The Jewish Story: Revolutionary Thought

you know there are people who like to do what they're told and there are people who'd like to tell others what to do and then there are people out there who are just wondering what exactly needs to be done which one are you I'm Rob Mike Feuer and this is the Jewish story interlude the Hebrew revolution with Rabbi Yehuda Cohen so for weeks we have been in the middle of the maelstrom whether it's the show up whether it's the chaos in the Land of Israel whether it's the boiling pot of Europe that we've been speaking about and I wanted to pull out of the picture just a little bit and talk about the levels of consciousness that have been brewing underneath the surface of our story and then order to help me do that I've got someone here that I'm quite excited to speak with I'm here with Rabbi Yehuda Cohen West Bank the Jewish peace activist educator and all-around advocate of the Jewish revolutionary consciousness I could be so bold as to say how you doing Yoda good to be with you and I'm so glad you made it out here we're sitting by the way in the partes Institute gotta give credit where credit is due they're always so welcoming when we want to do these things and we were speaking a little bit before the show about where we're at in the arc of the story so I feel like I don't need to fill you in but really where I want to start is that I got to you inside of the fact that we know each other from the general world of educators out there because I finished a book recently called the first time and it's a book that deals it's written by Australia Dodd who was the the chief thinker of the Leckie locum a high reaches well that freedom fighters of Israel movement that the listeners have heard me speak about a little bit and when I finished reading it I have to say that it was basically like an acid wash for the brain and what do I mean I grew up in a very standard Zionist educational system which unbeknownst to me meant that there was the labor zionist assumption of normalcy and so there was this one picture of of the topography of Zionist history if you will and I thought like when I read the revolt by Menachem bacon and the story of the air grown in the revisionist history small re and big R mm-hmm that was like peeling back a certain layer on that history and seeing oh wow there's more going on here and frankly it's not always so say it's not a g-rated movie it's not a gr8 very well said and then when I read the first time it was kind of like well you really want to start peeling back layers rip and it it hurt yeah I finished it on Shabbos knocking wrench bought right after Murphy Shabab it ended up being perfect to say as I've told my listeners many time I'm a third generation from survivors when I grew up with my grandparents generation in particular receive the stories of my great-aunt should be healthy and well when I was basically age 11 and onwards so the visceral passion that Elle Dodd brings to his story the fire that underlies it was completely disruptive to me mm-hmm it was completely disruptive and in particular what was disruptive about it was the this revolutionary consciousness this sense that there was a moment in history when all of the facades had fallen away and there was a nakedness of truth and therefore opportunity that faced um Israel the Jewish people in history and time in our land and this sense that that we might have missed it I think that what's important to understand when opening the first time at least experience I've had when I've read it and I've read it more than once if I do that I would recommend you do because there's a lot we missed the first time obviously that we missed the second time but when L Dodd is speaking about specific people and events he's often not limiting the discussion to those people in events he's often talking about these like spiritual forces that shine into our world particularly in Jewish history like in every generation mm-hm and he and or it's V Greenberg does it as well in his poetry and and you know he kind of that spiritual force is like always recognizable so often when L Dodd is talking about Golda Meir or talking about Menachem Begin or talking about FGM belt in ski or David ben-gurion he's speaking about patterns he's speaking about like like certain consistent characters that appear in Jewish history in almost every generation and play a role and the lezzy is also a character like what character you think they like well I think to understand lassie we really need to understand this concept of Knesset Israel this concept of this a giant national organism this giant spiritual organism that shines into this world through millions of bodies in space and time called Jews unfortunately translated as Catholic Israel in the 50s by certain oh that's we would say like the the the national soul that all of the Jewish people throughout time share then Ventura shares that the Land of Israel shares this is his giant spiritual organism that our sages referred to as Israel right and I would say that our sages when the Romans destroyed our civilization our sages kind of encoded the will of that national soul we all share into an exercise that were meant to do three times a day and that's the Amidah and the Bach I showed the requests that a Jew makes when engaging in Tefila is really an exercise in reminding his conscious self what his soul wants what the soul we all share really want and I think less he interestingly enough was able to transcend the barriers of left and right and religious and secular all these different barriers that kind of compete with all these binaries in the Jewish world mm-hm let he was able to very successfully transcend that and stay completely focused on what the Jewish people as a collective have wanted for thousands of years so that's very powerful because I've often thought and even taught here in part days that the enemy does a story that we tell three times a day in order to embed ourselves in this look you're saying this overarching narrative right and and what I hear you saying is that the power of the left he was not to fall into what is I think a characteristically Ashkenazi Jewish phenomenon of splitting even though they themselves of course as we spoke about in the last episode were the product of a split as it's called in the you know in the history of the underground movements nevertheless the that they were able to transcend those those binaries the left rights the religious secular because they felt they were tapped into the overarching narrative right I would also say that you know in every generation there's probably a unique shade of our national soul that shines into this world as a radical minority of Jews trying to advance Jewish history forward like you asked about the Jewish revoluta Hebrew Revolution yeah that's why we're where is it so I think that well I think to understand where it is today we need to understand it in its historical context I think we can see it we can see two streams we can see the intellectual stream or the spiritual stream which is represented by certain figures throughout Jewish history from I mean starting with you know let's say the fall of hospice Kingdom so you have our baked IVA and rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and then later you have rabbi u de la vie in the Ramban the romka rabbi moshe haim sato