beautiful.
- [76:34]
B
And by the way, many of the years of Islamic history.
- [76:38]
A
Exactly. Yeah. No, exactly.
- [76:40]
B
Specifically there.
- [76:40]
A
Yeah, exactly. And also, like, you know, property records of Palestinians only had. There's everything there, including all the wisdom of the, of all of Jewish history. And so I think of that.
- [76:52]
B
But.
- [76:52]
A
But really the Jerusalem that I, that I believe when, when I, you know, when I become a better person and a more mature person, the Jerusalem that I, that I will love, that I want to love, is a Jerusalem that today scares me a little, which is the one that you describ of all the different kinds of people who you can so easily imagine in this beautiful mosaic getting along. But at the same time, a lot of them, like today, hate each other. And I get off the train in Jerusalem and I feel like, oh my God, that person hates that person, and that person likely hates that person, and that person hates that person. And so I see all the hats and I cannot freely them of what I hope is just, you know, an invention on my part, like a fearful invention. But I can't free them of the feeling of tension around it. And that is the Jerusalem that I want to be. My Jerusalem. The Jerusalem that loves the fact that there are Armenian fathers of the church walking around and passing ultra Orthodox Jews and passing secular people of every religion and passing like Jesus freak Christians, all in the same, all walking over the same steps that have been walked on for thousands of years.
- [78:09]
C
I'm about to say a bunch of very depressing things about Jerusalem. So maybe I'll actually start by pointing out that all of those people getting off the train who really do I hate, maybe, maybe some of them hate, but they just don't get along with each other. And the tensions are so prevalent. You walk around that city and you just feel all of these fault lines in Israeli society. They are all focused there in that one city. And at the same time, they're maybe getting. Getting along might be the wrong word, but they are not killing each other every single day, Right? Most of the time people are functioning in Jerusalem. And I'm not trying to minimize the many problems in the city, but it is also an example of one of the most diverse cities in the world world where these communities that have such massive divides manage to make it work most of the time, at least in the sense of not devolving constantly into violence. But that said, I genuinely dread Jerusalem Day every single year. It is one of it's all.
- [79:13]
B
It's. Yeah. I mean, I didn't mean to prettify. Is horrifying. The racist.
- [79:22]
A
You mean the march and the people bumping each other over the head?
- [79:24]
C
Mostly. Mostly because of the march. Yes. I'll tell you, this year, about a month ago, one of our Young Leader program participants reached out to his cohort, and I'm also in the WhatsApp group, and said, hey, Israeli Jews in the group, can you guys please sign up for a protective presence. He lives in the old city in the muscle corridor. Yes. Yeah. And the fact that he felt the need to do that and to reach out and the fact that that is felt on the ground, I mean, that is. I'm so angry that he needs to do that. I'm also, by the way, I'm very proud of the Israelis who go out every year. You mentioned Tag Meir. I think they do beautiful work. There's also Om Dim Biakad, which they literally put on vests. And what they do is they put their bodies in between, you know, young Jewish Israelis who are coming out to approve that they are the owners of the place and potentially even attack Palestinians who live there and those Palestinians without, you know, fighting back or anything, just literally putting their warm bodies in between. And I think there's something incredibly powerful and beautiful about that. There was a meme that popped into my feed during the last escalation with Iran, which was that famous picture of the paratroopers staring up, gazing at the wall. And the title was, but what about the exit strategy? And the point of the meme was a comment on then internal Israeli criticism of the Iran war. What if we had asked this in 1967? That was kind of the intent of that post. And I started laughing out loud when I saw that, because that I wish, I Wish that in 1967 we had asked that question.
- [81:05]
B
I think the question was widely asked.
- [81:07]
C
It was asked in, not answered. Yeah. The answer was pushed down the road constantly to the next generation. We'll figure this out later. And now we have the situation, which I'm really glad that, you know, communities more or less find a way to get by and live one beside the other every day in Jerusalem. But it's hard to call it flourishing when you have so much poverty and when you have this feeling of tension which can at any moment break out into something that is much more wide scale and terrifying. And we've seen it happen in the past. And. And those questions aren't being solved in the overall situation. It doesn't feel like we're getting any closer to a better reality, to a Jerusalem where the average Jerusalemite, given all of the complicated demographics, is living a good life. I mean, I live in Tel Aviv, so maybe that's very patronizing for me to say. But if you look at the statistics on, you know, what the average person is making in Jerusalem, if you look at. If you speak to your average person in East Jerusalem, there are issues there that are very intimately tied up to the Israeli Palestinian conflict and our total inability to push towards any kind of sustainable solution in that arena.
