A week or so ago, an unknown young man called me and announced: "We are coming to your house to meet you tonight." Who is "we," I asked, and he mentioned the names of three national religious rabbis. He said they were coming on behalf of Yoni Shtavun and Eli Yishai, and that it was urgent.
And indeed, before I could even open my diary, I found them sitting in our living room. One of the rabbis even came in uniform, in the middle of his reserve duty. They said they had just arrived from a stormy session at the headquarters of the 'Yachad' party.
""The area is burning," they said, "Religious Zionism and the Haredim and the traditionalists are joining forces. This is happening. How can you stand by?" Okay, what should I do, I asked. And they answered together: "You are fourth on the list!".
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Wait, I replied, can we shower and put the kids to bed before that?
Two and a half hours later they left the living room. We talked about politics for exactly one minute ("Thank you very much, really, that's very flattering, but move on"), but about life - we talked a lot. They talked about their feelings over the past two years, as educators of the next generation in religious Zionism, when the Jewish Home and Yesh Atid coalition was in power. About legislative changes, about a brotherhood that, more than anything political, essentially declared that we were closer to the secular than to the Haredim, and most of all they talked about the spirit.
""The point is not just this or that law," said one of them, "the point is that the Torah has been degraded. How can I tell my students to stay in the preparatory school for a few more months and fill themselves with content before the army, if everyone is sending them the message that the status of a Ben Torah student is at the lowest level? If the last government taught us that such a person does not contribute to society at all? It's not just sections of the law, because most of the laws have indeed been stymied.
""This is the discourse. The discourse is that the Torah is being degraded. And without the Torah, what is the Land of Israel worth? We want to say that we do not apologize, first of all in the religious sphere.".
At midnight, after we had also gotten to talking about the disengagement, Rabbi Kook and the media, and after I realized that the rabbi in uniform still had to return to reserve training in the south by five in the morning, the meeting ended (at that time we didn't yet know about Eli Ohana, otherwise we would probably have continued until the morning).
When we parted ways, I told them this: As I said, I'm not going anywhere, but what about you? How come I haven't heard of you until today? Why do only your students inside the Beit Midrash get to hear these things? Without any connection to politics or elections, you raised fascinating agendas and important and challenging ideas here tonight.
How is all of this not part of the public and media discourse that I hear around me? Why do I know in advance what the sectoral polemic will look like in the coming year? Why not refresh the discussion and enrich it? You came to recruit me - here, I recruit you.
The next day, I got a call from the party headquarters again, to schedule a meeting with Eli Yishai and Yoni Shtavun. I dropped by their offices in Givat Shaul and during a meeting that lasted about ten minutes (including small talk), I told them both that I wasn't interested in politics, from Hadash to Shas. That's not me. I'm not Sharon Gal, not Yinon Magal, and in my case, it would be more like a confused Yuval.
I left there thinking that the political chapter of my life was behind me. Behind me? The real story hadn't begun yet.
The next day, at two in the afternoon, I was sitting in a work meeting in a quiet Jerusalem cafe when suddenly the following message arrived from one of the religious website writers:
""Well, are you jumping into the water? Getting into a rut? Starting a new path? We're publishing a report on the contacts, so you'd better give me a response," he wrote.
""Sorry, I'm in a meeting. Not going into politics. Period.".
""So what's the buzz? Is it spin? Just let me know that you received an offer. That's the report.".
""I did receive a request. I don't want to comment officially. Okay?""
""Excellent. It's enough for me that you're not on the path to politics. I was already worried...".
""(-: Listen, I'm available at two-fifteen, do you want to wait a few minutes with this?""
""No, the system is stressed. In the meantime, I confirmed to them that there is an offer and that you are not on the path to politics. Okay? We put up a flash. We'll talk to you when you're free.".
Within seconds, my sister and my friend called me at the same time, and in amazement, they read to me, word for word, the news flash that had just aired: "First announcement: Is journalist Yedidia Meir on his way to Yishai's party?".