the mahara love prog hope you people are listening and doing a good review on the Jewish story y'all coochie mony the Vilna Gaon and eventually Ruth Cooke and I think we was really unpacked with rough cook only because he was the he was alive when we again to return to our later know him relevant carrying the whole code but but this is it this is a approach Torah that I think was driven underground in the time of the Roman conquest of our country and in the time of the persecution against those who tried to teach this Torah it was driven underground it was mostly hidden I think in the surah Kadosh and ultimately unpacked by some of the thinkers I mentioned that's kind of one stream but then there's like the actual doers on the ground - the embodiment right and and they were we can say they were the mica beam they were the freedom fighters the the zealots the Sicari they were the soldiers of Bar Kokhba they were also you know people like L dad Donny Deutsch Roma mahadeva Devaney all of these you know we never really learn about these Jewish liberation movements that took place between Bar Kokhba and herd soul but because they failed but for the mother thing also because the the Zionist historiography that most people are educated within has a vested interest in making that minute anak la palma that leap from from biblical Israel to the modern rebirth and glossing over a lot of what comes in because I think we're gonna probably have to revisit that once we once get into the word Zionism because living it's an important word and I wouldn't categorize left.he as Zionist I think that they themselves rejected the term and but when we speak about Zionism like so many other words it's really semantics yes different people understand the word differently we'll get there but you were making ethical important registers I've streams that through time I would say that there is this effort to advance to which history that manifested through these Jewish liberation movements that ultimately came into the world is lefty so we can say that maybe Lettie was one of the last expressions of this side of the Hebrew collective or the or the Hebrew collective soul that agitates to advance Jewish history forward and is successful and not being distracted by the different political ideologies of the day they know how to use the political ideologies as a tool to achieve Jewish liberation and not to get distracted and kind of pushed off course by some of these things like now even if we look at the Jewish world especially the United States it's so polarized here as well although a little bit less so thank God but but but really people because really the my perspective is that all of the different sides all of the different camps within Israel have something fundamentally true driving them and they're unable to see each other's truths they feel they're in competition and therefore aren't able to do what left he was able to do in within Leki you had people who were very conscious of the fact that they were fighting from Al Kut Israel they're fighting for a bit demmick - they're fighting - for all of the biblical aspirations of the Jewish people and you had people in Lackey who were and sometimes the same people who are coming from a very Marxist perspective historical materialism and understanding British imperialism scientifically and knowing how to defeat them I would argue that the action that really forced the British to leave our country was the bombing of the Haifa refinery by lucky because you know they were able to by destroying the - oil refinery where the oil that was being taken from northern Iraq was refined and then shipped off from the ports by taking that out they made the price of occupation more expensive than the benefits of exploitation and when you make the price of occupation more expensive than the benefits of exploitation the occupier will leave so that's a considering the context of modern Israel a rather loaded shuri's well I think that's actually the mistake that Hamas makes I think or most of the most of the Palestinians and their supporters who insist on experiencing Israel as like a European colonialists occupier entity or as an outpost of Western civilization I mean I I don't blame them for their confusion because we've presented ourselves that way I think a lot of our leaders the confusion is rooted in our own confusion in terms of who we are and I think how the students are very much victims of a Jewish identity crisis and I mean just look at just look at the Judea and Samaria look at the West Bank we've been there you know over 50 years and we have not yet come up with a clear policy and therefore you know we keep bouncing around between policies or allusions of policies that mean we've done everything and nothing we came back to our homeland we said this is a cradle of Jewish civilization but the Americans don't want us here so we don't know what to do and we said but wait a minute these are the mountains you know it could you know over our densest population centers we can't give them away but there's so many non-jews here what are we gonna do however we can incorporate them into our society so for over 50 years we've done everything and nothing and Palestinians are very much the victims of our lack of a coherent vision or policy in regards to these territories so in sort of in light of this image that you presented as these two streams driving Jewish history that the necessarily collectives all that sort of intellectual spiritual and the embodied active stream that what's happened in our return is that because of a confusion of what I would call heavily as Hmong that these sort of like constructs that float around in the world whether they are democracy whether they are Western values whether they are Judaism as a religion which over many many centuries in the Exile learned to embody the Valor of the weak and in my eyes has deep issues with the use of power has led us into a relationship where we don't know what we're doing we have a deep desire to survive and thrive we have constructs which may or may not be serving us and because we are here in this piece of land with another people where we still have the upper hand most of the time the power dynamics favour us but it's more complicated than that I think we do have the upper hand absolutely today we have more hands moving under control but we had to get there yes that's why right and getting there wasn't easy and and I'm not sure that having the upper hand means that we have the ability to allow the status quo to continue you know without change I think that we're the situation is much more delicate and much more unstable than I think our leaders like to admit well for sure than I like to admit one of the things that goes through my mind all the time it's like you know European culture and I've deeply identify as Ashkenazi this phrase for Zion again in Yiddish it's hard to be a Jew I was one half complained and one half point of identity pride being listen it's not easy I tell my kids all the time they complain when I'm trying to teach them Torah when I'm trying to keep the boundaries of a lock on the house like sorry I see you're right not gonna sugarcoat it it's hard to be a Jew you know aside from the fact that I was raised to believe anything worthwhile it's gonna be hard to do it's just a fact of history and one of the