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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 where on this past Monday, on the 12th floor of City hall, at a meeting of the City Council Council Chairperson Lior Shapira this. At this moment we go to a vote. Colleagues, press the present and voting button and then vote. Finish voting. Congratulations. 18 voted in favor. There is no one opposed for abstentions. Congratulations to the new deputies. We are moving on to the next matter. End quote. And just like that, I was a deputy mayor of Tel Aviv Yafo, the first Hebrew city to rise in 2000 years. The city where Susan and I have built our home and made our life. The city that helped to raise our kids partly in its own image, partly hopefully and loosely, and with joy and brightness and laughter and surprise and warmth. The city that is so much of what I as a kid hoped and dreamed I would find in Israel. A place of dive bars and Yiddish libraries and weird museums and rock and roll and haskalah poetry etched into the tabletops in public parks and vegan restaurants and streets named for the creator of Esperanto and the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the of Metamorphosis and a Soviet dissident physicist and the Menschlish first president of Czechoslovakia. A place where there is a cafe on most every corner and where there are people arguing in most every cafe about politics and culture, about the past and the future, about Messi and Ronaldo. A place where maybe the finest public building in the finest spot in the city is the LGBTQ center. A place that draws in young people and a place where people grow old together. A place where apparently a person with the worst Hebrew accent ever who has no apparent skills can find himself in the room with the people who somehow got the chance to do what they can do to keep the magic of this place alive for our kids, who will then keep it alive for their kids and people. That is quite a thing. With us Today, speaking from TLV1's flagship satellite studio in Jerusalem, is a woman who knows more than a thing or two about bringing the magic to wherever she goes, through her warmth, appreciation, intelligence, joie de vivre, and genius. Seeing the good in people and things. Obviously, that woman could really only be Linda Gradstein. Linda Gradstein has long covered Israel, first for NPR and most recently for the Voice of America of blessed memory. Linda is also a lecturer in journalism at NYU Tel Aviv and the Hebrew University, and not too long ago at NYU Abu Dhabi. Linda has won an Overseas Press Club Award and an Alfred I. Dupont Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. Linda, how are you doing?
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I'm fine. And let me personally congratulate you and tell you that I will be bringing my Tel Aviv parking tickets to your office soon.
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Let me personally say thank you. And yes, I assume that that's no problem. I assume that I am the law from now on. No one's entirely laid it out for me, but that's gotta be what the job is about, I assume. Now, as for me, my name is Noah Ephron. I do not mean to boast, but after that vote that I described above, to which Susan came along with my girl and her boy, and Bill Slott, who knows a thing or two about mayoring from when he was the mayor of Tura, and Robin and Alon Tal, who not long ago got himself elect to Knesset. And afterwards we all went out to celebrate for dinner at Anastasia, the hip vegan restaurant not far from City hall. And Susan, attached with a pipe cleaner to my handlebars, a laminated little sign that read the bicycle of the deputy mayor. And the next day I was locking the bike under City hall, as I always do, and a guy walked by and he stops and he reads the sign on my bicycle and he looks up at me and then he looks back down at the sign again and then he looks up at me and he says, you with so much disbelief. And I shrugged and I said, what can you do? And he looked at me again and I said, yeah, I guess what can you do? And please believe me when I say I'm not boasting. God knows my parents brought me up better than that. But I think there is something in my bearing and just the way that I hold myself that does a great deal to reduce people's expectations of me, making most anything I manage to do somehow a pleasant surprise. Today we got two topics, imposing and important enough that I have been made to understand that they will be added to the agenda of the next meeting of the Iranian and American negotiating teams. 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 ponders celebration and exaltation of the actuation of a station whose captivation of a generation was the amelioration of the nation, or how we learned to stop worrying and love the talking heads. Fifty years ago this week, on June 20, 1976, Recehit Gimel, the Israel Broadcast Authority's third radio station, went on the air for the first time. The date was picked because it was the first day of the summer vacation for the kids. Hacho fesh ha Gadol, the big break in Hebrew and Reshed Gimel would make it with the kids or it would not make it at all. Recollections differ about what was the first song ever played on the news station. Some say that it was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Which song, in any case was there? At the very top of the weekly hit parade that Rashed Gimel published every single week, just ahead of fool to Cry by the Stones. Down the list was the Boys Are Back in Town by Thin Lizzie, Lizzie Harrazza on the list, Rashed Gimel put out and songs by the Bay City Rollers, the Stylistics, Abba, Isaac Hayes, Diana Ross, Wings, the Captain and Tenille, and Hachim Dubi, the Doobie Brothers. Only five weeks had passed since Yitzhak Livni, the head of the Broadcast Authority, announced to his board that the new station was slated to open broadcasting 19 hours a day, 7am to 2am what he called light music, by which he meant pop music, most of it from abroad. Yitzhak Livni had dreamed up the idea for the news station, together with the 54 year old head of Israel's radio programming manager of the IBA Entertainment Division. Was her precise title a change smoking, beautiful and tough woman named Drora Ben Avi Drora Benavi was the daughter of Itamar Benavi, who was known as the first Hebrew child of modern times, having been raised in the Old City in Jerusalem, entirely in Hebrew by his father, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the journalist, publisher, lexicographer, who we always say revived the Hebrew language, though things are more complicated than that. Drora Ben Avi had married at 20 in 1942 in East Orange, New Jersey, an American Jew named Monroe Pollard, and eight years later, in 1950, she married a French archaeologist named Jean Perrault. And then eight years after that, in 1958, she married the legendary radio announcer Moshe Chovav, whose voice can still be heard at 5:58 every morning reading Neshma, even though Moshe Chavav has by now be been dead for almost 39 years. And there were many reasons why Drora Benharvi and Yitzhak Livni decided to start a light music station to play pop music from around the world, the biggest being that three years before, on May 26, 1973, a radio station called the Voice of Peace had started beaming shows to Israel from a ship, as they always said on the Air broadcasting from somewhere in the Mediterranean. From somewhere in the Mediterranean. We are the Voice of peace. On 1540 kilohertz. In fact, on a clear day, you could look out from any beach in Tel Aviv and you were likely to see the Voice of peace ship anchored 5km out to sea, just over the line demarcating international waters. The Voice of Peace was started by Abi Nathan, a hero of mine and of many, many other people, who was born in 1927 in the Southwest corner of what is now Iran, in a place called Abadan on the Persian Gulf, just across the border from Basra and not far from Kuwait. ABHI Nathan got most of his education as a kid in Mumbai in a Jesuit school called St. Mary's when the time came, Ab Natan lied about his age to get into the Royal Indo British air Force at 16, in time to fly a few sorties just as World War II was coming to an end. And then in 1948, he volunteered to fly in Israel's fledgling air force during the War of Independence. After the war, Ab Natan stayed, taking a job as an El Al pilot. When he was decommissioned from the army in 1959, with a few Elal buddies, Abi Nathan opened a restaurant called California, just north of Diesenhoff Circle, and the place was adopted by the city's young writers, directors and poets. Ebinatan loved the Bohemians, and their company produced at once a sense of satisfaction. He had found his people and of restlessness. Like them, he wanted to do something that mattered. Like them, he was a free radical waiting for something to bind. Abnatan was in constant search of his next thing. In 1965, he ran for the Knesset in a party he started called Ness or Miracle, pledging that if elected, he would fly to Egypt to meet with Nasser to seek peace. He did not win a seat in Parliament. That miracle did not happen. But he Anyway bought a 1927 Stearman biplane that he named Peace One. On February 28, 1966, he took off and flying low to avoid Israeli radars, he landed in Port Said. The Egyptians sent them back the next day. Nasser refused to meet with them, but back home, a retired David Ben Gurion called his trip, quote, an event of moral and political importance. Pope Pius gave him Medal of Peace, and such luminaries as Robert Kennedy and Bertrand Russell sought out his company. Four months after that, in June 1966, E.B. nathan launched a quote, unquote peace march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Arriving at the Knesset with more than a thousand Arabs and Jews singing Hevenu Shalom Aleichem, bearing letters for the Prime Minister and the speaker of the Knesset, and also one for King Hussein of Jordan that he entrusted to