- [82:19]
B
Yeah, I think also it's deceptive to talk about the average person in Jerusalem for the reasons that we talk about. And it is really like specific communities, in particular the Palestinian community that lives there with or without residency, with or without citizenship, and then the haredi, the ultra or the Orthodox, where poverty is endemic. And in fact, both, particularly the haredim, are growing, and not just growing, but in proportion because people are leaving who are not in those communities. There's really a flight from Jerusalem, so it's a crisis city, but it is the place where we see just the Horva Synagogue. If you just look, first of all, I have to tell you, I thought Horva was the name given to that synagogue after. After it was.
- [83:05]
A
It was wrecked.
- [83:06]
B
It was direct. But it is like. It is like the. The whole story of that synagogue is such a fantastic little, you know, emblem of Jerusalem's very old history of. Of, like, people. I mean, it was destroyed because the guy owed money. It was that. It was, you know, the. The. Like, it just, you know, to the. Whoever it was that sold the land, like, there's this whole great story. Look it up. It's right there in. I think Wikipedia is where I found it, or maybe it might have been Hebrew Wikipedia. And so everyone just called it, like, for hundreds of years, the destruction synagogue, you know, the rubble synagogue or whatever it was. So these stories are amazing, and they do root us in a way that I, you know, believe makes our narratives complex and important and says, here we have a deep Jewish story story here that goes alongside other stories and goes alongside the Palestinian story. And that's really there in Jerusalem in a way that isn't elsewhere.
- [84:05]
A
Now, listen to this,
- [84:22]
C
Sam.
- [85:46]
A
That song is yet again Yerushalayim Jerusalem, this time by Hadag Nachash. You can find all the Jerusalem songs you heard on the show today in all the usual places. And now it is time for our Vada country segment. This is the part of the show in which each of us describes something that may have surprised and amused, delighted and enchanted encour sold or maybe even fluged us as we wended our way through our world over the last little while. Miriam, what is your flood of country?
- [86:09]
B
The other night I hung out with a friend who is despondent about the state of things in Israel. He feels his dreams have been dashed, and I found myself trying to cheer him up. Or cheer myself up, I guess, by listing the good things the durable peace treaties Israel has with Egypt, with Jordan, the Syrian threat, neutralized ties with the uae, democratic elections coming up, changes as possible. Our great kids. You know, I don't know that kind of stuff.
- [86:37]
A
Krembos, Shannon Street Dagna Kash but what
- [86:42]
B
I really wished I could do was give him some of the early spring fruit I bought last week. Spring usually hits its stride around Passover, but this year some trees were slow to get the message through late rains. A colder April than usual pushed things back, and the stage when small fruits begin forming arrived just a few weeks ago. Which means we've been enjoying that brief window, maybe three weeks of early spring fruit. What is early spring fruit? Imagine you've been through a winter long nights, damp days. Your food is roots, preserved, jams, pickles, stored grains. When the days lengthen and spring starts up, what you really crave just might be vibrant colors, juiciness, crunch, bright tastes. That's what I found in the Shukatikva market last week. There was a bin of what I was sure were green almonds. Almonds. Same shape, same fuzzy skin. They turned out to be tiny, unripe apricots. Next to them was a gorgeous pile of shiny green fruit the size of large grapes with the shape and stem of miniature apples. The elderly Iraqi vendor had to repeat the name several times before I finally heard it right. Alcha, he told me. They're good for you. They bring down blood sugar, though maybe not so much if you eat them the traditional way, by dipping them in salt. So of course I bought some elcha and some green apricots. Here you go. Here they are.
- [88:13]
A
How do you eat them?
- [88:16]
B
You bite right into them.
- [88:17]
A
Wow.
