I'm a Jewish Israeli, AMA

[israelilefty]

Jewish Israeli here. I grew up in a different country but have lived and worked most of my adult life here, living a fairly normal everyday life in northern Israel. When I'm not working, I enjoy cooking and hiking, I'm religiously observant (but also feminist), I'm on the left of the political spectrum, and have everyday contact with people from quite a range of different perspectives - Israeli society is incredibly diverse.

I guess I see us portrayed in a kind of monolithic way in the English-language media, so I'm taking a deep breath and posting here...

Feel free to AMA, just remember you're asking a real person, not a government or military spokesman :) I'll try to answer from my personal standpoint. as long as it's asked in good faith.

I'm aware on a daily basis of the conflict (even before 7.10) because it is a big part of politics here and is often in the news, and also to a certain extent you need to stay on top of what's going on in order to make your own decisions about whether certain areas/activities are safe or not.

Do Israelis sit around talking about how issues can be resolved? Of course we do! Every Israeli has plenty of opinions. Yes, there are arguments in families where there are poltical differences, like everywhere. I know families who ban politics from family meals on religious holidays, just to avoid the conflict.

It depends where they live, but kids are aware of the conflict and threats to safety in various ways from an early ages. Even preschoolers need to know what to do when they hear a rocket siren at home or at school, and also they know the general atmosphere and that lots of dads are not at home right now because they're doing reserve duty, and whatever else they hear from friends who have older siblings. Older kids know everything of course.

Kids also learn about the Holocaust from a young age because there is a national Memorial Day. Like with difficult news, we try to protect them from details while they are young.

Happy Hanukkah 🕎

I don't think it's inherently antisemitic to criticise Israeli policies (and by the way we Israelis criticise the government the whole time). However, I think that it can stray into antisemitism when the criticism of Israel is disproportionate to that made of other countries facing similar situations, or when certain kinds of inflammatory rhetoric are used, or when people just assume that every single Israeli action is vindictive/bloodthirsty/in bad faith. Often this kind of criticism goes alongside denying the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or trying to reduce it to some kind of ethno-religious bigotry.

Is your left leaning political identity not in conflict with your religious views? From what I can see the religious Jews are more on the right side of political scale.
Also do you think that so many strong religious fractions in Knesset is a big obstacle to any future conflict resolution and peaceful coexistence.

I don't really have a good answer to this as I am not sure what was hoped for. I know that many Israelis appreciate the support from Biden and other Western leaders. On a personal level I'd like to hear more from the international community about 'the day after'. A lot of support will be needed to rehabilitate Gaza and help Gazans to rebuild their lives under a non-Hamas government and the international community will need to be involved in that.

Thank you - though we're already done with Hanukkah (it finished on Friday!) Back to normal food, no more doughnuts and latkes :(

I personally don't think that religious practice should dictate political views. I have a lot of leftist religious friends, though I recognise we are a minority among religious Jewish Israelis.

I don't think the religious factions are necessarily a barrier to conflict resolution (though I didn't vote for a religious party). For example, during the Oslo peace negotiations, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, spiritual head of the Shas faction, was willing to support giving up land for peace. I think it's a problem that some of the left-leaning parties have espoused anti-religious rhetoric and policies and therefore contributed to a strong internal tension between secular and religious Israelis. Likewise, it's a big problem that the "national religious" camp has allowed itself to become identified with the far right. I would have hoped that more rabbis would stand up and expressed clear moral lines.

I hope my question doesn't come across rude or disrespectful. I'd be interested in hearing your views on what's going on in Israel against your own religious beliefs?

I see a lot of comments online from Rabbis about what the Torah says about a Jewish homeland and how does it work?

Do the majority think those Rabbis are wrong? Or there interpretation of the Torah doesn't fit with the current narrative?

Thank you op. Can I ask what your mainstream media is like. We see lots of videos on SM of some israeli people, I'm assuming politicians? Or otherwise, calling for the total destruction of gaza. Are these shown on your local channels a lot? Or is there like just one channel that has a particular opinion

Might not have worded that well. So I apologise if it came across wrong. I am just interested in how they are reporting things inside israel to citizens

Thank you

I strongly believe that the greatest minds in humanity were ethicist Jews. Do you think that Israels strong religious doctrine will ultimately be the reason for its decline?

