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.

Thank you so much for this OP 💐. I have two questions. 1) You call it an occupation. Do you ever feel a part of the problem? I genuinely don't mean that in an inflammatory way.
2) I follow quite a few Jewish you tubers who are shomer shabbat. They are working full time, and they rush home from work on Thursdays and seem to stay awake cooking until early hours of Friday morning to get everything ready. It just seems so exhausting, does Shabbat have to be a three course meal every week? It's like Christmas day cooking every single week. Can you not just have a normal meal?

And 3) which is about Judaism rather than life in Israel so feel free not to answer. From what I've seen on social media, (mostly in US) there seems like very high levels of materialism within Orthodox Jews. This surprised me, as I thought the more religious you are, the less worldly. They talk about the average bar mitzvah being $25k+, weddings being double that, needing expensive designer Shabbat outfits, and a new bride needing 3 wigs that cost $2-3k each. (and they can apy to charities to get money for this). Is this your experience in your country of origin, or in Israel?

I don't argue with facts but you appear to.

You're so right. Nobody in Gaza has ever done anything wrong ever.

Thank you OP. This is a really interesting and valuable thread.

I'm half Israeli/(secular) Jew. I have spent a lot of time in Israel, but have never lived there full time, have never learnt Hebrew fluently.

Never in my life have I felt a pull, longing & sadness this strong towards my Jewish heritage, and Israel, than in the last few months.
It's surprised me.
It's made me think about the theory of Inherited Trauma a lot.

Do you believe in Inherited Trauma in regards to the Jewish people?

Hi, I salute your bravery 😊

I am a British/Israeli dual national but I lived all my life in the UK. I’m not in a position to move to Israel right now so my question is: how can we (diaspora Jews & allies) help?

Never in my life have I felt a pull, longing & sadness this strong towards my Jewish heritage, and Israel, than in the last few months.
It's surprised me.

@moderationincludingmoderation me too, except that I have no Israeli relatives and I'm only half Jewish on my dad's side. You've described exactly how I feel. In part I think it's because this is the first time in my life that I have seen and felt afraid of antisemitism in mainstream society.

It's prompted some conversations with my kids about their heritage which I think is a good thing.

So many questions since breakfast time :) To everyone who asked: I'm going to do my best to answer a few now and some may get left for later, as (unreasonably enough, I know...) my employer expects me to get some work done and my family expect me to be functional :) But here goes with the next batch...

I volunteered a few times for the organization transporting Palestinians (Road to Recovery) some years ago because I happened to regularly do a long commute which fitted with some of the rides that were required. I believe it's still ongoing, though not from Gaza at the moment.

I think that all civil society initiatives that encourage positive interactions between Israelis and Palestinians contribute positively, if only to those directly involved, but I don't think they on their own will have a significant impact.

I haven't read Mishpacha for a long time; what I see of the headlines of Yated Neeman makes me believe that the hareidi press is slanted rightwards. Jerusalem post also I would place center-right.

Good luck with the Hebrew! I guess the way to learn a language is just to dive in...

Slightly off topic but hard to let this but if spin go unremarked. These remarks were in twitter/x and are a cultural reference to the national rejoicing about the safe release of Emily ( who just happened to be 8 years old at the time of her adduction) who was in the most peril at that time of all Irish children in Gaza. The two New Testament parables referenced are associated with peace and reconciliation and most Irish parents and children age 8 upwards , including those from a Muslim background in Ireland would be familiar with theses parables because at this age schools spend a lot of class time time discussing reconciliation, tolerance and forgiveness (“ Catholicism Lite” as it were) in second class (8yo). The IDF were raining indiscriminate bombs down on about 10 other Irish children at the time, who fortunately later made it home. So Varadkar had celebrate Jewish Emily’s release while mindful that at least 10 Muslim Irish kids remained in peril from the Israeli bombs

@israelilefty thank you for all your answers. I had a question in regards to childcare. Is it expensive in Israel to fund childcare when both parents are working? I know people in real life who for example would want to have another child but don't because they wouldn't be able to afford the child care costs. Are there any initiatives where government help is given to families on lower incomes In this regard?
Thank you once again

Edited to add the people who I know that i was referring to are currently living in England

Thank you :) I'm glad to hear that you and others have found this thread useful.