challenges I see is today we've constructed a country where it's too easy to be a Jew it doesn't hurt and so therefore it's not just that our leaders are broadcasting either confused message or deliberate deception we could go there for really want to but it's that the daily experience of being a Jew we have constructed in many ways I think because of the deep psychological trauma of the last hundred years of Exile and return a life where the whole goal is that it should be easy to be a Jew I mean just look at the the system of Jewish law here with all of its warts and bumps etcetera life here is smooth I'm here with my students they always say to me gosh it's so good and easy to be a Jew here the food's kosher the calendars are rhythm you know I can tell people I don't work on Shabbat and they say of course not neither do I and it's very different than life in the Exile and because of that that the consciousness which comes with pain which is one of the big things that I got out of the first that many of the levels of consciousness that they'll Dodd is articulating there were a product of deep personal pain and suffering over the course of many years that consciousness I feel like has faded and I have a lot of fear around it to be honest with you because my sort of understanding of history is that that the Ramona column will bring back that pain if the consciousness phase that the goal is the consciousness pain isn't its only source but it's certainly one of the most ready in the hands of the Lord as we would say so I get nervous I get nervous about that power dynamic what I take away from I mean I take away many things from the first time but one of the things I take away is that there is this like a radical minority can be somewhat of a vanguard party uh-huh with the Jewish people I think when you think about it like historically there's there are very few heroes of Jewish history that are universally recognized by most of the organized Jewish world as heroes are there any who were accepted in their generation Oh in their generation for sure he just had like three right meaning like very very few and even the ones that were accepted in their generation were we're constantly complained about we were gonna stone Moses right and so we have to appreciate that you know usually heroes of our people are not well received in their own generations those who are strong are able to do what they need to do regardless of whether or not the masses are with them I think those who are clever can know also how to drag the masses behind them a little bit I think let he did that I think despite the fact but despite their perception it's kind of like a small fringe you know and the way they're taught historically is almost irrelevant gang right they did succeed they did succeed in dragging the entire Jewish community of Palestine behind them into a war with England yeah including the Etzel minions remember the Etzel was not prepared to fight the British until less he dragged him into it and ultimately even the Hagana and Palma were dragged into it the youth were dragged into it and they forced the British to collectively oppress the entire population which is something also Hamas and and other movements like Hamas force Israel to do with the active punishment against Palestinians is a trap it's a try to be sensitive to true method of revolutionaries is that if they can be so radical as to vote collective punishment they will in turn allow the oppressor to radicalize the population right to line up behind it so unless he was able to do that the British fell into the trap my concern is I see Israel falling into the trap and collectively punishing Palestinian populations where we should be trying to understand them better and understanding who our potential allies are and who our enemies really are so let's talk about that for a minute because I'm curious um that you know when I asked you who are you in your introduction one of the things you said is West Bank Jewish peace activist and I think a lot of listeners out there don't necessarily put those two things together where do you live I live on a mountain next to Beit el I actually live on the mountain where the Maccabees had their partisan camp for the first few years of the revolt mm-hmm Matityahu Hirshman IE died on my Mountain well your site was a couple days ago on RAF teenth of Marcos one also Yerevan benefit built golden calf on my mountains a big hero of Jewish history not a big hero of Jewish history but one of our mighty kings for sure and he built the golden calf on that mount and for political reasons we don't have to get into the story now but the reason why it was successful for him was because that was also the mountain where our ancestor Yaakov had his famous dream with the ladder and the angels and so on he fell as a spiritual centers burial so so that mountain happens to be a very sacred place in our peoples decision place like that and we know where the rock is it's been confirmed by geologists as a conglomerate meaning that it used to be several rocks now it's one rock it looks like a bed there's also a lot of guard towers from the time of the Maccabean caves where they planned their battles where they buried their dead where they made their olive oil I can show you where they made their wine but really tours up there yeah I did two tours up there but I'm living so people can be in touch with me and we'll give you your contact informations I'll actually also in the headquarters of the Makkah beam until they liberated the bit demek - then there and then they weren't big timing right you talk about the establishment moved to being establishment essentially it was a 26-year war so for the first four or so years for five years they were on my mouth and I work basically I believe that it's important that we understand where we are in Jewish history mm-hmm what are the goals of Jewish history what's already been achieved what's left to be achieved what are the obstacles standing in the way of achieving those things and what we can do to be characters in the story of smashing those obstacles it's kind of like a coaching model of Jewish history I suppose I mean I don't feel familiar with the coaching model what those are those are specifically the questions of what are the goals what stands in front of you in front of a girls when you need to achieve those goals right but we don't do that most of our politicians don't do that most activists don't even do that they don't think like in broad terms of Jewish history and where we are in that story they think of the challenge in front of us right now and and they hear certain words which means you're on that side or you're on this side or you're with me or you're against me and I think we need to transcend all that I need we need to do we need to transcend we need to be aware that you know if you ask most teenagers who care about participating in Jewish history people who live in beta L or live in male domain or you know Jewish teenagers from Judea and ask them or what's the next step we revived the Hebrew language we liberated our country from the British we unified Jerusalem in the six-day war we made the desert bloom we in gathered exiles what's next for the Jewish people most teenagers who actually care about the question would probably stay the temple yes that would have been my guess right and