I suggest you go back to the text messages above. I copied them verbatim. What is the connection between them and the final announcement? And why put a question mark, when I announced that there was no question? It can be said that two words in this announcement were indeed correct: "First publication.".
This is indeed the first publication of this incorrect information.
From there, everything started to unfold. I called the reporter and asked him to change the headline immediately. "I'm checking with the system," he said. Wait, what exactly should I check, I thought to myself, maybe I'm running and I don't know about it?
Meanwhile, more calls came in. Two radio station producers wanted to put me on the air, while my bosses at Kol Hai Radio and here at Besheva were quickly trying to figure out whether the rumor was true and whether our working relationship had actually just ended without me updating them.
And in the meantime, the text messages continued. "Congratulations on the birth!", a friend of mine, a producer at Channel 2, suddenly wrote to me. The birth was about two months ago, thank God, but why did he suddenly remember now? "By the way, are you coming to our show this afternoon for your first interview as a politician? Don't close an exclusive anywhere else!""
At this point, I tried to overcome the flood of incoming calls for one outgoing call: "Why don't you fix this already?" I asked the reporter, but it turned out that the same editorial team that was so urgent and in a hurry to publish the news was procrastinating when it came to fixing it.
""Checking," he wrote to me over and over again, and I replied: "Between your checks, thousands more people see this!".
By the time the headline was finally corrected and worded in a less exciting and more realistic way ("Yishay turned down, Meir refused"), that initial screenshot had been circulated on forums and WhatsApp groups, the revised and belated flash no longer interested anyone, and I found myself almost assigned to a series of interviews, from "Shush with Oded Ben Ami" to an exclusive interview with journalist Be'erish Filmer from the Haredi news group "Biznesses.".
The meeting in the cafe, which I was actually in the middle of, faded away of its own accord. I had to apologize and explain to those present that I was in the middle of managing a political crisis. That's when I also discovered that I had been so busy correcting the headline that I hadn't noticed the small details. The news article said, for example, that I had consulted with my gentlemen on the issue.
As you can see, the whole story really didn't amount to a wise man's question, not even a fool's question. Guess how long it took them to fix that detail too.
There's nothing to say, I've already received my first lesson as a politician.
I admit, in my case it was quite amusing. But what happens when it's not so funny? What happens when it's incorrect information, or even just a little inaccurate, that is suddenly published and also hurts someone? How long does it take for such information to spread throughout the sector and the country, and can it ever be corrected?
The next day, for example, I was shopping at the Mahane Yehuda market. It's not like they shouted "Oh, ha! Who's coming!", but at some point it definitely felt like an election campaign.
One person has already approached me with a personal problem with National Insurance (I immediately told him it was best for him to contact me through the assistants in my parliamentary office) and the climax was when someone else shouted at me (and I shop there every Friday): "Are you from the new party? You guys, you only know how to come here on election night!". Good thing he didn't throw tomatoes at me.
Throughout the week, I also received some thought-provoking emails. It seems to me that each of the responders was essentially drawing very personal and private conclusions, having nothing to do with me, and a lot to do with themselves and their views.
""Kudos to you for resisting temptation and not giving in to dangerous divisions in religious Zionism!", a reader from Samaria wrote to me, and immediately after that the following response was received in an e-mail: "Well done! You brought peace of mind to Rabbi Ovadia, the late, and did not allow the holy Shas movement to be harmed!".
A young man from Jerusalem, who apparently only read the first flash and even missed the question mark in the title, wrote to me this week with emotion: "How happy I was to hear that you too are joining Rabbi Kook's great vision, to seek common ground between the sectors and unite around the ideal of the Torah! May this be new news for the people who live in Zion!".
But that's not the end of the political drama. One day, amidst pressure from Eli Yishai's party, I entered the house and my wife greeted me with a smile: "Guess what? Naftali Bennett's office called me just now. You know he wants to reserve a woman... I told them there was nothing to talk about, but they want me to come urgently to a meeting in his office.".
""Wait, does that actually mean we're both going to be in the next Knesset, you in one party and I in another?" I told her, "If that's the case, then let's just stay home and get laid.".