Will it all backfire? I have no idea. In the sense of Hamas ideology growing - you could also say that it's already an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology which had a massive influence in the Middle East.

But to your more specific question - that's the kind of crystal ball that nobody has: we only have the information available today. Maybe it's worth saying, though, that in Israel we certainly see the present war in a wider regional frame in which Iran and its proxies, (including Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen) are pitted against regional alliances including more moderate Arab countries normalising relations with Israel. There's no coincidence that Hamas timed this conflict happened just as Saudi Arabia and Israel were moving towards normalisation, and I expect that after the current localised conflict is over we will see wider repercussions in the regional frame.

I am sure the anti-Israel Sinn Fein voters were not on Varadkers mind at all when he put out that tweet.

Theres a great Prime time episode on RTE where Israeli president Yitzchak Herzog is interviewed about this. Link to episode at bottom of article

https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2023/1128/1419018-israeli-president-questions-irish-indifference-to-israeli-pain/

What age did you leave your original country and why did you move to Israel?

Do you feel physically safe at the moment or are you worried about possible attacks in the upcoming months/years? Would feeling unsafe make you reconsider whether living in Israel is sensible or are you there for good whatever?

I do hope you’re ok.

The reason that I (and almost all of the Israeli left) are not out there protesting for a ceasefire right now is not because we don't care about Palestinian civilians or recognise the terrible toll they are facing, but because we hold a different perspective to you.

Simply put, Hamas is a terrorist entity sitting right on our borders, who has the means and infrastructure to plan and carry out the Oct 7 attacks, and has specifically stated that they intend to do so again and again. Israeli society will recover from Oct 7, but it won't recover from more and more attacks of this kind, not only because of the human loss, but because of the immense terror and trauma that accompanied the atrocities. We cannot, as we have in previous rounds of conflict with Hamas, just draw a line and expect this not to happen again. In the past, I don't think we took Hamas's rhetoric seriously. Nobody thought that they were either capable or really intended to carry out this kind of attack. We have sadly learned that we were mistaken.

I think that this mistakenness is felt particularly on the Israeli left. The sheer sadism and psychological warfare really hurt our basic beliefs. It was shattering for me to read, for example, that a woman from one of the Israeli kibbutzim had put together a joint photography exhibition this year with a Gazan photographer that she met on the internet, which documented their daily lives. The exhibition was heralded as a peace project bringing together people from both sides, and the two photographers developed a friendship and chatted on social media. On the morning of October 7th he called her asking about the positions of soldiers in her kibbutz, which was under attack, and she suddenly realised that the whole project had been a scam - he had been gathering information for Hamas, as had Gazan workers who worked in the kibbutzim alongside Israelis, then were recognised by the same Israelis as part of the attack force on Oct 7. Now I'm not naive and I'm aware that interactions between Israelis and Gazans don't happen on a level playing field. But the many stories like this sadly make it impossible for us to return to the reality of October 6th.

What this means is that you and I face different stakes and reasoning in calling for a ceasefire. For most of the global left, calling for an unconditional ceasefire is a convenient and acceptable moral position to take. For me, calling for an unconditional ceasefire without removing Hamas's military capability is to abandon my own friends, who live in a kibbutz about 1km from the Gaza border, and to say that they can't sleep safely in their own home, within the internationally agreed 1948 borders of Israel. They were lucky this time - the terrorists didn't make it into their kibbutz on Oct 7. But I literally saw their house on a Hamas map that had been found on terrorists who had been intending to go there (a photo of the map was published in a US newspaper).

If there was a ceasefire deal on the table which ensured the safety of Israelis from future attacks by Hamas, I believe Israelis would jump on it. The military has made statements to that effect. Nobody wants to endanger Gazan civilians and our own soldiers if there is another way to reach the goal of removing Hamas's military capability. But unfortunately such a deal is not on the table.

There are many other things Israeli leftists have been calling for during the war: for the war to be fought in ways that is less destructive to Gazan civilians, and Jewish and Arab Israelis have been working on many ways to continue to cooperate and avoid the conflict spilling over into Israel. But most of us can't wholeheartedly call for a ceasefire right now that would put us back at October 6th.

