1.
At first I was disappointed. I turned on the radio at the regular time to hear Dr. Gadi Taub. For the past year, he has broadcast a daily interview program on Galei Israel that would open with a long monologue of his on the current affairs of the day. I didn't miss a single one of these monologues (if I didn't have time to listen to the program live, I would catch up later on Spotify).
Recently, the program disappeared from the scale. I don't know who is responsible for the omission. I will of course continue to follow Taub online and on his famous podcast, "Shomer Saf," but I will miss the daily monologue very much. It seems to me that just as the converts brought something to Judaism that wasn't there before - the way Eviatar Banai sings and writes about his work of God, for example, is an innovation that doesn't resemble anything else, right? - so too are those who are sobering up on the left bringing something new to the world. It's not just that they were in favor of Oslo before and are now against it. It's much more than that.
I could write an entire column about the special characteristics of each of them (maybe even a book). But we're currently in the eulogy of the late Gadi Taub's daily monologue: Well, the point is not only the eloquence, clarity, knowledge, and ability to understand the small moves within the big story. And not just the show he knows how to put on (Dr. Taub, after all, started his career hosting programs for children and youth. He has the ability to turn the most tedious theory in political science into a fascinating and juicy story).
The main thing that Taub brought to the discussion was what the Lubavitcher Rebbe called "Gaon Yaakov." That is, Jewish pride, firmness, self-confidence. In the difficult year we went through, before the war, the year of the predatory struggle, rich in money and hatred, I found some comfort in Taub's clear, sharp and piercing voice. True, they boycott us, incite against us, turn us into a dangerous enemy and our women into slaves, spit on us, but here, there are those who know how to fight back and expose the hypocrisy, without all the complexes and feelings of inferiority that those who grew up in the sector have.
I wish Taub would continue these monologues somewhere else, because I'm very afraid that after the war we'll need them. In fact, we already need them.
2.
That morning, as mentioned, I turned on the radio out of habit, and stayed even though Taub wasn't there, because Bat Galim Shaar was just speaking. She was put on the air following the assassination of Arouri, who was responsible, among other things, for kidnapping the three boys, including his son Gil-Ad, about ten years ago. I don't know what exactly Bat Galim said in the interview, because I joined him right at the end, but the truth is that it doesn't matter. Because the "official" part of the conversation was still on the air.
The presenters, Eldad Yaniv and Shai Goldstein, had just said goodbye to her. "You speak so highly," Eldad Yaniv told her, "so inspiring, about your choice in life after this disaster. Your choice to bring more good to the world, and more good to the world, and more good to the world. You say that the elimination of Arouri is not at all the closing of the circle, it is not something within your life. It is amazing, amazing."
"We've learned a lesson from you now," said Shai Goldstein. "It's like the expectation was that you would come and say 'the circle is closing,' but you're saying something completely different, which is much deeper."
"And much higher," continued Eldad Yaniv.
3.
Bat Galim Shaar said goodbye to Miniv and Magolstein, and the next interviewee was supposed to come on the line, someone connected to the struggle to free the kidnapped, but at that moment an unplanned conversation developed between them. I think it was a truly formative conversation. I went to record it to transcribe it word for word, because you have to study every sentence in depth here.
"Wow," said Shai Goldstein, "I'm telling you, these people, they make me feel... I don't even know what. Like, I don't know. I'm speechless every time I talk to these parents."
Eldad Yaniv: "I'll tell you what this war does to me, okay? I was in Tel Aviv, you know, within my milieu, within my feed, within my contacts. And I admit: we didn't know these people."
Goldstein: "I didn't know either."
Yaniv: "And when they tell me, let's say after an interview like this: What an amazing woman. I say: Listen, all the bereaved families I talk to are amazing. All the fallen. You see their letters and you say: Such a huge part of the people of Israel that I didn't know."
Goldstein: "I'm completely with you. I didn't know either."
Yaniv: "And I'm happy to meet you, and I'm excited to meet you, and I'm striking for a sin I didn't recognize, and I say now: I want to meet you. But I see that other people are still clinging to this hatred, and I say: What suckers! You are among an amazing people, and you are losing!"
4.
Wow. What a sentence Eldad Yaniv came up with here. "What suckers! You are among an amazing people, and you are losing!" He is good at issuing catchy and strong sentences, only that until recently he did it for the benefit of the other side. Yaniv started as Ehud Barak's campaigner and as his chief of staff after he was elected prime minister, accompanied him in meetings with Arafat at Camp David where he agreed to give everything, continued with all sorts of initiatives on the left, and in recent years became one of the leaders of the protest against Netanyahu. He literally led the demonstrations, spoke at them, invented slogans.
