Speaker 0 00:00:02 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:12 My name is Danielle Hartman and I'm the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Today is Wednesday, January 20th, 2021. And this is for heaven's sake, a podcast from the Hartman institutes. I engage project our thing for today's entitled a new dialogue between Israeli Jews and Israelis and Palestinians in each edition of for heaven sake, Jesse Klein, Halevi senior research fellow at the Institute here in Jerusalem and myself, we'll be discussing a current issue central to Israel and the Jewish world. And then he let us Stein Hain director of the Hartman faculty in North America. We'll explore with us how classical Jewish sources can enrich our understanding of the issue at the Hartman Institute. We approach the Israel conversation. As we do all conversations from a perspective of Jewish values, seeking broad and deep engagement. Our aim is to encourage a serious and respectful conversation on Israel, across political lines, promoting understanding, and strengthening Jewish people.
Speaker 1 00:01:12 The complex relationship between Israel's Jewish majority and its Arab minority appears to be at a turning point for the first time in Israel's history, Jewish parties from the right as well as the center and the left are actively courting. The Arab vote. Suddenly everyone seems to have discovered that our voters constitute 20% of the Israeli population and in the deadlock of Israeli politics, the Irish vote could be decisive. As we head to round four of elections in March and the last round, the Arab community achieved an unprecedented electoral victory. The United Arab list, a coalition of four hour parties won 15 seats in the Knesset. Get that victory turned out to be empty. The Jewish parties continued to shun the Arab list and Arab MKS made little effort to reassure a wary Jewish public that they could be trusted as partners in governance. Part of the list at design, just ideology and the support and the past of at least some of the MKS for acts of Palestinian terrorism have made the Arab list untouchable.
Speaker 1 00:02:21 But now everybody seems to be talking about an Arab Jewish coalition, even the right prime minister Netanyahu in the past, demonized our voters as a threat to Israel is now actively courting them. What has caused both Arabs and Jews to reconsider the political relationship between them? More importantly, how does this impact our understanding of Israel as a Jewish democratic state and the future of Israeli society? Jase, it's wonderful to be with you again, always Danelle. Everyone is noticing how the major Israeli parties on both the left and the are according our vote. Let's start with what's going on on the Arab side. Do you believe our voters are today more open to these advances on the part of Jewish parties? What has changed in your mind?
Speaker 2 00:03:14 No question that there's a change in the, our community, much more on the street that among the politicians, but it's beginning to influence the politicians too. And I sense two motives in this new attitude among our voters. One is a negative motive and the other is positive. The negative is the rise in crime, violent crime in the murder rate in the Arab Israeli community, which has just skyrocketed in the last few years, the police response has been almost non-existent, there's been tremendous negligence. We're seeing something which in an American context is inconceivable in America. They're demonstrating to defund the police and here they Arab Israeli might not already is demanding more police presence in their communities. So there's this sense of, we need to be part of the game. We need to be part of the political mainstream because we're not getting the protection we need. That's the first thing, the positive incentive here. I think it's Corona for the first time we have see the Arab Israeli community taking full part in the national emergency effort. This is our first national emergency that has nothing to do with security. And so the Arab Israeli community has really stepped up. The fact that 25% of Israel's doctors are Arab. 30% of our nurses or doctors created this opportunity for the Arab Israeli community to rise to the occasion. And that's really what we're seeing, playing out.
Speaker 1 00:04:56 A lot of people have said for years that Israeli Arabs have wanted to be part of Israeli society may be at least for the last almost generation or definitely the last number of decades and the Palestinian conflict just alienated them inside. They wanted to be part of the Israeli society, but there was this ingrained ambivalence being an Israeli Arab. It was not simple because there wasn't an accusation. There was an experience of dual loyalty. And so what you're saying with Corona is it's on a psychological experiential level. It's not that that issue has been resolved because the Palestinian conflict is far from being resolved, but on a psychological existential level, Maya's Raylene, this feels far more dominant than before. When we're all in the same boat with Corona, it's, I'm an Israeli right now. My destiny is not Ramallah. My destiny is going to be determined in Jerusalem. It's determined in the Knesset. And by the way, it's not, then this similar to American Jewish, multiple loyalties, everybody has multiple loyalties, but at certain moments, someone says, this is what's most significant for me. It's not that I don't care about Israel. My dominant question is what is good for America? That's what I have to choose because that's where I live, et cetera. And it could be that Israeli Arab Palestinians have become more like American Jews. My core reality is here. Not that I don't have issues.