Palestinian community leaders to somehow deliver. After that, Ab Natan gave more and more of his time and seemingly limitless energy to philanthropy. In October 1966, he rented trucks in India and gave out 10 tons of corn to the people of 35 villages in drought stricken Bihar. In December, he set up his Peace Foundation. In 1968, he raised one and a half million dollars filling a quote unqu Christmas ship with 3,000 tons of food and medicine for starving kids in Biafra. After that, EB Nathan got it in his head that music held the key to changing Israeli society and Israeli attitudes and the societies and the attitudes of Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese. It was then that he started what became his five year project to raise money for a ship that would be a radio station that would broadcast music that would spread peace. People joked that Ab Natan had already tried to bring peace by air and over land. All that was left to him was the sea. By the summer of 1969, Ab Natan had gotten enough cash to buy a failing Dutch cargo ship, the MV Seto. It was named, and he rechristened it the MV Peace. From there he sailed to New York to raise money to fix up the ship and to set up in his hold a ship board radio station. The sojourn to America stretched biblically. Three long years passed before he returned with the ship in good repair, during which years it was docked in the east river, reachable by post to the address the Peace Ship, P.O. box 111, Franklin D. Roosevelt Post Office, New York City, 10022. When the money was raised and the equipment bought and installed, the ship sailed to Tel Aviv furnished with Gates diplomat mixers, Technics SL1200turnt, Gates NAB cartridge machines, reel to reel tape machines and two 25 kilowatt transmitters. Along the way, John Lennon and Yoko Ono contributed to what Ab Natan was trying to do by signing a couple of hundred peace posters for their friend to sell. And John Lennon told Rolling Stone that they'd set sail from New York to Tel Aviv with Abi Natan in the fall. Quote Yoko and I will broadcast live from the ship and Mr. Nathan is anxious for our song Give Peace a Chance to signature tune of the radio station. The trip fell through, but Give Peace A Chance did become one of the many voice of peace station identifiers. Peace is the Word and the Voice of Peace is the station 24 hours a day. On the very first night of broadcast from off the shore of Tel Aviv in May 1973, Abi Nathan promised listeners that, quote. I will stay on this Peace ship and I will not leave it until there is peace, he said in his deep, even voice. It is dark outside. It is lonely here on deck. I am sitting by myself near the transmitter. I have no speech prepared. I do not know what to say. For six years I have dreamed of this moment. Six years I have worked over what I would say, and now I do not know. It was a long time filled with loneliness, despair, disappointments. But I knew this day would come. If a person does not give up, always he gets there. I do not know what to say. I have nothing to gain or to lose, save for the future. Maybe the voice of reason will win out over the voice of cannons. Aren't people tired of the years of fear, worry, suspicion? I want to stay here day and night, day and night to try, end quote. Which he did for years and years. For Abi Nathan, the Voice of Peace was an instrument, a tool for making peace, like his Peace One biplane, and like the trucks filled with food rumbling through India. But for the young Israelis who listened to him, the Voice of Peace was also something more, a kind of lifeline to the world via the music that kids their age were listening to and making all around the world. Before May 1973, a kid in Israel had a chance to maybe hear Cliff Richard, the Beatles, the Stones on the radio in Israel for just two hours a week. That's all there was, though honestly, most of those hours would anyway be taken up with the Archies, the Partridge Family, and Tony Orlando and Don. The Voice of Peace employed a roster of brilliant DJs from England and the US, hip and loose and clued into the what's what of music, the sharp edge of it. And soon hundreds of thousands of Israelis, mostly kids, were listening, with one report hazarding that the Voice of peace reached a 40% share of all radio listeners here, more than a million people at a time when the whole population was only three and a half million, which was surely an exaggeration, but still the station was what a certain kind of kid listened to with a certain kind of avid devotion. And it was the Voice of Peace that spoke, spurred the establishment of record stores in all the cities and most of the towns in Israel, where for the first time, alongside the new record by the Nahal IDF singing troupe, you could get Led Zeppelin's latest album and Elton John's. It was because the Israel Broadcast Authority was losing so many listeners, especially the youngest ones, to the Voice of Peace, that Drora Ben Avi and Yitzhak Livni decided to start Reshet Gimel. The news station was popular from its first day on the air, and it took only three years until it became the most listened to radio station in Israel, indeed in Israel's history, which was then barely 30 years long. Despite all its popularity and almost from its first day, there were a lot of people who thought that Reshed Gimel was bad and dangerous. To get a sense of what bothered people, you might want to look at the weekly hit parade reced Gimel put out for the week ending February 25, 1980. It included what some people see as the first rap song to become a hit Rapper's Delight by the Sugarhill Gang Knufiat Sugarhill is what Rashet Gimel called them. And they had Donna Summer, the long hot summer of disco.
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Couldn't find the words to say it yourself now in my heart I know I can say what I really.
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And there was what on Rashed Gimel they called punk like the Boomtown Rats. And then all the more so there was the Clash.
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But while we were talking I saw you nodding out London calling See we ain't got no high except for that one with a yellow o the ice is coming the sun zooming in Engine the weed tastes good A nuclear era But I have no fear Cuz London is brown and I I am by the river.
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All of this on just that one week ending on February 25, 1980. Rap, disco, most of all punk. The thought that kids were listening to this debauchery made a lot of people in Israel in the late 1970s and early 1980s nervous. On Yom Hazma' od. Independence Day 1978, the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the state, and less than two years after Recet Gimel had started, the evening news had a panicked story about how kids in Tel Aviv were skipping the normal celebrations and instead cramming into an auditorium over there on our Lazarov to see Rami Fortis, a Hebrew punk rocker, as the radio called him, On the stage, the punk singer Rami Fortas. In the auditorium, hundreds of young people who want to celebrate Independence Day, not in Singapore alongs and not folk dancing. After which a teenager tells the reporter, Yesterday we folk danced at the Scout Youth Movement. Today we'll dance punk. What difference does it make which question itself? Most TV viewers in 1978 did not need to be told was a sign of how bad things had become. The reporter says. The punk movement came to us from England. These days, this is the last word of Western youth. The name punk is not some passing fad. It's an adjective from the 16th century. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as corrupt, disgusting, worthless. The punk movement today matches itself to a remarkable degree to these characterizations. The dress is disgusting and unusual, hair is dyed in all the colors of the rainbow, and safety pins are stuck through all parts of the body. The aim is to shock. The sociologists say that it is possible to, unheard of, understand this as an expression of feelings of inferiority, feelings deeply rooted for the bored and unemployed youth in the laborers neighborhoods in England. These youth are sure that the bourgeois sorts will pay attention to them only if they shock. And for the sake of this end, all means are permissible. End quote. The TV reporter then interviews the director of the Culture palace and home of the National Theater and Philharmonic, who says, This takes us off the proper path. This is not the direction that the Israeli youth, as well as the Jewish youth goes in, has gone in the direction that we have grown accustomed to moving in. In general, it is a casting off of the yoke. We know well that casting off the yoke causes all sorts of additional negative things what all of us would like to prevent. I would like to hope that this will not spread because in my opinion, it has no place to develop at all. There is no reason for this. End quote. Why then had it spread? The reporter says because it can be heard now all the time on the radio. And he interviews two of Recede Gimbel's star presenters, Shosh Athari and especially Tony Fine, who had moved to Israel from England just before Rashed Gimel started up. He was what the socialist daily Alhamishmar called a disc man in England. A record collector, I presume. And as part of the agreement he reached with Drora Ben Avi when she hired him, Tony fine put his 35,000 records music collection at the service of Rashed Gimel and continued to use his connections to get new records only days after they came out in England or the US And Tony Fine, who back then still hadn't picked up Hebrew, told the reporter, any kind of music, no
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matter where its origins, has to be
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given to the public. The public have to learn about, to
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be educated and in time hope to love it as well.