Then, after the fifth election campaign and the clear victory of the right, as soon as he dared to call on his friends in the RLB camp to consider accepting the election results - he became their bitter enemy. It's pretty amazing. He didn't even move from the left to the right. He's not that right-wing. He just became a little less devout in their religion. He became RLB Lite. But that was enough for the fanatic camp that he had led until a moment ago. He can no longer walk around Tel Aviv without being cursed at, and sometimes even more than that.
"There is something in the community from which we came, you and I, that is detached, arrogant..." said Shai Goldstein, and Yaniv added: "And thinks he is the best."
Goldstein: "I don't think he's the best. The only one who's good! Everyone else is moving around in some low world of beliefs in vanities and all that. And the Enlightenment..."
Yaniv: "Your correction is nice. They think: Only we are good. Now I say: OK, we are good, but make room on the bench, there are other good ones. Sit in the same row with them."
Goldstein: "They think that if we give people 'them', if we let them run things, we will end up with a dark and gloomy country, and dictatorship, and religious coercion, and religion. And what's the point? They say and feel all this without really knowing these people."
Eldad Yaniv: "Without wanting to get to know! Now, you see them when they travel to other places in the world, they want the most to blend in with these places, to get to know the culture. To be part of the culture. What suckers! You are here among the most amazing people in the world!"
5.
Here again Eldad Yaniv says this sentence. The slogan that I hope he will grasp: You are among the most amazing people. Anyone who doesn't know is a sucker. Simply a sucker. And Goldstein continues it: "Their identification is not with the Jewish tribe, the tribe to which they belong. And I'm not talking about it on a religious level. I'm talking on a tribal level, whose you are and where you came from. Who and where do you really belong to. Belonging, right? You know, we are ultimately tribal. Not just us, the animals too. If you don't have a tribe, if you don't have a pack, you don't survive. Even if there is a lion, if you are a lion alone, ten buffaloes will come and kill you. Do you understand? Even cows in a herd of cows - a lion doesn't approach them."
Eldad Yaniv: "Not only do I understand, you cracked it very correctly. Because you say: How can this be? Okay, I didn't know, but now that I know – I don't want to give it up! Will I give up such amazing people? You know, there are a lot of people around me, and I tell them: Listen, it's not just now in the war. We discovered something in the war, but it's an energy that I want to hold onto for the rest of my life. Even after the war."
Shai Goldstein: "I tell them mainly: Stop being afraid. They're not chasing you. They don't want to take anything from you."
Eldad Yaniv: "Persecutors? You know, people left their synagogue on Simchat Torah. I'm not a religious person, so I don't know how it happens that suddenly you hear at seven, eight, nine in the morning... They heard the alarms, left everything, got into vehicles, opened cell phones, opened weapons, went to save the people of Be'er Sheva. And why did they go to save? Because they say: This is a member of my family. A member of my family was murdered.
"You know, being Jewish is ultimately about family. That's the story. That's your extended family. If you understand that, you say, what do I care if he thinks differently, he behaves differently, he's a little different in his customs. It doesn't matter, he's at my Shabbat table. Everyone at my Shabbat table. They're all family members. It's like you go to a distant relative's wedding, and you say: Wow, I'm excited, I haven't seen him in a few months, I'm really interested in meeting him."
6.
Speaking of genres of sobering-up, Shai Goldstein is one of the most surprising. I haven't really followed his political views all these years, but it was hard to miss the style. Goldstein was a symbol of cynicism, of blunt, vulgar, crude humor. Sarcasm as a worldview, as a way of life. And suddenly something changed in him.
I had my suspicions about five years ago, when at the height of the "religion" campaign he suddenly put on tefillin live on Radio 103. I watched the recording of this broadcast at the time, more than once, and tried to understand whether he did it as a kind of parody or if he meant it seriously. Until now, it's not clear to me, and I don't think it's clear to his astonished partners on the broadcast, Dov Navon and Uri Gottlieb. But perhaps putting on tefillin affects the brain and the heart even if it's done as a chore. Since then, Goldstein has begun to speak out more and more against hatred of Judaism and the ultra-Orthodox.
What I appreciate about him is not only his intellectual openness but also his spiritual openness. Moving from the left to the right is relatively easy, but moving from the camp of cynics to the camp of believers is quite a transformation. "Guys," he turned to his brothers on the left, who I so hoped would appear on Galei Yisrael that morning, "this is our people. This is our family, in the end. So to sit in a cafe in France and say: Oh, this is where I belong, I would like to be European. How, how was I born in Israel?..."