and I don't think we're anywhere near ready for the temple I think there's so many goals that leap of words and it worries me as well I get a lot of very sort of fresh-faced anxious teenagers giving that answer and I answer if you if you look at the second book of SHM oil and you see you know the vide when he King David when he tries to build the temple in his generation what the Prophet tells them is the temple comes when there's already peace yes and I see Horeb ayat and the Temple Mount and and this aspiration to return to the temple in the Kaaba not as something that we can only properly deal with when we've already reached a different stage of our reality in this country in terms of our own identity in terms of our own awareness of who we are but also in terms of a relationship with the non-jews in our society and we can't we can't start to agitate towards the temple as a means to creating peace we need to create peace and then we can build it up there's no skipping steps in history and I think it's viewed as like a magic solution that well it's interesting because I'm sure you're aware that there's a Mikolka there's an argument in the classical sources of whether the temple will be built by our hands or will descend sort of from on high and I often relate that Macha lochia to the two different types of people struggling for the templum they those who have what I call the whiz-bang view of Messiah that it's just gonna happen regardless of our participation in the process and to a certain degree it's an excuse in my eyes from doing the very hard work around the questions as you said them of identity and in the questions of national vision and doing the hard work day by day to create that it's like oh it'll all come from on high and then there are people who say we got to get in the trenches and build the world that can receive such a thing right so where do you see yourself definitely the ladder and what are you doing to make it happen well okay so I've identified three goals of Jewish history now and they're only my my pass you meaning no no meaning I think it's important because I run a lot of educational programs for Jewish students we just started our a teep program which is for gap year students in Israel between high school University where we really do try to empower them to be the next generation of leaders and I'm very careful I don't want people to just hear what I think the goals of Jewish history are now and adopt those as the flag that they're running with I really think that people need to go through a process if they come to my conclusions it's great but if they come to their own conclusions it's also great that but I want I don't want us to just be living in the you know Zionist ideologies of the 1930s and 40s I want us to be creating our own ideologies of Jewish liberation that can address the needs of our people now okay so the ID I've identified and that I try to fight for are three usually one of them is independence from the United States not taking their money not taking their weapons not taking their or we can be allies I'm happy to be allies with the United States I'm happy to be allies with China I'm happy to be allies with Iran and whomever and and Hezbollah I'm happy to be allies with everybody which is a classic letty principle just to be allied to be connected to the world but to not be a vassal and to be independent and to be able to develop our own hey I mean we can go deep into this issue of economic interest we will but give us a three but but I don't I don't know if we have time for that another issue is like you see you introduced me as a West Bank peace activist I think peace between Israel and our neighbors of Israel and the Palestinians Israel in the broader Middle East what I would call Semitic unity I think that's a goal of our generation it's complicated obviously and there's a lot of baggage and I think both sides have really experienced the conflict very differently we live in two completely different movies you know I'm very much I'm very much a student the rough cook and rough cook teachers that we all live in our perceptions of reality and the way we perceive reality impacts how we experience reality I mean this is one of the reasons why we make broth all day rule sham when we say that we're supposed to remind ourselves that this timeless ultimate reality without end is abundantly present in our lives that's right and and so we believe that our consciousness our perception impacts our experience and I think Palestinians and Israelis have had two completely different experiences for the last hundred years we've been living in two completely different conflicts we don't just disagree over who is right and who is wrong in a single conflict we think Israeli society by and large experiences this as a conflict between two competing nationalisms Palestinians very much experiences as an anti-colonial struggle and I think that the only way we can move forward is to really unpack the identities the aspirations and the grievances of both sides in or and only then can we really create the relationships having relationships come before solutions you know we don't we have to fix the picture before we choose the frame around it uh-huh and and I think so once we correct the relationships we can move towards solutions that we can both experience as victory and the subjective movies were living in and it's very important that's a very important piece that is often a huge stumbling block that people sometimes raise it than anything we're willing to give they're not willing to take or that are they that's it's a zero-sum paradigm and what I hear you saying is there there has to be some way to experience a resolution where it's actually an achievement for both people's right so I'll tell you what I think piece work has gotten wrong until this point first of all I think the two-state solution is a very problematic model that has actually made the conflict worse the whole Oslo process a two-state paradigm and the two-state paradigm didn't really begin with Oslo but you know the UN General Assembly was trying to push partition in 1947 so this is an old Western solution that's very much in the spirit of colonial powers just drawing maps and dividing up countries and not paying attention to the identities and values of the peoples who they were dividing up and assigning identities to as well as the the belief that the nation-state is the sole legitimate embodiment of pride and and the idea of a european-style nation state being the aspiration of everyone right right so I think that's very problematic the two-state solution is a very problematic model so we obviously reject that and unlike we're not part of the peace industry the one of the reasons why we call alternative often is because we're not part of a peace industry we don't take money from European governments we're not promoting a two-state solution and for the most part we circumvent the international community in order to empower grassroots Israeli and Palestinian leaders to be able to come up with ways forward that don't necessarily take into consideration the corporate interests of weapons companies or oil companies overseas you know or or Tony but you know and Tony Blair for a long time was like the point man for the quartet but you know you the quartet the middle-east quartet that George W Bush