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Even in Israel, in a country like this, of course.
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Why? Why not?
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Why not?
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Everywhere there's a market for music, no matter what. The country music has no borders, which
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blithe acceptance of punk, even in Israel, in a country like this, horrified many of the viewers of the evening news. But that was Rashed Gimel, and young people responded to it, which of course, was exactly what many viewers of the evening news worried about most. There are a number of scholarly studies comparing Reced Gimel to the army radio station Galetzahal, finding that Galetzahal, which in response the Voice of Peace, had also started playing the kind of music you might hear on the radio in London or in la, was careful to play mostly the stuff they thought of as classy FM ish sort of rock. You'd hear Bob Dylan and Dire Straits, but you would not get rap and punk and stuff that had the street in it. What's more, these scholarly studies find Gale was the station that the Ashkenazim listened to. It was beloved in North Tel Aviv, where I live, while Reshed Gimel had its biggest fans in Dimona and Yeruh and Shlomi and Maalot development towns in what we call the periphery. Which did not mean that Rashed Gimel played Mizrahi music, the stuff with roots reaching back to Iraq or Yemen or Egypt or Morocco. There are reports of a programming meeting of Reshed Gimel where a decision was taken to not play ever at any time, anything by Ahuva Ozeri, the great daughter of parents from Yemen who started out as a kid singing at Chaflut and at weddings, and who performed and wrote so much brilliant music that in exactly the years that Rashed Gimel most thrived, became the foundation of a revolution in Mizrahi music, a revolution that soon captured the attention of kids and their parents too, and most of all in development towns where Reshied Gimel was most popular, towns whose residents were almost only Mizrahim. The National Archives has a file of papers documenting how Yitzhak Navon, Israel's fifth president and its first Sephardi or Mizrahi president and the only president to turn down a second term in that lofty office in favor of becoming Minister of Education and Culture, how Yitzhak Navon took it on himself as Minister of Education and Culture to get Rashed Gimel to play Mizrahi music. Quote, a pluralist society like ours must give expression on its national broadcast network to differing musical tastes as long as they are of the appropriate level of quality. End quote, he wrote to the station. Despite all the criticism of Reced Gimel, some justified and some not the station shook something loose in the country. Rami Fortas is friends with Micha, who runs the Hummus place, Miha's place up the block where our boy worked for a time. And on a lot of afternoons you can see him hanging out there, eating hummus, talking affably to the people who stopped by his table to say that his music on Reshed Gimel changed their life. And the idea that there might be something wrong with singing punk in Hebrew. It's hard to remember today how there was ever a yesterday when that made any sense at all. When the Stones came to perform in the park, Rami Fortas was their opening act, and he was brilliant. And when he said from the stage that opening for the Rolling Stones was the happiest moment of his life, you believed him. And none of it. Not Fortis, not the Stones, not the pounding guitars, not the loud, loud, loud volume, not the pot you smelled in the crowd. None of it seemed anything but wholesome. Even in Israel, in a country like this, Rashed Gimel and the Voice of Peace were together. A revolution here. Without them, of course, we would not have seen here in Tel Aviv, Elton John and Tina Turner and Michael Jackson and Madonna and Metallica and Guns N Roses and Aerosmith and REM and Radiohead and Iron Maiden and Stevie Wonder and David Bowie and U2 and Patti Smith and Megan Death and 50 Cent and Black Eyed Peas and Blondie and The Stranglers and McCartney and Rihanna and Ozzy Osbourne and Linkin park and Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Stones and the Chemical Brothers and Queen and Fat Boy Slim and Nick Cave and Bon Jovi and Kanye west and the Pixies and Bruno Mars and all the rest. More to the point, without Rashed Gimel and the Voice of Peace, we might have stayed fearful of the world, of the influence of everything, worried that we might stray from the proper path and direct directions that Israeli and Jewish youth ought not to go. By 1977, reced Gimel had done this thing, had authored this revolution. This 1997 was three years after Dana International would become the first trans woman to win the Eurovision Song Contest, making us a place that alarmed the protectors of culture in other places, making us a place that they would worry about. About, because maybe we would debauch their youth and making our music something that kids around the world would look to as a soundtrack for their rebellions against their parents and as a foundation for whatever sort of liberation they were looking for. It was in 1997 that a decision was taken to switch Rashed Gimel over to an all Israeli music format, broadcasting only songs made here. The decision was formalized the next year when the Knesset passed the quote unquote law for encourag songs in the Hebrew language. Rashed Gimel now plays every imaginable sort of song, every genre. Mediterranean, pop, rap, rock, metal, house, country, r&b, edm, trap, indie, funk, jazz, folk, neo soul, punk, new wave, no wave, reggae only. All of it is now from here, which is a further legacy of the revolution that started 50 years ago, first with the Voice of Peace and then with Rashed Gimel. And it does not need to be said that peace has eluded us over all these 50 years. But we are far closer to the world now than we were 50 years ago, and we are far more besotted by the world, in love with the world, and we are also far more of the world. When peace does come, as it will, these things too will be part of why it did. Today. Two discussions. The first we are calling and the winner is as a new poll done by the eggheads at the Hebrew University finds that 12 out of every 13 of US Israelis, 92.1% believe that Iran, quote unquote, won the war against Israel in the US shocking. Interestingly, 13 out of every 14 Netanyahu supporters, or 93.1% think this as well. The poll found other stuff that surprised me, which we will discuss while asking ourselves, does it make sense to say that Iran won the war? And our second discussion, we are calling, you say? Yes, with apologies to the Beatles. As Israeli director in quote unquote self imposed exile in France, Nadav Lapid, whom the Times call the most internationally acclaimed Israeli filmmaker in recent memory and perhaps ever, was recently bdsedly bounced from the program of the Marseille International Film Festival on account of taking money for his last movie and all his earlier movies too, I think, from the Israel Film Fund, which takes money from the Israeli government, which sentence is a garland of ironies, given that Nadav Lapid thinks and says and portrays in his movies lots of things about Israel that you would have been likely to hear in the tent encampment on East Butler Lawn at Columbia. But which garland of irony sentence is still going strong, Not a period in sight as I go on and on. And we took this opportunity to watch Nadav Lapid's celebrated and reviled most recent movie, yes, it is called, about Israeli apathy towards the death and destruction in Gaza, and a lot of other things too, which we will discuss as our first installment of a new feature on the podcast in which we will every so often talk about a movie that matters, for which we will be joined by Hannah Brown, the novelist, film critic for the Jerusalem Post, whom I will introduce when she joins us later in the show. And now I have reached the end of this sentence period. 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 talk about the New York Democratic primaries this week. Or should I say the Democratic Socialist primaries, in which three candidates endorsed by Mayor Zoran Mamdani, grad student Darializa Avila, Chevalier or Chevalier, I don't know quite how you pronounce it, Claire Valdez and Brad Lander all won in districts that always select the Democratic candidate, meaning that these three are on their way to Congress. And one of the foundational beliefs shared by all three candidates is that Zionism's gotta go and Israel's gotta be diminished. At the very least, friends from not just New York are posting with some fear and despair and we will talk about what it all looks like from 9,136km away. But before we get to any of that, please listen closely to this. This song is Zeh Haya by Ayala Asheroff, whose beautiful, moving, utterly remarkable record called Hazman Hazeh, a collaboration between Asharaf and Yoshua Sobel, the great 86 year old playwright prophet, will come out this upcoming week on July 1st. And you have just got to listen to it. We will hear songs from the forthcoming record over the course of the show. And now it's time for our first discussion. So Linda, some poll the Hebrew University made, right?
