The divide within Israel—and between American Jews, Part 2
Visiting—and arguing—with old friends and family
This is Part 2 of a two-part article on Steve Einstein’s trip to Israel. You can find Part 1 here.
Seeing Levi and Paula in Jerusalem
After I left that sweet bunch of olive pickers, I went to visit two old friends I knew from the kibbutz. Paula has been a successful documentary filmmaker. She’s that and a loving Savta (grandmother). Levi comes from a long line of rabbis, so he and his sister both became rabbis themselves. Levi founded a progressive synagogue in Jerusalem about 40 years ago. It has a huge following today, and Levi is rightly very proud of it. He has had to step aside in the past few years, as some health concerns have crept in. The two of them are always so bubbly and engaged whenever I stop in.
This year was different, and not just because the country has been through two years of a difficult war that many, like them, contested, or the Oct. 7 massacre that preceded it. The bigger pain in their guts is that their three children, all born and raised in Israel, have now left. One is in Manhattan, another in Jersey, and a third in Berlin. And of course, they’ve taken the grandkids with them.
As one of their kids said to Levi, “Abba (dad), your dream for this place just hasn’t worked out. Sorry.”
A funny skit on TV
There is a very funny satirical show on Israeli TV called Eretz Nehederet. A recent skit is worth retelling.
Two people pushing carts through the airport in Tel Aviv, bump into each other. They recognize each other as old friends.
Jennifer: So good to see you, Uri!
Uri: So good to see you too!
Uri: I can’t believe this is where we meet!
Jennifer: You know us Jews. If history has taught us anything…
Uri: It’s knowing when it’s time to leave.
Jennifer: God knows, I’ve tried to stay as long as I could.
Uri: But one morning you wake up and you realize…
Jennifer and Uri together: It’s not the same country you grew up in.
Jennifer: Exactly.
Uri: It’s no longer safe for us to live here. [Meaning Israel]
Jennifer: You mean there.
Uri: Where?
Jennifer: In New York.
Uri: Wait a second, you’re telling me your coming to Israel?! Now? Are you crazy?
Jennifer: Wait, you’re moving to New York? Now? Are you crazy. Did you see who just won the election? [i.e. Mamdani]
Uri: At least you still have elections.
Jennifer: Trust me. It’s just not safe for Jews anymore.
Uri: You literally came to the most dangerous place for Jews on the planet.
They look at one another in disbelief.
Uri: Enjoy Israel. It’s hell.
Jennifer: Enjoy New York. It’s a nightmare. Good luck, Uri!
As they part, they say “Am Yisrael Chai,”* then mutter to themselves…
Jennifer: What a klutz.
Uri: What a moron.
Bewildered, they wheel their carts off in opposite directions.
[* Editor’s note: “Am Yisrael Chai is a solidarity slogan to express the strength and solidarity of the Jewish nation and as an affirmation of Jewish continuity and identity, typically during times of heightened adversity.”—Wikipedia]
Arguing with relatives, trauma, and Shoah
I have one part of my family in Israel who I’m especially close to. Mira is the daughter of my father’s cousin, Friedel, who I revered. I adored him. Now I adore his daughter.
Mira is a gem. She just retired from a lifetime of being a nurse. Kind of like me. Her husband, Avraham, has deep roots in the area. They live on a moshav near the coast that was founded by Poles in ’36—before the holocaust, but at a time that there was a good whiff in the air that another place to call home would be a good idea. Avraham grew up here. His family tree now goes back 11 generations on his mother’s side, all in Israel, mostly in Jerusalem. That’s all the generations they can document. The other side is Polish.
The two of them are now busy with grandkids, traveling to far corners of the earth (an Israeli passion) and pursuing a new hobby of doing elaborate and gorgeous mosaics. Amos is working on one now that memorializes the women soldiers who died on the morning of October 7th. The pain runs deep here. The grieving is never really over.
We always have a nice time together, but this visit ended on a difficult note. When they heard that I was intending on going into the West Bank to help Palestinians pick their olives, and maybe come between them and some hotheaded Jewish settlers, they thought I was crazy.
They couldn’t understand why I would be looking for trouble or even interested in provoking a confrontation. And they really couldn’t understand, why after the slaughter and massacre of October 7th, I would be interested in lifting one finger for a Palestinian who probably sympathizes with Hamas.
They weren’t just puzzled. They were really mad at me, claiming that I really have no idea about the reality of living in Israel, or of how badly the country was traumatized by the October 7th attack. Both of them served in the army, as do most Israelis. Their three sons also did the army, and when I left, two of the three were away from home doing reserve duty. For all their travels, they could only see the situation from inside their bunker, surrounded by enemies. I can’t blame them. They hate Netanyahu as much as the majority of the country does, but they have a visceral understanding of the realities this war-torn place presents.
There was little that I could say to help them understand just how distraught many Jews were by the Israeli conduct of the war, and in particular by the actions of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the two far-right ministers in the Netanyahu government. The blockade of humanitarian aide that literally starved the people of Gaza didn’t register. They were numb to the death of so many women and children
We had a heated conversation for a few hours.