- [88:19]
B
Enjoy. So across the aisle, a Sudanese vendor was also selling elcha. He told me he speaks eight African languages, plus Hebrew and Arabic, but he didn't know this fruit. So the two of us went down an Internet rabbit hole together on our phones, him searching in Arabic, me in Hebrew and English. We learned that elca is the word they use in Iraq, possibly from Turkish and also kuja, and that in Kurdish areas they're known as helic in Lebanon and Syria and among Palestinians right here, it's Jerenik, or as Izzat, my taxi driver this morning so told me, Jerenik Akhdar in Iran. Goja sabs. They're eaten all across the Middle east, the Balkans, the Caucuses and deep into the former Soviet world. And despite looking exotic to me, they turned out to be something very simple. Sour green plums picked before they ripen. I love that. I love finding a fruit I've never encountered and discovering that millions of people across this entire region and beyond share a love and a taste nostalgia for this particular crunchy sourness. Something they can enjoy every year for just a few short weeks. And I'll go out on a fruit tree limb here and say this. There is something brutal about picking tiny fruits before they had a chance to ripen. And if that's all you know, it would just seem like a wasteful idea. But fruit growers regularly thin out their trees. Removing some fruit means more energy, water and minerals for the remaining fruit, and they come out bigger, juicier, sweeter and sturdier. This loss, it's actually the condition for what comes next. My friend is grieving something real. So am I some days. But maybe we're living in a thinning season, the hard necessary work of concentrating what matters. And if that's true, then somewhere ahead of us, maybe something good is still ripening.
- [90:20]
A
Tila, what is your water country?
- [90:23]
C
So, as you put into my introduction, I am a huge Eurovision fan. There is something about the unapologetic weirdness of the contest that I absolutely adore. And I also like the Mission. It's dozens of European countries and a few random ones like us coming together to channel all of our national aggression into over the top performances and commentators cattiness. And for me, every time the Israel song comes on, it doesn't matter whether I like it or not. By the way, this year I think Noam did a fantastic job and I am very much prepared to fight anyone who disagrees with me on that. But the quality of is besides the point. I think this is a feeling that I inherited from my grandparents. There is something deep inside me that still can't quite believe that Israel is a real state. I'm constantly waiting for someone to jump out and say, hey, actually this was just a countrywide Truman show. And the international discourse really feeds into that paranoia. It's completely legitimate in many circles to discuss Israel as if we're a badly organized social experiment that can be deconstructed tomorrow. If we don't live up to everybody else's standards. And there's something about seeing Noam or Yuval or Eden take the stage among all of these European democratic countries with independent public broadcasters and perform so beautifully. Again, the quality is besides the point, but he really did an outstanding job. There is something in that moment which to me moves beyond this insane circular debate about whether 10 million people have a right to exist in this land into a celebration of who we are that goes beyond mere survival. It's basically Israel asserting the right to be as kitschy and weird and over the top as everybody else. And I love that. And apropos of New York Times articles, there was an expose of Israel's influence campaign towards the Eurovision contest. And I just want to say, if my tax shkalim are going into a completely legal effort to increase engagement with Eurovision and show just how seriously we take take this contest, that is by far the best use of my money by this government that I have heard of to date. And I also just really love the idea of Netanyahu turning to our finance minister Smolrich and saying, we're spending on Eurovision. So, yeah, do more of that ridiculous piece.
- [92:35]
A
Oh, yeah, it was a reduction.
- [92:38]
B
Yes. The New York Times.
- [92:41]
A
That's beautiful. I'm there. I don't actually even love the song, but I loved his performance.
- [92:48]
C
Acceptable.