Speaker 2 00:06:35 <inaudible> show who, uh, has just announced the formation of the first Arab Israeli party that accepts a Jewish state as a given. I think it's an extraordinary development, but there are HSA use to put it in the following way. Palestinians are politically Palestinian. Their identity is politically Palestinian and culturally Israeli that there are more and more culturally Israeli. I think that what's happening today is more complicated. I think that partially their political identity is becoming more Israeli and maybe culturally more strongly Palestinian. And if that happens, then I think that that's a dynamic that the Jewish majority could live with.
Speaker 1 00:07:22 So let's turn to the Jewish majority for a moment what's changed on the side of the Jewish majority. Is it simply political opportunism and cynicism that, you know, here it is, the Jewish vote can't resolve the elections. Is it just that? Or is there something deeper in your mind going on?
Speaker 2 00:07:39 Well, I wouldn't call it cynicism, but pragmatism. We're going into round four of elections in less than two years and all the polls, every poll shows the same thing, which is we're going to have a stalemate at the end of the brand for now. Maybe there'll be some last minute changes, but the way things look now is we are going into stalemate number four. So the reason for that stalemate, and I think this is actually not just pragmatic, but also metaphorical. The reason for the stalemate is because we are excluding 20% of our population. The fact that 20% of Israeli voters are not part of any calculation leaves, the 80% stuck in an impossible situation. So yes, the motive is pragmatic. The political system is responding to an impossible dilemma and we're turning to the 20% and we're saying, well, we have no choice, but there's something that's very moving about. This process. We're coming to a very belated, but essential realization that the 80% can't continue to govern this country indefinitely without the 20%,
Speaker 1 00:08:57 Because the 80% are too divided. We're going to win, just are going to be completely self-destructive. So therefore we have to take somebody who you, we thought used to be our enemy and now help them save us. That's an interesting take. Now, I wonder though, I wonder though, you'll see weather just like when you spoke about there politically becoming Israeli, or I spoke beforehand where their existential experience is more dominant Israeli. I think we're seeing one of the dividends. They used to be the old, you know, the classic Lola Mae sub. So nacho cov, a salve will forever be the enemy of Jacob. The Jews are destined to perennial war with Arabs and you know, the Israeli Arabs haven't been that way. They've always been loyal, Israeli citizens. They might vote for this, but they're by and large law abiding citizens who the amount of terrorism that has grown out of the population is minuscule, minuscule.
Speaker 1 00:09:52 It never, it never surfaced. And so I wonder whether we're seeing the world in less dichotomous terms, Israelis are now rushing to Abu Dhabi. What happens when we realize that we have an Abu Dhabi right next to us, we have partners, trading partners, people who are doctors, people who we want to share a future with. So why not? Can we leave aside the Palestinian conflict? So Israelis are beginning to think about Arabs, not only to the prism of the Palestinian conflict. Israeli Arabs are beginning to look at Israeli Jews, not only to the Palestinian conflict. And then all of a sudden there's a deeper shift taking place in which citizen could turn to citizen and say, you know, the bottom line is, this is not our issue right now we have other issues. Or if that will become an issue, it's an issue which is dependent on somebody else, not us. So can we do something together? And what's your take on that
Speaker 2 00:10:49 Great way to put it that Israeli Jews are discovering that we have in the Abu Dhabi, literally in our myths to Neil, did you see the prank? But a group of Arab Israelis pulled a few weeks ago. They dressed up in the Gulf States and they walked through the streets of Tel Aviv, but they were greeted like hero. Perfect, fantastic. Out of course, the point was it, you don't have to go to Abu Dhabi to encounter the myth, the hour of world right here. But I think you're absolutely right. The Abraham Accords have affected Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis in different ways with the same positive conclusion. The impact on Arab Israelis is that, wait a minutes, the Arab Sunni war against Israel is over the 70 year war of the Sunni Arab world. It's over. I mean, it's now shifting to Shiite, Iran and Hezbollah and Syria. But for 70 years, we were besieged by the Arab Sunni world. And that's over actually over. And I believe that the Arab Israeli community has internalized it. I also think there's a fair amount of anger and maybe even shame in the Arab Israeli community that the only party to vote against not to upstate, they voted against the Abraham Accords in the Knesset was the United our blitz. I think that the serious drop in support for the, uh, Arab list that we're seeing in every poll might be partly a result of that
Speaker 1 00:12:32 Because we know that for years when Israeli Arab Palestinians are pulled on, what are the issues that are most important to you? Issue? Number one is, is safety and security from violence. And number two is economic opportunity. Issue. Number three is education issue. Number four is health. And the Israeli Palestinian conflict is number five, but their leadership has always made it the number one issue. And so there was a huge dissonance that continued for a long time. So now maybe it's getting worked out. I want to move you slightly to another dimension of this issue. It couldn't be that this is just for this fourth election who knows we're so self destructive. We need someone to save us from ourselves, but under the assumption that may be, this is the beginning of a deeper, serious transformation. What do you think this Jewish Arab partnership looks like? What do you think it demands from Jewish participants after the election? And what does it demand from the Arab ones? Paint a picture. Let's be optimistic. Let's be hopeful.