set up in order to push his roadmap his two-state solution but meanwhile Tony Blair was was a shareholder in Wotton er the Palestinian a cellphone company which is owned by Mahmoud Abbas his sons and and I mean there's so many conflicts of interests when it comes to all these different players but but but to move on with what I think is problematic about the approaches to peace that we've been dealing with up till now is I think first of all there's been the assumption has been that we need to empower the quote-unquote moderates meaning the westernized diplomats from Tel Aviv in Ramallah come and sign an American piece of paper all the nice people who look like us right and and they don't represent the Israelis or Palestinians on the ground so I think that we really need to empower the quote unquote extremists those who have been driving the conflict until now those who see themselves as really living the aspirations of their people are willing to fight kill and die for what's important to their people they need to be empowered as peacemakers so we don't bring the Israelis from Tel Aviv we're bringing Israelis from beta L or it's our or have wrong or such communities either consider the more radical communities and Palestinians as well Palestinians who have been marginalized and excluded from the process until now and we tried to bring the those to the table to really understand each other to understand the story of the other without feeling their own story threatened because that's a huge barrier and the the most important thing you know to challenge is this idea that peace can be achieved by forcing both peoples to compromise on things that are fundamentally important to us that can't work we're both Israelis and Palestinians fundamentally are not the types of people who can compromise on things that are fundamentally important to us I'll tell you right now if there were to be a two-state solution and I were to be separated from the cradle of Jewish civilization I would not be done fighting and there are at least a million Jews like me and there's at least a million I lost in Ian's like that or if not more and so I I think that what we need is not to look at a model that forces both peoples to compromise painfully but rather allows both peoples really I really unpacked the the grievances and aspirations of both sides in order to find a solution that allows us both to feel like winners and the stories we're living in so it's fascinating to me the two principles and we're gonna get to the third seem to make sense together in my mind one is shucking off the the sense of being a client state and it's in my eyes historically speaking deeply problematic that a national liberation movement tsiyon ism has always least unser Elements seen the need for a colonial client you see very clearly yes means I've seen thee four quadrant thank you right you see very clearly in Weitzman and ben-gurion ben-gurion has some tremendous quotes about the the 67 war in trying to discourage Israel from acting because he believed the United States would never back that aspiration so the very sort of steer of the conflict or contradiction embedded in a lot of Zionist thought that in order to be free we must have a patron man and the connection there too which is very interesting than your eyes that Jewish history We the People in order to achieve our next stage of development must make peace meaning there's a critical element that lies outside of ourselves you understand what I'm saying the first one is we need to draw inward and do what's right for a mr. Alan OTT be a client to someone else's aspirations be they political economic or both the other one however is that we're here locked in what looks like a death struggle with another people and all the paradigms have been presented to us up right now are are are them yeah they're binary they are zero-sum thinking there's a certain scarcity of identity which plagues me in the sense that in order for me to be a Jew I can't afford for you to be a Palestinian I'm sure you've encountered this very visceral response even to use the phrase for Palestinian for some right-wing thinkers like no there's no Palestinian people so something that we've spent some time as a threat to our identity we're a bit endorsed or in its whoa but it is a threat to very specific shade of our identity meaning Zionism in Palestinian nationalism one of the stories I've been telling for a number of episodes came into the world locked into a struggle and so therefore it's very important in my eyes to do a little bit of deconstruction on Zionism which is where I want to go next okay in order to understand how what you're proposing is not a um a radical shift away from Jewish independence but in many ways is a step out of a conflict which is holding us back from actually being right I'm looking to advance Jewish history I'm not looking to retreat right and I think that it's important that your listeners understand that even the things I say that might at first sound a little bit like a retreat from the Hebrew Revolution there have been accused of being an exile Jew I've haven't been a kids being in exile Jew but I but I have there are definitely a lot of people who I feel misunderstood by it's hard when you when a person is saying something new mmm in a political environment where very few people are used to struggling with new ideas creativity is not so welcomed right now and you know and everybody's used to hearing like the part of what you say that sounds like the people they don't like etc it's really it's difficult I try to push through it I like to be understood and therefore I take you know great pains to to make myself understood me okay listen but sometimes it's hard I want to say the the third thing this might you know lead into what you want to speak about next the third goal of this generation that I think is crucial is what I would call decolonizing Jewish identity mmm you know and we we had a successful led by lucky we had a successful anti-colonial struggle we freed our country from British rule we established a state but what we essentially did but we took the British flag off of the system that existed and we stuck a Jewish flag on that system and we haven't had any deep conversations about what the society supposed to be I wouldn't call myself a Zionist the truth is I think I think Sian ism there's ways to look at Zionism as a liberation movement and there are ways to look at Zionism as a colonial project it depends on what facts you are mark cherry picking right now the narratives work that way I think when we say talk about narratives I think the what I would define as a narrative is a collection of facts that are selectively chosen and strung together to tell a story and contextualize within an ideological worldview and I think when it comes to our conflict with the Palestinians the last hundred years of our history in this land there are a million over a million facts and nobody picks all of them and I find that usually the Palestinian narrative and the Israeli narrative the Zionist narrative are both telling the truth when we talk about ourselves but both getting it wrong we talk about the other because and yet they're mutually supportive right in a very unhealthy way yeah so I think we need to be able to have the courage to to look at the facts that make us uncomfortable and