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Yeah, quite a poll. And as you said that, you know, the poll, which was the Hebrew University working with the Agam Lab's polling operation, found recently that 92.1% of Israelis believe that Iran won its recent war with Israel and the United States. And even more interesting, people who support the right wing coalition headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu were even more likely than people who don't to believe that Iran came out on top in the war. 93.1% of right wingers, what's more, 82.9% of the 3,644 people polled, which is actually a big number as a representative sample of Israel's population, can be as small as 700 odd people, said that the war diminished Israel's long term security 86% saw the outcome of the war and the memorandum of understanding signed by the Americans and Iranians in a neg light, 87.8% of Israelis polled said that the country had achieved none or only some of its goals in starting the war. Also, 72.5% of those polled said they did not believe the prime minister's assertions that Israel had gained from the war and removed an existential threat of an eventual Iranian nuclear attack. 56.4% said that Prime Minister Netanyahu's prosecution of the war was poor or failed, 17.1% said it was OK, and 26.5% said the prime minister's performance in the war was good or excellent. Overall, according to the poll, just under 30% of those asked said that they now supported Prime Minister Netanyahu, down from just over 40% three months ago. Maybe there was some comfort for the prime minister in the fact that just under 70% of the Israelis polled thought that US President Donald Trump did a poor job or failed outright managing the war, and only 10.8% said that he'd done a good or excellent job. Finally, asked if Israel's wars against Hamas and Hezbollah had achieved the total victory promised by Prime Minister Netanyahu, 12.2% said we mostly had, while 61.3% said we had not achieved our goals at all, and 26.5% said we achieved some of our goals. Noah, what do you make of the fact that 11 out of 12 Israelis said they thought that Iran won? Our recent for context, remember that only 4 out of 5 dentists prefer sugar free gum for their patients who chew gum, making the 11 out of 12 figures seem just that much starker. Noah, what does it all mean?
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I've always been skeptical of that 4 out of 5 dentists figure also for their patients who chew gum is quite a qualifier as well. Presumably a lot of those dentists think you shouldn't be chewing gum at all. But I digress, because I don't know what it means to say that Iran won this war. To me, that sounds, that sounds nuts to Iran was pummeled. A lot of Iran's productive capacity, you know, factories that make weapons were destroyed. All of its leadership was killed. It just doesn't. It just I don't know what the word one could mean exactly in this context. That I also couldn't say that Israel and the United States won the war. And I know it sounds a little woo woo and flower powery, but it does sort of remind you that the very notion of Winning a war outside of a movie, outside of Star wars is just a little bit of the wrong kind of category to apply to this. Rather you should be saying, okay, where were we before and where were we after? And I think that that also a little bit applies to the question of how well was the war carried out. What people are responding to in this poll, which was taken just this past week, is the fact that we, all of us feel, I think most everyone feels as though the way that Donald Trump just with a wave of the hand, gave in about very, very important matters at the very start of negotiations with Iran, saying, instance, that sure, they could have ballistic missiles because, you know, everyone deserves to have some ballistic missiles and making it seem as though he very, very likely was going to concede a lot about the nuclear stuff, about holding on to the enriched uranium or holding onto it in a form that it can be re enriched quickly. So that's what people are responding to. And it does feel, it does feel terrible. Plus the fact that Iran and the United States are right now in the process of speaking about what needs to happen in Lebanon, with the United States assuring Iran that whatever agreement the two of them come to the United States will foist upon successfully Israel, which is a really terrible, terrible outcome for Israel. That's what people are referring to. Does this mean that Iran won the war? I don't see how it could mean that. I don't think that it means that Prime Minister Netanyahu carried out the war in a bad way either, or that the IDF did. I think that there were a lot of things that seemed successful that will have a long term impact. And I just think that what happened is because we know that we have this very quixotic, unpredictable United States president with a short attention span and a borderline indecipherable sense of what his country's interests are because of that it turned out to be bad for Israel. Should we have known not should Prime Minister Netanyahu have known not to start this war? I don't see how, I don't see why. I think that his decision makes sense. I think it was probably the right decision with a terrible, terrible outcome. What do you think, Linda?
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I'm not sure that I agree with you. I think Iran did win this war and I think that Israel didn't really achieve any of the goals that Netanyahu kept repeating, regime change.
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What do you mean when you say that specifically? Just so I understand.
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B
I think what I mean, first of all, the whole way it was set up, Iran the fact that there was no regime change. The fact that it seems like. And again, part. I do agree with you that we don't really know because there's still so little information coming out of Iran. But it seems that Iran basically gets the ballistic missiles, gets the nuclear program to some extent, you know, gets lots and lots and lots of money that it can then use to fund Hezbollah and whoever it wants. And that I think it, you know, Iran comes out looking strong and the US And Israel come out looking weak, even though I do agree with you that we don't really know the extent of the damage. But at least the sense that I get now is that it's Iran dictating the terms and that Trump just so wants to be done with this whole thing. He's. He's done. He's had it. He. His attention span, he's gone. And that it's caused these deep rifts in the U. S. Israel relationship. I mean, some of the stuff we've read about, cursing and all kinds of things. What we're gonna talk about later in the Patreon, the Democratic Party moving away from Israel and the sense that Israel was never a partisan issue. All of a sudden, Israel's a partisan issue. And I think that Iran comes out looking much better than Israel does. The fact that Israel's not even a party to these current talks going on when Israel is presumably the target of any Iranian nuclear attack back. And the fact that apparently, you know, there's pressure on Israel to withdraw from at least part of South Lebanon, and there's a linkage between the Lebanese issue and the Iranian issue. I don't know. It seems to me like Iran's the one dictating the terms here and that Israel's being completely sidelined.
- [45:25]
A
Yeah, I don't know if we really disagree about anything that is more important than just what the meaning of the phrase won the war is, which really is not very important at all. But because I certainly agree with your evaluation of where we stand now, which is just in a really, really lousy place. As a thought experiment, though, if you imagine that Iran before, without being attacked by Israel and the United States had made the decision to close the Strait of Hormuz sometime, you know, last month or the month before that, I sort of. I would imagine that it would have achieved the same results. I think that all. All it took was Iran. Iran damaging the world economy and threatening to raise or succeeding in raising gas prices in the United States before a midterm election. That's all it took. And the bombing that came before that, I don't even. I don't know what role it played. And the outcome of the bombing that came before that seems to have all been in Israel's interest in destroying the factories that will now be rebuilt with the $300 billion that the United States has promised Iran, if that's ever delivered. The destroying of those factories was definitely good for Israel. The further degrading of Iran's military in such a way that instead of it taking a year or two to rebuild, maybe it will take five years to rebuild. That's also a good thing. So it just seems like Iran realizing that it could flex this thing that it had, closing the Straits of Hormuz and stopping the delivery of, what is it, 30% of the world's oil, 20%. I think it's 20% of the world's oil. Again, in the face of really a very. A very. A very weak American president, I think that that's what happened. And I don't even know if it had anything really deeply to do with the war, though. What do you think?
- [47:38]
B
Again, I'm not sure, because I think that, first of all, now they're talking about charging to go through the Strait of Hormuz, and $300 billion can build a lot of military factories, and President Trump says they're gonna use the money for American food, for corn and oil and soybeans, and we'll see. And I do think that. I think that before this war, after the last war with Iran, there was a sense that there was almost this kind of standoff, right? That Iran and Israel each recognized that the other one has a very strong military and a strong option, and that there was a certain amount of deterrence. And now I just think that the sense, at least in the United States, is that, you know, Israel dragged the United States into this. Israel is responsible for the economic damage that was done to the United States, and that Iran can basically, you know, they could close the Straits again tomorrow, and they're remaining in charge of the Straits of Hormuz. They can rebuild. They can have their ballistic missile capability. And at least the preliminary things that I've seen, based on the Memorandum of Understanding that they're supposedly negotiating now, is it doesn't seem much better than the original 2015 nuclear deal that Netanyahu convinced the United States to pull out of, saying how terrible it was. And this one seems even worse, at least. Again, we don't know any of the details, so I think this is pretty bad.