- [92:49]
A
So I got just a moment. And this moment is so completely ordinary here that it is possible not to see at first how completely extraordinary it also is. It happened at the most recent City Council meeting last Monday night. We were voting to approve a decision by the local planning commission about a new building in Yaffo. And Amir Badran got up to ask that we change the decision in order to add more affordable housing to the project that we were about to give the green light to. And Amir Badran is the only Palestinian Israeli member of the City Council. He's the head of the Hadash joint Palestinian Jewish Communist Party in Yaffo, where he also is the head of a law firm. He has his own law firm that does a lot of work representing people who live in Yaffa who've been evicted. And he's on the board of the Abraham Initiatives and a lot of other peace stuff. He got his law degree in Nice in France, which I think is like when you're thinking about where to go to go to school. I'll go to school in Nice. I like that. And I don't know how many languages he is utterly fluent in, but it's many. He is a Very, very serious man. And on this night, from the lectern, he sounds like. Be afo mikra mikam makabi, afo. And maybe you heard in the background, while Amir Badran is speaking, a baby fussing. And that baby is Gaia. She is mostly beatific, and she's a year and something old. She's not walking yet, but almost. And her mother is Ruth, who is a very cool and wonderful woman in my faction, actually. And she's got responsibility for queer stuff in the city, and she's been a long time important Mizrahi, lesbian activist. And Gaia's in her lap, fussing, like I said. And after a time, Gaia lets it be known that she wants to be on the floor to take a spin. So Ruud puts her down on the floor, and then Gaia, she's off, and she's crawling towards the dais, towards Amir Badran. And when she gets there, she raises her arms up and Amir Badran sees her, and without a pause in what he's saying, he reaches down and he scoops her up. All of which sounded like. Like this. So Amir Badran says more than 50% of the residents of the city of Tel Aviv are renters. Why? Because most people cannot afford to pay for an apartment. And I understand this entirely. So the thought was the designation of this land. And then he looks over at Gaia, who is in his arms, smiling, and he says, acknowledging that he now has a baby and he's armed, he says, what fun for me. And then he says to Ru, she is not bothering me at all. I am enjoying every moment, our future. This is our future here. And then he goes on and says, this was the aim, to create housing these people could afford. And with this aim, we want to make history. And it goes on like that. And soon after that, Ruud goes up to the dais and she puts her arms out to take Gaia back. But Gaia shakes her head vigorously and Amir Badran says, ruud, leave her with me. And then he makes the rest of his speech, and Gaya is in his arms, smiling every now and then, reaching out to touch Amir Badran's face. And that brings us to the end of our show. Huge thanks to Itay Shellam, our station manager, without whom there would be none of this. Thanks to Achi Bolim, my favorite band from Kibbutz Geva. They give us some music at the start and the end of our show. Thank you, Tila. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you, Miriam. 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 also very much in your debt. And and we'd like to thank all of you out there for taking the time, your very valuable time to listen. We'd like to ask you to like us on Facebook and drop us a line. 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 if the Promise Podcast had a patron painter, he would probably be Edvard Munch. Da da da. Finish that any way you want. But before you do that, remember that this week in just two days on Shushan Yom Yerushalayim Saturday, May 16, we will celebrate the International Day of of Light so proposed by the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and cultural organization UNESCO in document 200 EX27 proposal for the Proclamation of an International Day of light tabled on 19th September 2016 and beginning with these stirring words, the International Year of Light and light Based Technology 2015 was adopted at the United Nations General Assembly a Res. 68221 and led by UNESCO PAREN37C RES25. The purpose of an International Day of Light will be to provide an annual focal point for the continued appreciation of the central role that light plays in the lives of citizens of the world. The document goes on for many pages after that, saying things like this under the heading the Importance of Light, Light, Science and Technology. Quote Light plays a central role in human activities on the most fundamental level through photosynthesis. Light is at the origin of life itself and the many applications of light have revolutionized society through medicine, communications, entertainment and culture. End quote of course, they had me at document A RES 68221 and I think it won't surpr to learn that I adore the International Day of Light. I think it's probably my favorite day of the whole year. I love everything about light. I love photons, which are packets of energy which is kind of cool. And I love light sabers and the cool sounds they make. I like Bud Light the least show offy of all the beers. I like the light cycles in Tron. I like the electric light orchestra. But even though the International Day of Light is not yet here already deep in my heart I got a wistful feeling knowing that almost as soon as it gets here, it will be gone. I mean, light goes so fast. 299,792,458 meters per second and you get distracted for just a flash and boom. Light has gone away, passed you by, not to return for a long, long time, if ever not. So the Promise Podcast we will be back for you most every week, reminding you that while really there is nothing like an illuminating discussion to make you feel like you've got a better grip on this complicated and vexing world, it is equally true that most often there is nothing like an illuminating discussion on this the Promised Podcast. Sam.