In the end, they wanted me to remember just two words. The words were trauma (how traumatized they were), and Shoah (the Hebrew word for the holocaust, which they compared to October 7th).
We parted as loving family, but clearly not fully understanding each other.
The Sde Teiman scandal
There’s usually one big scandal or another going on in Israel at any given time. This one is huge.
While I was there, the top lawyer in the army, the former advocate general, a woman named Yifat Tomer-Yerushalni, admitted leaking a video of Israeli prison guards sexually abusing and torturing a Palestinian prisoner. Apparently, in light of an attempted cover-up, she felt compelled to let some of truth out. She immediately resigned her post and is now under house arrest awaiting trial.
The abuse was last year at the Sde Teiman detention facility. The video assault may be the tip of the iceberg. Ten prison guards were arrested for being in on it. Then, right-wing demonstrators, including a member of the Knesset, the governing body, stormed the facility, demanding that the guards be released. They were just doing their jobs they argued.
So now, the only one who is being pursued by the courts, is the woman who was brave enough to leak some evidence, while the perpetrators, and their horrific behavior, goes unpunished.
Listening to bombs being dropped on Gaza from Jaffa
I snuck one last visit in with friends in Jaffa. Bradley Burston is a writer and political commentator, well-worth reading. Look him up for some biting, bitterly honest critique of the Israeli government and Netanyahu in particular. His wife, Varda, writes worthy pieces as well. We had coffee together at a trendy place near their home in Jaffa. Later, Bradley and I took a walk back toward where I had left my car. We sat on a bench in the sun to schmooze some more. It was great being with him.
Then I heard—and actually felt—the thud-thud of an explosion. It was bombs being dropped on Gaza again, about 50 miles to the south.
The day before, two Hamas members emerged from a tunnel they were hiding in and saw two Israeli soldiers. The Hamas men were on the wrong side of the ceasefire line. They somehow killed the Israeli soldiers, before being killed themselves. Then, in a heavy-handed response, Israel bombed numerous targets that they felt held more Hamas members. More than one hundred were killed, including, apparently, 46 children. Those were the bombs Bradley and I heard sitting in the sun on that bench.
Two huge rallies
There were two huge demonstrations during the short time I was visiting.
One rally was of 200,000 ultra-orthodox religious men that blocked the main entrance into Jerusalem in a sea of black hats. They were protesting the longtime effort being made to strip the ultra-religious of their military exemptions. They contend that studying torah, the Bible, is of greater service to the country than actually serving in the military. Much of the rest of the country sees that as nonsense and unfair. Why should the burden of protecting the country only fall on their sons and daughters?
The other rally, 150,000 people in Tel Aviv, was held in Rabin Square, marking the 30th anniversary of the assassination of one-time general-turned Prime Minister-turned surprise peace activist, Yitzhak Rabin, who helped usher in the Oslo Accords. Rabin was rewarded for his efforts by a far-right wing extremist, who shot him dead at a large peace demonstration.
For many, the rally in Tel Aviv—in the very place where Rabin was murdered 30 years earlier—was a poignant reminder that the many people who seek peace and some sort of reasonable resolution with our enemies are still with us. It is an aspiration that has not died. I’m really sorry I missed this one.
At the airport with a fellow Clevelander
I was standing at the check-in counter at the Tel-Aviv airport. My ears pricked up when I heard the short, bearded man wearing a baseball cap at the counter next to mine, say he was headed to Cleveland.
Me: Hey, I’m from Cleveland!
Him: Wonderful.
(A bit later as we’re walking to passport control)
Me: So what high school?
Him: Cleveland Heights High. Class of ’78.
Me: How about that! I was ’73. So what do you do in Cleveland now?
Him: I’m a rabbi at a large reform temple.
Me: Fantastic. … I hope you had a good visit here in spite of all the violence.
Him: What violence?
Me: Well, just a few days ago, after those two Hamas fighters came out of a tunnel and killed two of our guys, we took advantage of that breach of the ceasefire and bombed them for six hours. We killed more than a hundred, 46 of whom were kids.
Him: Yeah, but they don’t value their people in the same way. The ones who die are thought to be martyrs, and their deaths are celebrated. They’re going straight to heaven.
Me: Are you kidding? The mothers of those kids aren’t changed forever by the death of their kids?!?
Him: Not in the same way we understand it.
I held back, yet again.
Here’s a big part of the problem. We have dehumanized the other. Maybe that’s just what you have to do to survive around here? It seems that it’s what you have to do to live with killing so many people.
It was yet another sad interaction to end this sobering trip on.
I’m planning on going back again next October to pick olives with Dani, and hopefully, with elections planned for that month, to vote out the scoundrel Netanyahu and his racist/nationalist partners.
As I warned you at the beginning of this essay, Israel is intense and complicated and maddening and compelling and tragic and wondrous.
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Thank you, Steve! I am especially chilled and heartbroken by your conversation with this so-called rabbi who does not believe that Arab women mourn their children in the same way. To me this speaks to one of the true hearts of this conflict, this belief that somehow as Jews, we are so much better than these other people. The myth of Jewish superiority. Heartbreaking.
Keep writing, Steve. We need to hear from you. With much appreciation for your reporting, Sandy