- [49:18]
C
Sorry.
- [49:20]
A
Now, listen to this.
- [50:33]
C
My lips.
- [50:47]
A
That stunning song is El Male by Ayala Ashurov, words by Yoshua Sobel. And now it is time for our second discussion for which we will be joined and we are so, so delighted. By Hannah Brown Hannah Brown is the movie and TV critic for the Jerusalem Post, where she also writes more generally about culture. She was in her storied past, movie critic at the New York Post. You've seen her essays in the New York Times, Newsweek, the Daily Beast, and many other such top shelf publications. Her novel, if I Could Tell youl is about families raising children who are on the autism spectrum. As I know I do not need to tell you as it is so obvious. Hannah brown in gematria is 320, the precise numerical value of the phrase im dea nijona possessed of proper opinions. So QED about that. Plus, I have known Hannah ever since we were both undergrads at Swarthmore and she was brilliant and beautiful and full of promise back then and she's brilliant and beautiful and full of accomplishment and promise now. Hannah, welcome. How you doing?
- [51:53]
C
Oh, I'm doing good. I mean this is fun. So thank you.
- [51:57]
A
It's great that you're here. So we are calling this discussion you say yes, with apologies to the Beatles. And here is why Acclaimed film critic Jim Hoberman said of director Nadav Lapid that he is, quote, the most internationally acclaimed Israeli filmmaker in recent memory and perhaps ever. Which is maybe why it came as a shock to some of us when Nadav Lapid announced the week before last that he was withdrawing his movie yes, from the Marseille International Film Festival after organizers of the festival were condemned for inviting an Israeli director to screen a film paid for in part by the Israel Film Fund, which gets most of its money from the Israeli government, which condemnations came as a shock to some of us given that Nadav Lapid lives in Paris in what he calls self imposed exile from Israel. A pilot place, he told journalists, quote, is in a state of permanent fascistization, which ostensible fascistization, say that word five times fast, is at the heart of his movies. And Nadav Lapid has been attacked by Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport Mickey Zohar for quote, taking many millions from the state of Israel, which he takes every opportunity to slander, end quote. One might have thought that pro Palestinians and anti Israelis would embrace Nadav Lapid as a fellow Traveler. But the Turkish 10 filmmakers who pulled their movies from the Marseille festival and the many, many others who phoned and wrote to express their outrage at Lapid's inclusion did not see things that way. They argued, among other things, that, quote, placing Palestinian and Israeli narratives side by side in the same representational space as if they were strictly equivalent erases the power dynamics, the history and the material conditions from which these narratives emerge. This juxtaposition asserts a FR false equality of position, end quote. Which is like semiotics, 101 people. The point is kind of generic. It would apply to any Israeli quote, unquote narrative. In response, 350 film sorts, including Natalie Portman, the patron saint of this podcast, published an open letter in Le Monde criticizing, quote, the fact that Israel's most prominent dissident artist, who has tirelessly worked to condemn the fascist and colonialist drifts of his government and its criminal moral failings through films that have won awards worldwide, was compelled to withdraw from a French festival. End quote. And the writers of the letter urged the festival organizers to urge Nadav Lapid to reconsider his withdrawal. All of which made me, for one, eager to see Nadav Lapid's acclaimed and reviled most recent movie, yes, about Israelis reaction to October 7 Grosso Mondo, filmed in Israel after October 7, the precis of the movie given by the folks at the Jerusalem Film Festival where the movie premiered. Is this Israel in the aftermath of October 7th, why a jazz musician struggling to make ends meet and his wife Jasmine, a dancer, sell their art, souls and bodies to the elite and bring pleasure and consolation to a bleeding nation. Soon y is given a mission of the highest importance, setting to music a new national anthem, end quote. Which is maybe the broadest description that you could give for this two and a half hour movie. The film has been reviewed every everywhere, mostly with admiration, although always with gentle confusion. Ask me and I'll tell you that the best review, most soulful and most insightful, is the one that you, Hannah, wrote in the Jerusalem Post right after the premiere, in which you characterize the theme of the film, writing that it, quote, eviscerates what its creator sees as widespread complacency about the war and intolerable government propaganda justifying it. End quote. And which review? You end with an appreciation of Nadav Lapid, writing that he, quote, may be a pretentious self loath auteur, but he is our pretentious self loathing auteur. So Hannah, I have got so many questions about this movie. Like what did it mean? Like, like what was a plot? Like, what happened about how we ought to understand it on its own terms, how we ought to understand it in the broader context of Nadav Lapid being canceled in some of the cinematic circles he frequents, even as he is being championed in other of the cinematic circles that he frequents. But let's start with. You left the screening of yes at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, clearly with some ambivalence about the film. What made you feel this way about the film and what made you feel that way about the film?
- [56:39]
C
Well, I mean, I think that Ndavlapid is. I mean, he's a talented director. He knows what he's doing. And I certainly wouldn't say that about everyone whose movies I see. I take him seriously. I've seen all his movies. I haven't liked any of them. So I. This was. I mean, this was not a surprise for me that. That I ended up feeling the way I did. But so, you know, that aside that. That he's got good technical skills, that the visuals are good, that he works with good actors, you know, I think it's. It's hard to appreciate a movie by a director who so clearly has contempt for. For you. And I don't mean just me, although
- [57:25]
A
I think specifically for you, probably.
- [57:27]
C
Well, he may have some contempt for me personally, because I've given him a lot of bad reviews, but for all Israelis. So I think that he's kind of setting up a picture of Israel where it's kind of where everybody, every sort of strata of society, is shown to be kind of rotten. And it starts out with this long sequence at a party which I think you could describe. It's a Dionysian party where it's just complete hedonism and models dancing around and the upper class of Tel Aviv and high society and government officials and soldiers singing Love Me Tender and, you know, business people and all those types. And it just shows that they're all really vile and disgusting and selfish. And then you see, you meet Y. And, yes, mean the party clowns and they're literally prostitutes, you know, and you see them servicing an older woman and you see nude shots of, you know, elderly people from not their most flattering angle and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And it turns out he's a jazz musician, but, you know, they have to prostitute themselves because he can't make a living. Which, you know, this is sort of an aside, but I mean, jazz musicians can't really make a living anywhere in the world. So I don't think that that's specific to Tel Aviv, but I think for Nidavlapid, that is a sign that Tel Aviv is vile. And then later, this scene shifts and y goes to meet up with an old girlfriend of his, Leah, who who kind of in this robotic way just keeps reciting these stories about the. The Hamas massacre. Like she's trying to sort of, I don't know, like, goad herself into supporting the government. It wasn't totally clear to me, but there was one moment that was really sort of took me out of the movie and bothered me was when this character, his old girlfriend, who's incidentally is played with by the director's wife. And it's sort of a funny thing. But anyway, she tells the story of a family that sounds just like the Tassa family from Nativa Sera. And that was the family where the father was killed in front of the sons. And that really horrifying video clip from that was shown very widely of the sons reacting. And then the older son of the family was off. He was on the beach at the time, and he was killed on the beach separately. And it's just such a tragic story. And I just, you know, I listened to it and I thought, are we supposed to laugh about it or we supposed to think that she's disgusting because she cares about it? And I guess I've seen the mother interviewed and to me she's a real person. And it's not just some kind of government propaganda to make me, you know, support brutality or something. It's a real, you know, it's the story of an actual family. And that made me feel that. I think the developed has become so remote from his Israel that he doesn't have any compassion for what this family or for what anyone went through in Israel on October 7 or at any other time, really. And I don't think that that's a problem, you know, that the fact that he doesn't really identify as Israeli or, you know, feel solidarity with Israelis, it's not really the issue for me, but that he doesn't have human compassion for. For them, you know. And then I feel that the movie, the most effective issue that it dealt with for, from my point of view was bringing up the idea that we. We hear on the. Through the media that, that, you know, people have been killed in Gaza, you know, hundreds of people or, you know, about casualties in Gaza. And then we just go on with our lives. And I think that that's kind of an interesting question to explore because we do live like that to a certain extent. But I feel that there's just such a kind of. I would say it's kind of almost a vicious disregard for the actual lives of people in Israel that I think he kind of alienates people. And then that shuts down any real discourse on the topic of having compassion for people and God, Gaza. And what I wanted to say is it reminds me a little bit his attitude of kind of climate change activists who say the world is going to end in five years or the world's going to become unlivable because of your disgusting lifestyle. And you say, well, okay, I'm going to get an electric car, or I sold my car and I'm taking public transportation and I don't buy plastics anymore. And they say, well, you're just still disgusting because you should have changed your habits 30 years ago, and you just have no way out. And so I think he's saying that being Israeli, you're just such a corrupt, disgusting human that there's no way for you to be legitimate in any way. And I think that he's finding out that the rest of the world thinks that about him, too, that he's an Israeli. And you know this joke that's making the rounds about two Jews going to a bar, one is Zionist and one is anti Zionist, and the bartender says, we don't serve Jews, you know, So I think that that's kind of that joke is very applicable to Lapid right now.