Speaker 2 00:13:34 I'm very hopeful about this. Even if the incentive is political and pragmatic, once we cross that threshold, create a Jewish majority are minority government. There's no turning back for either side. We will have compromised each other's fears if you want to put it that way. So the deeper, next step in the relationship, I think has to be on the Jewish side. We need to own Israel's identity as a democratic state. And on the Arab side, they need to own Israel's identity as a Jewish state. And by that, I mean on the Jewish side, owning our identity as a democratic state means coming to terms with Israeli democracy is not just a means by which we govern, but it is an essential value. It is intrinsic to our identity as a Jewish state. Most Jewish Israelis are not quite there to say that democracy is as not of value in Israeli menace as the Jewishness of the state. That's where we have to go, where the Arab Israelis have to go is where Muslim of the Russia has just taken the first step, which is when you accept the legitimacy of the Jewish people's return home. We accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish majority state on one condition that the Jewish majority accepts the legitimacy of Israel as a democratic state, fully a fully democratic state without exceptions
Speaker 1 00:15:15 Actually we'll have it. The Ralph, I think he makes the distinction between the Homeland of the Jewish people and a Jewish state. He says, I categorically reject that this is a Jewish state. It's a Jewish state whereby it's the Homeland of the Jewish people that I accept. This is the nation state of the Jewish people. Absolutely. You are the majority, but it can't just be a Jewish state.
Speaker 2 00:15:40 He's now telling the Israeli media that I accept Israel as a Jewish state and the democratic state. You Jews have to accept Israel as a democratic state.
Speaker 1 00:15:52 You know, it's one thing to, to try to create a coalition. It's another thing to change our culture too. We've had Arab Supreme court justices. We've even had a president being put in jail by an Arab Supreme court justice, but that hasn't changed the culture. I don't think it's going to be from a coalition between Jewish and our parties, but I think it's by opening up our parties to multiple representatives, it's taking the step that you're not afford entity. I think this is what yeah, your Lockheed has to do. I think this is what get on Cyrus committed to doing. I think Bennett is open to it, but whether his voters would do it or not, it's when you go deep down and to say, yes, we share a platform. I don't want you to be the minister of minority affairs. I want you to be the minister of health or the minister of transport.
Speaker 1 00:16:44 I think that cultural change when Israeli Arab Palestinians will be ministers as a shared Israeli agenda. I think that's some of the long-term shift where we might move from pure political to a deeper identity transformation. Where I think as you said, I think we'll be able to do it because the fact is we are the majority again, to quote, we'll have a Daraja. The problem is that Israeli Arabs are a minority who think of themselves as a majority and Israeli Jews are a majority with a consciousness of a minority. Like let's get over it ladies. It's like, we want to be able to be democratic. Doesn't undermine our Jewishness, but it is actually an enhancement and an expression of it. Let's take a short break. And when we return Elana Stein hae will join us.