Thanks for posting this, OP. I am half ethnically Jewish and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. I have never once set foot in Israel, and 7th Oct has shaken me like nothing else. I can't imagine the effect it must have had on Israelis generally, let alone those directly affected. The antisemitism I have seen expressed since that day has been a pretty shocking eye-opener too.

I'm interested in what you have said about hoping for a change of government- my gut feeling is that this is what's needed too, although of course I'm an outsider to this. However, I've also seen a view expressed elsewhere that a change of government right now would lead to too much instability at an uncertain time. What's your view on that? And do you think that a change of government would necessarily lead to a more moderate government or is there any chance that fear will drive more voters to the right?

Wishing you peace and all the best 💐

Luckily the rabbis aren't in charge. Israel is a modern secular state - the state of the Jewish people, rather than a Jewish religious state/theocracy. The fact that the modern state of Israel is located in the Biblical Land of Israel is very significant in terms of Jewish and Israeli history and identity, but its borders are established by historical events, not by the determination of rabbis. Some places that were not in the Biblical state of Israel are part of the Israeli state (like Eilat) and others that are part of some Biblical narratives are not within today's Israel. Of course there are some fundamentalists who believe that God's Biblical promises should be reflected in the borders of the Israeli state, but their view doesn't hold wide political support as it's totally unrealistic and ignores the historical and political status quo.

I just wanted to thank you for this thread and for putting yourself out there.

I'm interested in your statement that Israeli society is diverse. I must admit I was ignorant of this, could you expand please?
Diverse in politics? Country of origin? Religion? Ethnicity?

Yes unfortunately there are populist politicians who make these appalling statements. Most Israelis and Israeli media don't take them particularly seriously because they are calling for war crimes rather than presenting any kind of useful analysis of the situation. Debates on news programmes usually include people with more reasonable opinions. If you want to hear one a couple of voices from Israeli news, listen to the latest episode of the "Unholy" podcast which includes a conversation between two veteran Israeli news presenters, Yonit Levy and Ilana Dayan. I think this will give you a picture of the general tone of Israeli news.

Most of our mainstream media reflects topics particularly relevant to Israelis: the welfare of the hostages, the plight of hostages families and bereaved families, the fighting in Gaza, names of soldiers who died, details of Hamas infrastructure uncovered in Gaza, reports of damage by rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. What we don't see much at all is Palestinian opinion, or reporting of the war from a Palestinian perspective.

See previous messages. Israel is a secular state and its current (disastrous in my opinion and that of many Israelis) prime minister is secular. I don't think we can blame Israel's problems on religious doctrine.

Thank you @israelilefty most appreciated

Practically speaking, a significant change of government needs elections, so it's not going to happen immediately unless Netanyahu resigns, but that's vanishingly unlikely.

All polls currently show the current far-right coalition losing a huge amount of support, primarily to Benny Ganz's centrist party, which would easily form a coalition substantially more moderate than the current one.

if you are not allowed to travel to Palestinian areas, do you believe them to be part of your country or another?

thanks, it's been quite an interesting if epic way to spend an evening :)

This is really interesting OP. As you grew up in another country I assume you were not raised to speak Hebrew. What is your Hebrew like now and was it difficult to learn?

Oh gosh that didn't take long, did it.

Thank you OP for this courageous thread.

Are you aware that 20,000 civilians (14 000 of those being children and women) have died so far? Do you believe that a government has the right to starve a entire people as well as to deprive them of water and medicine, in the name of self-defence?
Is this morally right? Can this ever be justified?

All of the above!

In terms of ethnic-religious affiliation, Israel is about 74% Jewish, 21% Arab (mainly Muslim but also Christian and Druze) and 5% "other".

Israel has one of the highest percentages of immigrants in the world. Jewish immigrants have come to Israel from literally everywhere, Morocco, Yemen, Ethiopia, USA, France, UK, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Poland, India, Russia.... I know people who are first or second generation immigrants from all of those and more! The Arab population is also diverse - from Bedouins living a tradition lifestyle to Palestinian hipsters in cities.

Politics is also super diverse. We have proportional representation and usually 10 or more factions have seats in the Knesset. Alongside the more standard right, centre and left, in the Knesset there are Muslim Islamist members of Knesset, and Palestinian communists, and extreme liberals and Ultra-Orthodox fundamentalists, and Jewish traditionalists of Middle Eastern origin. The surprising part is that behind the headlines, on day-to-day issues there is a lot of cooperation between factions. But the debates are pretty intense.

The best part is that our food reflects all the diversity :)