- [63:30]
A
So, Linda? Well, one thing that I felt about the movie is that it made me so happy to not be rich. I had never realized what a smart choice I had made by never, ever, ever making any, any money in life. But, Linda, because I know the issue that seems to be one of the central issues that Nadav Lapid is interested in and upset about, which is what he takes to be the utter lack of Israeli empathy for the death and destruction in Gaza is an issue that is also, I know, very important to you, and you have been talking about it on this podcast, really, since just after October 7th. What did you think of that statement in the movie? And then what did you think more generally about the movie?
- [64:15]
B
So I think that statement is actually something interesting and important to think about. And I think that, you know, when you're in the midst of being, you know, when you're under fire, it's very hard to feel sympathy for the attackers. And I think that all of us are still living in a world that's not that far after October 7th, even though it's almost three years now since October 7th. And that's kind of hard to fathom. And that, you know, I mean, for me, it's also somewhat personal. My son is about to start yet Another round of miloim in Gaza on Sunday.
- [64:52]
A
I'm sorry.
- [64:53]
B
Yeah, me too. And he said something interesting. He said to me, you know, this whole thing of, you know, your country needs you is getting old very fast. And so I think that this is affecting all of us at the same time. 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza. Again, 73,000. And if you believe, as I think we all do, that nobody's going anywhere, the Israelis aren't going anywhere and the Palestinians aren't going anywhere, which means that eventually we'll have to come to some sort of a deal, although it seems very hard now. So how. How do you deal with this and how do you have compassion for a side that you think?
- [65:36]
A
So I sense you appreciate the movie.
- [65:39]
B
You appreciate in that sense. Yes, I did appreciate the movie as a movie. I mean, it's very visually arresting. I was like, oh, this is cool. And then I was like, what are they doing? I was a little uncomfortable with some of the erotic scenes, I have to say. Um, but I also. And I.
- [66:00]
A
One could say, just like this movie turned me off, rich people have turned me off, sex forever. Never, never, never again.
- [66:06]
B
Yeah, it was a little. I was like, oh, wow, really? And I was like, am I misunderstanding this? Or, you know, I'm like, you know, as a journalist, I'm a little bit literal as well. You know, you. You report what you see. I'm like, what are they doing? And yet it was also, I kind. I did think there were a few very sweet scenes of the two of them with their baby, when they're dancing together with the baby and when he has the baby on a scooter, you know, and as they. And he's sort of narrating life in Tel Aviv to the baby and he says, you know, another soldier, another. This. I don't know. I. I found something very sweet in that part, but I. I did find the movie confusing. I think it also. The whole issue of boycotts, I think, is very problematic. In other words.
- [66:50]
A
Well, let's hold on. Let's just talk about the movie for one. One more second. And Hannah, I'm interested. For me, this was an odd circumstance of a movie that I felt as though I understood in a completely different way. Really, in the last two minutes, I felt as though only at the very end of this 150 minute long movie did I feel as though I understood what he's talking about. And that is when. When he shows a video that ostensibly the main character, Y is writing the music for a very kind of triumphalist very far right wing nationalist anthem that's going to go along with a video that's being funded by an oligarch who hires wai. And the lyrics are horrific, are horrifying the whole way through. And he's working out music for it. And then at the end, end, he shows a video which only in the last frame he reveals to have been a real video produced by real Israelis with real kids who used to live right outside of Gaza before October 7, whose homes were attacked, some of them were destroyed, and they're singing these really horrific words that are based on a song from the War of Independence with lyrics written by Chaim Go Gory and set to music, I think, by Sasha Argov, if I'm not mistaken, way back when. And so for me, this was like, very, very jarring to really have to face up to the fact that this is not like some crazy satire that he's made up with these awful, awful, you know, bloodlusty kind of lyrics. This is, he, this probably was his starting point in the movie, was seeing this video and saying, saying, oh, my God, this, this video captures something fundamental and important about Israeli culture at this moment. Which statement, if he, if that's what he thought, I would not agree with, but it was jarring. What do you make of that and what should we make of it?
- [69:01]
C
Well, you know, I read that he, he had the movie, he had the script for a movie about Yasmin being these sort of party clowns, these toys of the rich in tel Aviv before October 7th. And then after October 7th, he rewrote it to add in all the content about the war. And so, you know, so I saw it more as sort of two movies being sandwiched together. And I think, yeah, that, that, that, that was the most jarring and affecting moment in it when you see that the real, the real choir of kids singing this, this, you know, horrific, these terrible lyrics, you know, and, you know, I don't want to excuse any words that they say in that song, but, you know, I don't. It doesn't surprise me though, that, that there were people who felt like that right after October 7th. I don't think it should surprise anyone, really. And as we see every two hours, it seems there's another poll with the elections. And I would have thought after October 7th that the extreme right parties would go way, way up. I think they gained a couple of seats, but their balance really hasn't shifted. And so, you know, all things considered, it could have been a worse outcome.
- [70:29]
B
Can I just ask Both of you, a quick question about this. What do you make of the fact that he doesn't have a name, the protagonist, that he's just Y. While his wife.
- [70:39]
C
A lot of these, like, artsy movies have stuff like that. And, you know, so that sort of. And he sort of. Most of his movies, he's kind of. He seems to me to be imitated kind of late. Jean Godard, French New Wave. After the New Wave ended, kind of where Godard just sort of walks around in rants with a, you know, speaking English with a French accent or, you know, French with a Swiss accent. I don't know. Anyway, but so there's that, you know, and it's also, you know, you talked about the visuals before, and Joan Didion was not a fan of Fellini, and she said that he had a stunning visual intelligence but a numbingly banal view of the human condition. And I think that that would go for nidavlapid, too. And people who have that stunning visual intelligence do really well in film school. He went to Sam Spiegel, and they make these really stylish short films. They win a lot of prizes and they go on and have careers. So
- [71:43]
A
I really disliked the sound design. I felt like I was being assaulted by the sound. And there was an irony in this movie about a musician that it was so vigorously assaultive on your ears. But. So, Linda, to go back to the last question that you asked before, what should we make of the controversy of the BDSing? Is it like the. Like the two people in the bar? Is it just like, in the end, if you are in it, if by accident of birth, you are an Israeli, then you're just an Israeli in the eyes of the world?