sort of the Palestinians I'm not living this is the Jewish store which I Jews right but I think we both need to ultimately move forward and be able to ignore engage the facts that we haven't included our narratives in order to create a bigger truth that's included that's inclusive enough to encompass both ostensibly rival truths and I think the and I think this is important because the more inclusive we are with our truth of other truths I think the closer we get to a divine truth and ultimately that is the goal we want to get to a Shems truth there is a I'm not a postman post modernist I believe there's a capital T objective truth but I don't think we're wired to fully grasp it but our goal is to get close like it's an aspiration of humanity o especially the Jewish people to get close to divine truth and the way I I think we have to be very strong in our own narrative I think it's dangerous if you're not strong in your own story in your own identity your own homeland etc then to start engaging other people's stories that might on the surface be counter to your own as dangerous I agree it leads to the narrative trap of relative truth and therefore there's one way that leads down into nihilism right we're the only safe place to go is to deny everything right so and that's dangerous I think ultimately we need to be strong with their own truth with our own story with their own identity and once we're coming from a place of strength we can engage the stories and identities of others without fear wasn't that the goal of Zionism and a less intellectual mosaic level I think on a more prosaic level to re-engage the world from a place of strength ya know that sure that certainly existed in Zionism but I think what we missed is the post-colonial experience once the British are gone once your land is free mm-hmm we're meant to have a conversation about what the values of the state are what makes a stage wash is it just like a european-style nation state with some superficial Jewish decorations in a demographic majority right switch the calendar fill up the banks with Jews and and you can just go along her merry way right but that I think that's the the unwillingness or inability to define what makes a state Jewish has led to a lot of polarization within Israeli society it's led to things you know very divisive very divisive policies that that makes not only Palestinians feel other dand marginalized but also many Jews I think it was arrayed in for example are the fastest growing population between the river and the sea absolutely they need to be taken into consideration if we're going to make long-term plans they don't fit design this narrative that is for sure true raivo but they're they're going through a lot of shifts internally and we have to be conscious of those shifts in order to prepare for tomorrow and right now they don't think the state is Jewish enough and you have a lot of non Jews who think the state is too Jewish so maybe we need to be working towards making a state much more deeply Jewish than it is right now and at the same time more softly Jewish right well what I meant and I think that this speaks to your point is that the Zionist narrative operated on an assumption that Judaism as a religion is embodied particular in the Frady world was a part of exile which would fade upon the return right that famous conversation that took place between ben-gurion and the cousin tisha about the exemption draft exemption to yeshiva students the few hundred there were at the time right yeah in ben-gurion wildest nightmares probably not dreams he couldn't picture 10,000 20,000 yeshiva students you know blocking the streets of Jerusalem because they don't want to go to the army so there's it but I want come back to this notion of decolonization of of the culture I know if you've ever read any of the I'm guessing you have the post-colonial literature on decolonization of the mind sure you read Paulo Freire II know so we'll talk about that maybe some other time that's an important piece of pedagogy of the oppressed I push it to all my students a very important educational tool that I encourage you to pick up sure that sounds great I think that you know the the way I would explain it or understand it is that when let's just keep it local when they let's say a family where'd you grow up I open Cleveland ok Cleveland your family in Cleveland you're 12 years old I don't know and a group of guys from New York come in and invade your family's home they take over they have guns again - anything about it and they rearrange the furniture and they switch the music you're allowed to listen to in the house and they change the cuisine I don't know maybe your mother like to make chill and they ban chill and it's coming from here on out all right and and they basically they basically completely change the culture in your house the atmosphere in your house and you don't like it but you can't do anything about it and a few years go by and now you're 16 17 years old and you feel you can do something about it and you risk your life to push them out and you free your home and your family is free now oh but now you have to figure out first of all not only where the furniture used to be but do we even want to change it back maybe this works for us it's a conversation where'd the crock-pot go you know what kind of music do we like to listen to do we want to listen to their music do I feel like a little bit of a sell out listening to the to the music of the invader of the occupier but I like it yeah but I like it I'm used to it and I have so many memories connected to it of just coming of age etc so that's the kind of conversation we as a society need to have I mean Lahav deal America is probably a poor example but they did go through this process of the Federalist Papers to try and decide what values would be expressed in the society they were building we never did that and we need to do that because it's part of it's not just about freeing our country and being politically independent it's all it's also about creating the type of society that that is the fulfillment of our peoples aspirations for thousands of years so I would define myself you know I often say I'm a mass M at its my unique brand of post design is Jewish liberation I'm a semi which means I for me it's about protecting Zionism positive achievements while cleaning up its mess mm-hmm and it's also about trying to go deeper into what the what the the character of the Jewish state is with maybe a unique emphasis on what we share in common with our neighbors because the roots of the Jewish story lie here yeah as opposed to the arc of the last 2,000 years that have dispersed us abroad and so you're saying that that that's experience of Exile we may have picked up many very valuable things along the way but there's a process that the decolonization at least in my eyes doesn't just begin with the British occupation of 1917 that there's a deeper question of what it means to be honest Valentin to me when I dig into Jewish history even making the distinction of when did we become Jews right it drives me nuts what I'm teaching here at Turin I'm actually not a Jew yeah well that's even deeper job of living right so so you have an identity route there which transcends the the Exile and so when I teach my students here and we're reading these stories of Abraham they say