Speaker 3 00:17:30 Join us February 14th through 18th for an interfaith symposium, exploring questions of truth, difference, and allyship learn without standing Hartman scholars, including Ilana Stein, Hain Donielle Hartman, and Abdullah and Tapley and guest experts like Amy, Jill Levine, Mark brittler and Malta SIM Kovich for more information and to register, visit winter dot Hartman dot <inaudible> dot I L
Speaker 1 00:17:59 It's great to be with you again. What classic sources do you want to share with us that you think could enrich the way we think about this moment of potential transformation?
Speaker 4 00:18:09 You know, it's really interesting because as I listened to you, I'm thinking about just how big a shift. This is in the norms of how Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis have worked, worked with each other against each other completely parallel paths and looking at something that's been done a certain way, always. And then seeing that people are at an impasse where they say there's something inadequate, but the way things have been done that really makes me think about how rabbinic tradition talks about moments of transformation is too strong, a word, but moments of sea change essentially, or allowing for an abrogation, a real, almost just a fork in the road and choosing to go a different way. And when the rabbis talk about these kinds of moments, where you look at the way that things have always been done, and you say there's something inadequate about that for this moment, they actually have two ways of talking about it.
Speaker 4 00:19:20 And I want to explore these two ways, because I think they have resonance, even as the two of you are trying to figure out from the Arab side, what's going on, how are they thinking about this change from the Jewish side pragmatism, but aspirational, ism. What's exactly going on here. I think that the rabbis actually capture this really magnificently in two different ways that they talk about moments like this one is to talk about a moment like this as an emergency measure, we call it harass HSA in Hebrew, literally a ruling for the moment, a temporary ruling. And it's about recognizing a crisis and responding to it in a limited way and saying, you know, for the time being, this is what we're going to have to do. There's another way that the rabbis talk about this kind of fork in the road, which is I'm going to call it a paradigm shift.
Speaker 4 00:20:15 It's not just about crisis, it's about change. And to me, that's where the idea of Takotna, which we usually call a decree, but it really means with establishing something and a tough can, that has a totally different discourse. It has a totally different rhetoric. And of course, the rabbis are talking about rules. They're talking about laws and they're asking what happens when a law is inadequate for the moment. And in this moment where we're talking about something else in Israeli society, but it's parallel. It's what happens when the norms, when the conventions are inadequate for this moment. So I think it's really parallel. So I want to dig in to one example of each, just so we can feel what the conversation sounds like when the rabbi speak in the register of emergency and when the rabbi speak in a register of establishing something. So we'll start with the register of emergency.
Speaker 4 00:21:10 Now, this is my monities in his laws of rebels. He'll hold them rim chapter two, section four, here's a little excerpt. He talks about how sometimes the court is going to have to break the law. And he says they can do what the moment needs just as a doctor, amputates the arm or the leg of someone in order to save them quite as a Jewish court can rule for a temporary abrogation of some commandments in order for the Torah as a whole to be upheld like the Sage. You said when someone's life is in danger on the sabot right? Wait this one Sabbath in order to help them observe many sadness. Yes. In the future, it's an amputation. It's a violation. This is not something you want to go on for a long time. You want the patient to heal. You want to get a prosthetic and everything will be fine.
Speaker 4 00:22:09 You want to fix film so that you can get along with your 80%, right? That's one kind of rhetoric, but listen to the Tucker in that rhetoric, totally different discourse. Now, one of my favorite examples of a tech Ana is the one that Hylo the elder made in the way that people observe the sabbatical year, every seven years, the, of requires that all loans be canceled. Could you imagine if I lend you $10,000 and you don't have to pay me once the sabbatical year is over, I'm out $10,000 and your slate is wiped clean. You're not in the red anymore, but there's a real problem here because eventually people stop lending money, write a rule that was supposed to lead to charity believe led to people being miserly. And so Hillel steps in recognizing the inadequacy, but listen to the way that rabbinic literature talks about this.
Speaker 4 00:23:03 Here we go. It's the mission and speed chapter 10 mission of three. This is one of the things enacted established by Hilah. He saw that the people refrain from giving loans to one another. And you recognize that these people who refrain from giving loans were transgressing. What was written in the Torah, be careful not to have base thoughts and be hostile to your poor brother and not give them anything. And so halo, ordained the principal, a document that would help enact the ability to collect loans in a sabbatical leader. He's not cutting off anybody's arm, or like he's not violating the Sabbath. He's restoring Tobar principles. The way it's described is he recognized that actually, because people were following the letter of the law, they were actually not fulfilling other parts of the law, which is you got to make sure that you give loans to people.