Eldad Yaniv: "I don't really believe them. Do you know why? Because even when I didn't know this huge part of the people, and I'm secular, I would be sitting in some cafe in Paris, and suddenly you see some Israeli flag or you pass by a synagogue..."
Shai Goldstein: "And you're excited!"
Eldad Yaniv: "Excited, of course. That's why I don't believe them. I think you're right that it's fear. It's this fear. Because I don't believe they're not excited. It can't be, you know."
Shai Goldstein: "They closed their hearts to this thing, and then they lose the beauty. Once again: you don't have to be religious for this. Do what you want. Don't do anything on my part. Look, we, for example, I'm completely secular. We light candles on Friday, the whole family, me, my wife and the child, right? We light them every Friday, raise a glass to life, bless and say thank you for what we have and what we don't have. Every Friday. Not in the religious sense...".
Eldad: "In the end, it's your belonging. It's your family. How did you say it, right? It's the tribe. It's the tribal custom."
Shai: "This is the tribe. And I want to tell you that this moment is the most beautiful moment of the week, when we light candles together and bless the candles. And we're not religious. And afterwards we can get in the car of course and drive and watch TV and everything."
7.
In this part of the conversation, I'm literally shouting into the radio while driving in the car: "Do Kiddush and then drive and watch TV? What suckers! You were born to a people that has the most amazing Torah in the world, and you're losing. After all, the most beautiful moment of the week can become the most beautiful day of the week! And the entire week can look different too. And in general, all this special feeling that you discovered in the war and that you express so well, of one Jewish family, stems from that deep point, from that Jewish soul that we all share.
After all, nothing else was supposed to unite all Jews in Israel and the world. What, patriotism? It's an emotion related to the country in which you live or grew up. How does it relate to the most distant Jews who traveled hours from all corners of America to Washington to reach the rally of solidarity with their brothers in Israel? There is a very deep connection here that connects us. And besides, it's not just the bereaved families you are exposed to, in such difficult circumstances, who speak 'tall talk,' as you define it. It doesn't come from nowhere. It has to do with a faith and a way of life that anyone who doesn't try to get to know a little bit will be disappointed."
But okay, I trust Shai Goldstein and Eldad Yaniv to figure it out on their own. And also Gadi Taub. They already have the open-mindedness and courage to break conventions. They also have a clear recognition of evil. Well, you don't need much more than that.
"Shi, because you've made a path in your life, you know how to overcome fear," Eldad Yaniv concludes the discussion. "Every human being has fear. But they really don't want to overcome fear. And I say: Why? Why? Why? You see the magic within this terrible thing of this war, the magic of people we didn't know. There's no film that you don't admire! That you don't say: Wow, this is my family, how did I not know? So you don't want to connect with them?"
8.
Gori Alfie is another hopeful voice. Really? He says such simple things, but unfortunately they are considered very brave these days.
"I'm not afraid of religion," he said this week in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth. "I'm not a convert, but I do study Talmud, I do want to go to synagogue, I do want tefillin. It's a part of me and I'm not giving it up. And if I see a huge advertisement now of a man reading 'Shema Yisrael' with tefillin on his forehead, don't I get excited about it? I get excited. Yes, I'm a sucker for my Judaism."
And the interviewer, Raanan Shaked, asks: "Doesn't this play into the hands of Messianic elements who want to return to settle in Gaza?"
"I'm less judgmental now about the emotionality with which such things are said. People are emotional for a reason."
But there are those for whom it is a real policy and plan. Ben Gvir, for example.
"My brother."
Smotrich?
"My brother. Yes. They are all my brothers."
You do not identify with any of their goals.
"So what? The world looks at us as one piece. We've gone into such a frenzy of identity politics, for so many years, that each side is sure that the other side is trying to take something from its identity. I don't feel threatened. I don't belong to any group and I don't think my identity is being taken from me."
The question is what country do you want to be here?
"I want there to be a country first."
Instead of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, Alfi even dares to imply that Bibi is not Israel's main and central problem, and says this: "I'm not on Twitter, not in these places, I want to build something and I think we have an opportunity. Call it disillusionment, narcissism, whatever you want. Want to fix it? Say what can be fixed and do something to make this country better. If you continue to vote, like idiots, on what you think the problem is, and you think it will be solved by electing or not electing one person – you are wrong. This is an illusion. There is no practice in such a discourse."
Thank you, Guri. If it were up to me, I would hang this interview on a giant sign in Ayalon next to the sign of the man with tefillin saying Shema Yisrael.
• The column is published in the newspaper 'Bisheva'
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