Abraham was the first a Jew I go nuts no use the first Hebrew well actually and there is the first Hebrew okay it's a longer company in Konami but you get my point is that they the problematic and it's not just a semantic issue yeah because the the Jew is a important construct but it's not the be-all end-all of Torah or ami soil right and a lot of what I in my language here you saying it is um that we in our return to our land have a certain degree outgrown the needs of the Jewish construct not to be abandoned and outgrowing Zionism and well yeah I see Zionism as a reentry vehicle and and and the fact that it happened to grab the momentum of sort of European nationalism and colonialism is just the way history works why was that the most powerful construct available in its day to pick up people up weld them back together and reenter them in its a that's an amazing it's probably important for us to unpack the term because I think a lot of Jews a lot of self defined Zionists often define Zionism or used the word Zionism very anachronistically they would refer to Abraham as a Zionist they would refer to the Maccabee Messiah Nastasia refer to Rabbi Akiva as a Zionist and it's like this and and you know sometimes I hear people say modern Zionism when they talk about say modern Zionism which i think is I understand where it comes from but I think it's a little bit problematic because you know from if we're having conversations beyond our own community we have to have a much more maybe scientific or factual definition of the term I think this upfront right I think Zionism is probably best defined as a as a movement that really spanned between 1897 and 1967 mm-hmm it was a movement that was for the most part I understand there was of it see on another movements there were four precursors but but really there was a Zionist movement created you know in Basel what the first ein is Congress by no means ever heard so and I think that movement was a very successful Jewish liberation movement and succeeded were a lot of previous movements field and and partially because of the the factors you mentioned a moment in time right and I think that that we and I would argue that Zionism is probably one of the most successful revolutionary movements in human history just in scope Jessamyn through pure achievement I mean reviving dead language after 2,000 years returning abroad I wasn't dead well we're hibernating but still it was it was really like vernacular yes also to to return a broken and scattered people from all over the world back to the original homeland they were displaced from to defeat the British Empire all of these things were really really near miraculous achievements of not miraculous achievements and and then I think in 1967 we liberated Jerusalem we unified Jerusalem and that for me is the end of Zionism because I achieved our goal we achieve the goal and since then the Jewish people especially in the Land of Israel have kind of been living in a combination of the failures and successes of the various scientists dreams and spinning our wheels a lot right and arguing over things that really don't need to be argued about and and I think what we need is like a unified vision and sense of where we're going next and we need whether you're a cemetery no one needs to be a cemetery but I think that everybody needs to try or everybody's interested in this conversation and interested in advancing Jewish history needs to at least try to formulate a post scientist Jewish liberation ideology that's relevant to the chapter of Jewish history were in now as opposed to the post Zionist posture that sort of infects a lot of the intellectual elite here in Israel westernized at which exactly which is really a postmodern post nation-state post you know collective identity posture which will never work for the Jewish people no it can't are our roots our momentum too much I'm gonna try out a definition that speaks to me about Zionism see what you think to me Zionism is a movement toward for the embodiment of the Jewish people okay and and I I put the emphasis on embodiment because I believe that even these sort of um the more ideological and spiritual aspect of Zionism even look into rough cook right what what entranced him was this process of reimbursing ISM in Jewish history is because the body's not the goal right and but I would even argue that rough cook and we're both very careful not to define themselves as scientists and we cook for sure right and lucky I'm less familiar with the thought although I I it makes perfect sense to me from what I do know what you're saying there was like a rejection of the term like an outright rejection of the term both by nothing Yellin more who is a political leader of laughs he really like you today that's less clear but he really was if there was one leader he was the leader that's how that presents it right and and also the le o le o but sorry and Elia Hakeem when they were on trial in Cairo from the assassination of Lord Moyne they they also reject sign is amiss a we are not Zionists and they were an indigenous people fighting for their freedom against British colonialism and therefore the Muslim Brotherhood at the University of Cairo was able to demonstrate for their freedom and to actually feel real solidarity with them that's one of the senses I got in doing my research that there was a lost moment and it wasn't deliberately I mean sorry wasn't extending loss it was deliberately obscured where there was a much deeper potential for alliance between the Jews returning in the Arabs in pushing against the colonial imperial powers right then there was an antagonism and it's just a classic tool of empire they're hungry still I know and it's kind of like it's so obvious that when you say it most people who are willing to look will say oh yeah you're right yet we're still playing it out in the streets right today but we also have to look at who's responsible today and who benefits in more conflicts because at the end of the day they say we're trusting the same nations for the most part to lead us towards peace and help broker peace and these are the same people who make money from the conflict or are selling arms to both sides right absolutely and and at the end of the day we need to be very cautious of who we allowed to lead us towards peace so I have two more things and we could talk forever I also want to respect your time and I also know people's didn't just ban in our day to day just now as long as it used to be although this ability to hit pause and come back to things don't give up people on a long show on this but there's two things that for me are really pressing first of all I'm very curious about this this notion of somatic unity mmm-hmm so let's start there and I'll save my last question for last because you mentioned it as your vision of sort of um of what the post scientists picture looks like but I think that for most of us and I did a little bit of looking around and reading some the things you've written that are out there and I think it's hard to wrap the head around so maybe you could say well the idea of us in digitizing into the region well uh nor guess you'll be coming an organic part of the Middle East well organic gotta warn your word indigenous for me as a hot button it is not what needs to be unpacked because the truth is it's being misused by a lot