- [72:23]
B
I think so. And in a lot of the world, if you're Jewish, you're also just like an Israeli. I think that BDS before October 7th was kind of a marginal movement. It was certainly there, and they tried to. But it didn't really gain traction. And since October 7th, I think that BDS has really gained traction. And the fact that somebody like Nadav Lapid is being canceled or is, I think, is really problematic. And I think, how far do you go and where do you go in this? And sort of there are people who say, so you're going to stop using your computer, because so much of computer technology is really came up with the USB and came up with all kinds of things, and you're not going to get sick and you're not going to go to a hospital, and you're not going to, But I think that it shows me something about the fact that I think if you start canceling people like Nadav Lapid, who, whether or not you agree with him, I think offers a very challenging portrayal of Israel. Israel, you're going to end up having just a one dimensional idea. And I think that's what's kind of spreading in the world, is that anything having to do with Israel is automatically bad.
- [73:42]
A
Well, this theoretical stuff that you can't place Israeli and Palestinian narratives side by side in the same representational space is particularly confounding and depressing for me because, like, what essentially they're saying, saying is we are utterly unwilling to listen to an Israeli side of the story or to accept that there is an Israeli side of a story that has any legitimacy at all. So how do you move forward from there?
- [74:12]
C
Well, I just wanted to say something else about the BDS movement that I think it's very little discussed, but they also boycott, you know, Arab film filmmakers in Israel, if they have Israeli citizenship, if they took money from the film funds. I think in each case there's kind of a different reason given. But these people, you know, the, the Arab filmmaking community is very disheartened, you know, and a lot of pretty much. Well, there have been a couple of, you know, Palestinian filmmakers here who have chosen not to take money from the film film funds, but most of them have because it's just not so easy to get a film fund. And, you know, and they're being completely pushed out of the discussion and they're, you know, we've got Jewish and Israeli film festivals all over the world in like every city in North America practically. There aren't very many. I don't think there are any film festivals for, you know, Arab filmmakers who are considered too Israeli to be in the other film film festivals, you know, so they don't have any place to tell their stories.
- [75:22]
A
Okay, people, if you have two and a half hours you can find on Amazon or on Apple, you can find this movie. If you've tired of sticking yourself with a red hot fireplace poker, then this might be the next best thing to do. Now listen to this. That song is Akhare Moti by Ayala Asheraf. Two Words by Yoshua Sobel offers spectacular new record Hazman Haze, which you will be able to find and should find in all the usual places starting on July 1st. And now it is time for our what a Country segment, for which, by the way, we have prevailed upon Hannah to stay and what a Country with us. This is the part of the show in which each of us describes something that may have surprised or amused, delighted or enchanted and sorceled or possibly even fluged us as we wended our way through our worlds over the last little while. So, Hannah, what is your what a Country.
- [77:47]
C
So my what a Country is is about Yaakov Agam, the Israeli artist who died on Sunday. Now, they say that one picture is worth a thousand words, but I think that a sculpture, if it's one by Yaakov Agam is worth much more. And he was a pioneer of what I now know is considered the kinetic art movement. And he was really celebrated all around the world. And he died at the age of 19. And I was really aware of his work from these very prominent sculptures in Tel Aviv. And everyone knows him. The facade at the Down Hotel that you see from the beach, and the fire and water sculpture at Dizzingoff Square, and they both have this kind of rainbow spectrum of colors. And the fire and water sculpture actually moves. But the Down Hotel, how he seems to move when you look at it. And I have a son on the autism spectrum. And he's really always been fascinated by the Dan Hotel facade when he's at the beach and he looks up at it and he calls it. He's always called it the Rainbow Building. And I think that, you know, part of why he likes to go to Tel Aviv is because he knows he's going to see it. And I think it's kind of for our family, it's come to kind of exemplify the whole kind of spirit of Tel Aviv, that it's colorful and it's exciting and it's fun. And I just feel that, you know, Agam's work is so accessible that, you know, even my son, when he was, you know, four or five, really noticed it. And I just think that that's a great thing when art sort of stops you in your tracks, and it works for people who don't even know know that it's supposed to be anything special. So I started reading and I read about how, you know, Agam was really better known even outside of Israel than in Israel with, you know, shows in the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Amsterdam, Paris, you know, the Pompidou Center. Many honors from many places around the world. But then I kind of also was struggling by just the story of his life. And I felt that it kind of confirmed something that I felt a lot, that pretty much all Israelis of his generation have had kind of extraordinary lives. And, you know, he was born in Rishon Litzion, and, you know, to a religious family, and he got this kind of religious education. And he talked a lot about how Judaism was integral to his art. And he said that in his art, his art is open and it changes and brings you closer to seeing the reality of Hebrew and Judaism, which I thought was sort of interesting because, you know, I just wouldn't have. I wouldn't have thought that he had this kind of a background just from seeing it. And then in the 1940s, he was actually under the British. He was arrested on one of their crackdowns in the Jewish community. And he was held in the Latrone Detention Center. And he said that he hadn't belonged to any underground movement, but he was arrested. And I think that it's an interesting detail because, you know, he was held in this center and it turned out to be for not that long. But he didn't know that in the beginning he had been held captive. And then, you know, his art is so open and so expressive. So I just. I thought that that was just a really sort of interesting footnote to his whole story. And I think that whatever else his legacy is, for me and my son, that Rainbow Building in Tel Aviv will always be important. And it's interesting because also, about 20 years after my son first saw it, he started to create his own art, very brightly colored. And he mainly draws ceiling fans. He loves to watch them spin, and he draws them in brilliant colors. And I always wonder now if he thinks about Agam's sculptures when he draws. And he can tell me what he likes, but he can't really tell me why. And so I don't know if that's really on his mind. But, you know, I just. I think it's interesting that that, you know, that Agam was an artist who really saw that the world was always in flux and that his work spoke so deeply to my son and obviously to so many other people in Israel and around the world.
- [82:24]
A
Oh, that is beautiful. Thank you. Linda, what is your. What a country.
- [82:30]
B
Well, I just came back this week from almost two weeks in Northern Italy, which is a very beautiful place. And we started the trip with a few days in Milan, where I had actually never been before. And one of the things that Milan has, along with the Duomo and all kinds of other stuff in the Last Supper is one of six around the world, the Starbucks roasters, where they actually roast the coffee beans. And there are six, including in Japan. I've been to the one in New York. And now I said, okay, I want to see the one in Milan. And it's huge, first of all. And like, you have to wait online to get in. And in terms of marketing, you know, it's quite a successful attempt at marketing. First, this place is like three stories high and it's everything coffee. And they have spin special coffees that you can. And all kinds of things that you can only get in the roastery. And they have tote bags and T shirts and all kinds of things. And in the main floor, there's a long winding bar with bar stools. So I guess so you won't sit too long with your coffee. It's different than the Starbucks in the States where people come with their computers. There's no place to bring a computer there just to drink €9 coffee and to buy stuff. But anyway, we walk in and there was this long bar and that goes around the machine that actually roasts the coffee. And there were two empty seats at the bar next to a guy about our age with sort of a grizzled white. Grizzled face and a white buzz cut. And we sit down and he turns to us and says, my wife went to the art museum around the corner, but I just couldn't handle another museum, so I came here for coffee and cake and. And of course I said, I already had my suspicions, but I said, where are you from? And he kind of hesitated and looked at me sideways as if, can I say? And then said, israel? And I said, oh, us too. And we start playing Jewish geography. And he tells us that he's a longtime policeman and that he has a daughter who lives on a small kibbutz in southern Israel that we probably had never heard of.
- [84:43]
A
Oh, no.