This perspective was discussed among leftists at the beginning of the war, but we are far from the position of it being relevant now as we are thickly embroiled in the war. I agree in part with your reading, but even if Israel is doing, in whatever way, what Hamas wants, it's not clear what else Israel could realistically have done that would be more effective against Hamas. I wish that wasn't the case, but a lot of hypothetical solutions are not really realistic options for governments dealing with this kind of threat.

A new coalition could be formed without new elections. In fact since Ganz joined the coalition as a unity government, there would still be a majority for the coalition if Ben Gvir left. This would be unlikely to last beyond the end of the war as polls show that it would be of huge advantage to Ganz to pull out of the coalition and trigger elections, in which his party would trounce Netanyahu's, but that's all future speculation.

I think that some Israelis felt that nothing should enter Gaza as long as Hamas were holding hostages, and that withholding aid would cause the Gazan people to pressure Hamas. This is not a position I shared, and this approach does not seem to have been effective, though I do understand the reluctance to allow fuel that is needed by Hamas into Gaza.

At this point, I believe that the holdups to aid entering Gaza are due to problems delivering the aid, not with Israel blocking it. Recently the Kerem Shalom crossing was opened to increase the capacity. To me this is the right thing to do as we are fighting Hamas not the Gazan people. I hope that ways can be found to make sure the aid gets to the right people who need it as we often see videos of trucks being looted or appropriated by gunmen.

What happened on October was horrific but how do you justify the treatment of Palestinians for the last 70 years? How can you still say it’s self defence. Killing innocent children is not self defence

That's such a great question. But to be honest I don't think I'd ask them anything. I'd just want to listen.

Our country doesn't separate the population! Among the citizens of Israel, around 74% are Jewish, 21% are Palestinian Arab, and 5% are other. Some live in mixed cities, where Jews and Arabs literally live in the same apartment buildings. One time I lived in a building that simultaneously had Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze inhabitants - and there were only 5 apartments in the building! Others live in towns and villages that are less mixed, but mix in places of daily life like malls, hospitals, shops etc.

Schools are generally not mixed between Jews and Arabs basically because kids study in their native languages (Hebrew or Arabic). There are several dual-language schools that do teach 50:50 Jewish and Arab students. I would theoretically send my kid to one but there isn't one locally to where I live. Universities are mixed. Most Arab Israelis don't go to the army (most are not required to do so by law, because it's recognised that as Palestinians they would be put in an impossibly conflicted situation) but others do serve alongside Jewish Israelis and have sadly been among the fallen in recent weeks. My workplace is very mixed and as it happens my boss is a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel, as are other people I work with regularly.

Of course coexistence in Israel isn't perfect, and there are many places to improve, but it is an everyday reality.

On the other hand, Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank are not citizens of Israel and need permits to enter Israel. They would have been citizens of a Palestinian state had the Oslo accords been successful, and I hope that in the future such a state will be established as part of a two state solution.

Thanks so much for this fascinating AMA.

My question is unrelated to the current conflict: what proportion of people born and raised in Israel speak English fluently? Is it taught in all schools? How much English language media (films, TV, music) do young people tend to consume?

@israelilefty sorry, forgot to tag you!

I forgot to answer @TomeTome about South Africa. It's an interesting parallel as their successful transition to democracy happened at the same time as the (failed) Oslo accords in Israel/Palestine. On one hand they have an amazing story to tell about the transformation of society. On the other hand having visited there a couple of times, it's important not to over-idolise this example. They have democracy, but they also have extremely deep societal problems including massive economic inequality. Also the historical circumstances of the conflict in each country are very different. I think we should learn from others but also be careful not to overemphasise parallels.

"I find it extraordinary that in this day and age there is a country that separates the population based on their ethnic origins and/or religion. How does it sit with you @israelilefty ? "

@TomeTome
Asking earnestly, do/did you genuinely believe this is the case in Israel? Like it was in South Africa?
Is this what you actually meant?

Yes I do :) National service is a legal obligation and part of the normal fabric of life in Israel, and when the time comes I expect that my child will fulfil this obligation. By then they will be an adult and will be responsible for choosing (as much as is possible within the system) the kind of service they will undertake. Obviously as a mother I hope they would choose a non-combat role which would be safer, but it's not my choice to make.