""Boso's tweet shocked me": Yair Lapid: Who do you celebrate your birthday with?

May 13, 2022   

This week, MK Moshe Gafni celebrated his 70th birthday in the Knesset. I went to wish him Mazal Tov. Can you keep a secret? Solve an issue? We are looking for you for a prestigious position There have been quite a few interpretations written about this, but life is much simpler. Two people work in the same building, argue quite a bit, but remember that the personal runs parallel to the political. I have many political arguments with Gafni, but I appreciate the sharpness of his mind and his vast knowledge, and of course I wish him many years of good health and peace from his children. There is something clean and innocent about a birthday. We eat cake, light candles, and we can stop fighting for a moment. Or maybe not? Because right after I congratulated him, MK Uriel Bosso from Shas tweeted the following words: 'Dear Gafni, they don't shoot at APCs! We don't have another camp than the right-wing camp, birthdays are celebrated with partners from the right only!" Seriously? Is this what we've come to? We no longer celebrate birthdays together? Have we introduced the split and rift there too? Are we no longer willing to blow out candles together and shout "Mazal Tov"? We can't tell someone "may you win next year," because if they're not from our camp, we don't really want them to win? And how exactly does that work? If I come with a gift for Uriel Bosso's 49th birthday, which will be this September, the security guard won't let me in because I'm a centrist? Not to mention the bigger things. Because if we can't even celebrate birthdays together, then it's clear that we can't marry someone who isn't "partners from the right," nor have their children's bar mitzvahs with them, nor invite them to our house, God forbid. Even the hackneyed but endearing concept of "come and celebrate Shabbat with us" will be abolished, because if two minutes of blessing anger MK Bosso so much, imagine what disasters could be caused by an entire Shabbat meal where we sit around a table With a white tablecloth and we will make Kiddush together.

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There has been much talk about the division and rift in the Jewish people, but Bosso's tweet shocked me. Maybe because of the ease with which it was written. From a statement of the obvious. From his perspective, he simply reminded us of what everyone knows - that we can no longer even sing together to grown-up people childish songs like "Happy Birthday, Nice Celebration." Because that's where we are: haters, separated, on both sides of the fence, defined solely by politics in its worst and most divisive version. So no. I'm not willing to accept it. It can still be stopped. We can still return this nation to a place where people of the right, left, and center celebrate together on a person's birthday. If there is one great task for Israeli politics today, it is to make people remember that not everything is politics. First of all, we live here together. In good times and bad, in wars and disasters, on holidays and on birthdays. Congratulations to Rabbi Gafni. Until 120.