- [84:44]
B
So I said, really? And Cliff said, my brother lives on kibbutz Keetura and runs a brewery there. And he said, well, that's where my daughter lives. Does he know Liat? Now, regular listeners of the Promise podcast might think that Kitura is about half the size of China, given the amount that it's spoken about here. But it really is very small. With only about 165 adults plus kids, it's about 400 people on all in, so the chances that we would meet someone whose daughter lives there seems pretty small probability wise. Anyway, of course, within a few minutes, we started talking about October 7th, and I actually learned something new about one of my children that my husband apparently knew. And on the days after October 7, my son came from Hawaii. He left his falafel food truck to serve in the army. And apparently he was actually in Lebanon putting back the cameras, the Israeli cameras that Hezbollah had taken down. And at one point, he bent over a duffel bag to take something out. And as he did, Hezbollah launched rockets, and the shrapnel went directly over his head. And had he been standing up, he probably would have been hit. And at this point, I decided that it was time to go get our coffee. And as I said, said, there are certain things that you can only get at this Starbucks roastery. So I got online to get coffee, and just behind me was a young Arab family, and the woman was wearing a hijab, and they had a beautiful little toddler in a baby carrier with the most beautiful blue eyes that I've ever seen. And she was crying and pointing at something. And the husband says to the wife in Arabic, what does she want? And the wife says, I think she wants one of the cakes. And this has rarely happened to me in Arabic. But without thinking, I said, no, she's pointing at the toy on that guy's backpack in Palestinian Arabic. And they start, like, they looked at me like I was kind of an alien from out of space, outer space. And I said. And then they looked and they saw that I was right. I just had a different angle. Anyway, then they said to me, where are you from? And I kind of looked at them sidewise, and I said, jerusalem. And they said, oh, we're also from Palestine. And I said, where are you from? And they said, taybeh. And I said, the Taybe in the west bank, which is a Christian village that ironically also has a brewery there and makes really good beer. And they said, no, the Tayba in northern Palestine, which I guess means Israel. And I said, oh, next to Umm al Fahm? And they said, yes. And at that point, we had just. We had gotten to the counter, and they were trying to order what in Hebrew is an ice cafe, which is kind of like a frappuccino, but they didn't have that at the Milan Roastery. So I was trying to sort of help them with the menu and said to them, well, the closest thing they have is a milkshake. And at which point the server said to me, oh, are you the grandmother? And I said, no, I'm not the grandmother. We just met. And it just sort of made me think that, you know, usually we talk about six degrees of separation, but in the Starbucks roastery in Milan, there was just one degree of separation.
- [88:07]
A
Oh, that is fantastic. What a story. So the really big story at the city Council meeting a few nights ago was that Amir Badran, who is the head of the Communist joint Jewish Palestinian Hadash Party in Tel Aviv. Yesterday he joined the mayor's coalition and became just the second Palestinian Israeli ever to serve as a deputy mayor here in the city. The first was a famous football soccer player named Rifaiat or Jimmy Torque, who had been the first Arab ever to play on the Israel national soccer team or football team and to represent Israel in the Olympics. And that was almost 30 years ago that he was a deputy mayor of Tel Aviv. And like Refaat Turk, Amir Badran was born and grew up in Yafo, making his name as a lawyer, among other things, fighting evictions of mostly poor, mostly Arab Yafo residents because it was such an historic thing. The gallery on the 12th floor of City hall, just outside where the City Council meets, was filled with people. The head of the National Hadash Party, a member of Knesset named Ayman Odeh, was there, and the heads of all sorts of NGOs and lots of other VIPs, but mostly just lots and lots of folks from IAFO who found in Amir Badran's political ascent inspiration and a real cause for joy. When you walk through the room among all those people, it was just electric. They were so happy for Amir, and Amir himself was so happy and excited and moved. And he was walking around the gallery hugging this person and that. And when he got up to speak, just ahead of the vote that would make him, and also me deputy mayor, he said that he hadn't really prepared in the way that he should have for so momentous a moment. And he said that instead he would just tell us a little of his story. And then he went on very haltingly, picking out his words carefully, and he said, I did not choose Jewish Arab cooperation. It chose me. I was born into this cooperation out of love. Hello.
- [90:36]
C
It's new.
- [90:37]
A
A love story from 1970 of a simple woman named Seema Avraham, who came to the land from Iraq, And a rough hewn orphan who lived up north. The two of them together barely finished the eighth grade. They met in Yafo and they dared to do the impossible. They dared to do a forbidden thing. They married, They started a family, they had three kids. Who lived between two worlds. So building bridges between cultures, that is our specialty. So, my heroic mother, Ima, where are you? Do you hear me? Oh, there she is. So, my Ima, who is my hero, she is here with me always. My father passed away, but I am sure that he would be very proud of what is happening here today. And Amir Badran went on explaining why he knows that it is possible to make the city and the country and the world a kinder, more decent place for everyone. And how he knows that the terrible chasms between people and between peoples, they can be passed you can make brave. He knows this because he saw it in his parents. And he knows this because he sees it every day. And when he was done, the people in the gallery, they stood up and they clapped and clapped and clapped and they hugged one another and the people on the city council stood up and clapped. And it was a reminder for me and maybe for all of us that it does not take any great act of imagination to picture that future that is waiting for all of us. When the peace that today seems impossible possible is just the way things are. And when the Amir Badran's becoming deputy mayor or mayor will no longer seem like a special thing at all. Just the world working the way that we all know the world ought to work. And that brings us to the end of our show. Thanks to Itay Shalom, our station manager, without whom there'd be none of this. Thanks to Ache Bolim, my favorite band from Kibbutz Geva. They gave us some music at the start and the end of our show. Thank you Linda. Thank you Natalie, thank you Hannah. We're looking forward to forward to seeing you again soon. We'd like to thank all of our Patreon supporters for your generosity and support. It keeps the show going and the station going and it keeps us moved and grateful and in your debt. And we'd like to thank all of you out there for taking your valuable time to listen. And we'd like to ask you to like us on Facebook, though he ty disagrees. He thinks Facebook is full of shit and does absolutely nothing. But I like the likes. And then maybe go to Patreon and drop us a line from there. After you do all that, go to Apple Podcasts and give us a five star review. Maybe one. That's certainly if I had just one complaint about the Promise podcast, it'd be that they don't talk enough about Tel Aviv municipal politics. Finish that any way you want. But before you do that, remember that today as we record on June 25, we celebrate global Beatles Day, also known as World Beatles Day, so stipulated on social media way back in 2009 by a fan of the band from Indianapolis named Faith Cohen, who chose the date to mark the anniversary this year, the 59th anniversary of the 1967 television performance on June 25 of the song all you need is Love broadcast by satellite to more than 400 million viewers around the world. That was a lot back then. Now, all these years later, there are so many ways to celebrate Global Beatles Day. In Cuba, they have a Beatles film festival. The Euro news website celebrated the day by posting this morning a hard hitting bit of investigative journal journalism headlined Global Beetles Day. Who was the walrus? Which article ends satisfyingly? Sometimes it's worth not reading into every word. Instead, try basking in the incredibly freeing realization that not everything has layers to peel back. Sometimes it is just a glass onion. Go to the site globalbeatlesday.com and you'll find this advice for how to celebrate the day. Quote Celebrate on your own or with others. Gather at home home, host a song fest, share stories across generations, or simply take time to listen and reflect. Every act, no matter how small, contributes to a global moment of connection. Use the day to spread positivity, promote peace, and create meaningful impact, whether through conversation, creativity, or giving back. End quote and I think you probably already know that I adore Global Beatles Day. Mostly because I'm just glad to see that those four boys finally have gotten some recognition. But also because. Because in my life, anytime at all when I feel like I'm a loser and I'm so tired and it's all too much and I need help, there's something in Beatles music that makes me feel like I am getting better. Still, even though Global Beatles Day is not yet halfway over already, I've got a feeling that it'll soon be gone. Like the 909. Not to be back for a whole nother year though. There's always the one after the 909, but you know that's just not the same. Not so the promised Piece. We will be back for you next week and most every week, reminding you that while sometimes people getting together just to do a thing, make a thing, share a thing, will produce stuff of enduring beauty that brings happiness to so many millions over generation after generation, at other times, all the effort just leads absolutely nowhere. Man on this the Promise Podcast, Sam.