Speaker 4 00:24:02 It's such a different way of thinking. And I wonder when I hear, you know, I'm sure that different people, politicians, people on the ground, national politicians, local politicians, Jews, Arabs, right left. I'm sure that different people use different rhetoric about this is this an emergency measure. And you know, I'm going to hold my nose and do it. Is this transformative? Does it have transformative potential? Is there something about who we are that we haven't been fulfilling? And now this gives us the chance to fulfill it. So that that's where my mind is. As I'm thinking about this,
Speaker 1 00:24:40 Absolutely fascinating. The difference between the, uh, emergency measure and the tuck had not the establishment in these two texts is in the explanation you give, not necessarily in your motivation, who knows what your motivation might be. What is the language you give? Hillel says, my goal is to establish the goals for which Jewish life and Jewish law were aspiring. My commitment is to these goals. The question is, what story do we tell? What story do we tell at this moment? Do we tell the story of listen? There's nothing we could do. You know, I need it. Or do we create a rhetoric? And even by the way, even if that language is not sincere, even if Netanyahu just a year ago, he said, they're coming out to vote. Let's save Israel from them. The mere fact that he's doing it, he's talking about the need to reach out and to deal with the needs of Israeli air. He sees them. It's a process of telling a different story. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 00:25:48 It gets really, it really is going to that direction of the values conversation, whether it's sincere or not, as you, as you put it, it doesn't matter. <inaudible> is not only speaking about needs. He's also speaking about Israel is a democratic society. And there was a terrific piece in Israel, Yom, which is Netanyahu's mouthpiece. In these last years, it's been very hostile to, uh, our citizens. One of the editors writes a column just the other day saying the right isn't against Arabs. We have nothing against ours, as long as they're willing to be part of the democratic system. Of course they're citizens. So you know what isn't done. The Schmeil, what isn't done for its own sake in the end is still a step forward. I think
Speaker 4 00:26:40 Also something about setting a precedent and facts on the ground, right? If there's anything that rabbinic tradition and rabbinic law really, really values and can, can never look away from its precedent. I mean, they, when the rabbi see something that was done and it happened, they have to ask themselves, how do we explain how this happened? It becomes part of the DNA, you know, Danielle and I were actually talking about this to kind of Hills recently and he points it out to me. He said, well, it's interesting that later generations ask, well, did halo mean to make that TACAN of like forever or was that just for his time? And I love that question a few generations later, because what they're saying is, well, we've got a new normal, do we want to stick with it? So there's going to be at some point a review and we look back and we say, well, okay, I guess this is the new normal. There's no going back. I think that's like an interesting second conversation, right? As this becomes part of the DNA, and this becomes part of precedent. What are the next steps that, that leads to,
Speaker 1 00:27:47 I'd love to conclude on this idea that you just mentioned Ilana cause precedent. What are the fascinating things about Jewish legal tradition is that the tradition argues that behavior doesn't mirror your inner most feelings. Our tradition doesn't care about that. Sincerity. You know, you could most laws, you could fulfill the law, even though your intention is flawed because our tradition believes that it's not that behavior mirrors your intention, but that behavior at the end changes your intention. What we're all witnessing now is rhetoric. But very soon we might re witness a new precedent. Another generation, if they're going to want to change it, it's going to have to change the precedent because the precedent is creating a facts on the ground. And again, as Jase said, whether they're doing it for good intentions or not, our tradition also says we accept people who do things for good intentions, or they do them for bad attentions because the bad intentions will ultimately become good intentions.
Speaker 1 00:28:52 It'll be interesting to see how a deeper societal change could grow out of political expediency. It'll be it's a remarkable moment. It was wonderful Jase and Ilana being with you and learning with you for heaven sake is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute. It was co-produced by Debicki Kellman and Alex Stillen, an edited by Tali Cohen. Music is provided by so-called to learn more about the shell apartment Institute, visit us
[email protected]. We want to know what you think about the show you can write to
[email protected]. Subscribe to our show in the Apple podcast app, Spotify and everywhere else. Podcasts are available again, Jase, Ilana. Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:29:41 <inaudible>.