of the pro-israel community today yeah I mean to me it's very important to note that the Torah never presents us as native to this land well first of all I don't know if I would agree with you and when you go deeper into the middle of Shame I think you find that that the family of Avraham Terra we're from here we see that the Canaanites were then in the land and where Rashi tells us that they had been conquering the land hence the Semitic this is Moffat said that in Europe he'd said that we know to be Shem and Noah was the king in Jerusalem meaning it this was the place of Shem this is the place of the Ephraim and at some point the Canaanites came in and forced Hebrews out and there was a Hebrew family tear-offs family that was a refugee family that essentially found themselves in Orcas team and we're on their way back after a confrontation with the more interesting so the left is it come home and not a go to that land I mean it's it's a are you familiar with the teachings of the money tool I in passing I know it was there's a lot there's a lot to explore their present yeah I think you'd really like it actually think good you're not the first person to tell me that she's absolutely connecting to the tour of the money too and I think you'll find a lot of this stuff but but you're read the term indigenous at the end of the day indigenous indigenous these are words that are created by colonizers to define their victims and that's exactly why it bugs me right so I think it and also I will say something else I think most people in the pro-israel word in the pro-israel world are using the term indigenous in as like a husband talking point for why we're right and they're wrong and really our land and you know most people in the world who fight for indigenous rights don't care where what land your ancestors were connected to they care if you're part of a population that was colonizing demise by colonialism and excluded from the colonial system that was set up yes so even if we're yes we are the descendants and we have a but we also have a very unique approach to national identity that has to be put out there we the Jewish people has a very primordial list approach to national identity which is radically different from the way most of the world understands national identity today most the world understands national identity has been socially constructed especially World War two a primordial identities are largely seen as very dangerous by majare of God's theory as it's been called all right and but we we're interesting because we have a primordial listener identity that aspires to universalism yes and it makes us very unique really hard to understand and save yourselves right but we really do believe like we tell ourselves a lot of Jewish life a lot of our rituals a lot of our holidays a lot of a lot of the way the Jewish calendar functions is meant to conditioned us to see ourselves as part of the biological descendants of very specific patriarchs who had a collective experience of leaving slavery in Egypt of conquering our homeland of creating a civilization and being exiled and coming back and being exiled and coming back I mean we have an end historical ringer right and this is a national identity that it's funny because I'm the one hand it's so hard for outsiders to understand when they look at us because they don't know this identity or they don't realize that yeah and but it's also so hard for us to look at other people's identities I think you know the claim that Palestinian identity is fake is based on the idea and we and when you hear well did they who was their leader before RF act or whatever and see do they use a Windows in the state these are all questions that that assume they have to have a national identity like ours to be legitimate uh-huh and and if they don't have a national identity like ours which are the open more legitimate right and I think we need to understand that when they say Palestinian what they really mean is the indigenous peoples of Palestine throughout time including the Jebusites and the Hebrews and the Canaanites and the Philistines and whoever was here that's kind of how they would relate to it whereas when we talk about our identity like the B'nai Israel the children of Israel were talking about the descendants of the 12 tribes the Hebrew tribes that came from Yaakov Israel and of course anyone who joined us along the way and they were of course always just all ancient peoples had ritual processes for outsiders to become insiders and we still have that today but but for the most part we're looking at a very concrete identity tribal identity yeah that most of the world doesn't understand and and much of the world is afraid of tribalism has a bad name today yeah and and we're giving it a comeback and when you look at some of the other peoples in the world who kind of promote this like primordial accession identity it makes sense why it's so scary yeah look at the alt-right yeah I know the alt-right in the United States is he's like our opposite number and they're claiming a very similar identity to us but that's because they're on Mallick I mean listen this goes back to our struggle with the Nazis right and and the fact that in the late 19th century the birth of modern anti-semitism was through the realization that there was a spiritual struggle between the German people who saw themselves as the crown jewel of European culture and the Jewish spirit which they understood to be something other and parasitic and well yeah Vagner even rights in the Jews in their music that even if a Jew were to compose German music better than a German or speak to German matter it's still not a German and even if you were to convert the Christianity he would still be a Jew because he as a Jewish soul yes it's like it's an essentialist no no it's absolutely in the in the piece that I would like to emphasize that you're making which makes people uncomfortable trust me here in this fair institution when I put it out there for my students they're very uncomfortable is we're essentialists we believe there's an essence of omnis rel mm-hmm which manifests itself and you added something that I'm really gonna chew on when we're done here that manifests itself in in a small focused quantity be it the intellectual spiritual or the sort of sort of historical embodied right and so therefore it can be large or small but that it is a sort of an almost indestructible element that runs through our history and so that for today and it's unbreakable and it's unruly is and that's really what left he expressed getting back to the topic probably had yeah I really like the Gless he really was the you know almost like the inner essence of quality Sorrell like meaning like that level that unbreakable level like the Maccabees also were that the the Maccabees represented like that unbreakable level of the Jewish identity that doesn't become al honest that doesn't bow down that doesn't give up and unless he was a Detroit you tried to Brett you treat you try to stop letting you break your hands like so this leads me perfectly to the question I wanted to to close with where is that element in your eyes right now well I hope it's us I mean that's what we try to do we try to create that through the organizations I'm involved with different who's the US you've used the plural a few times I mean wait I mean I'm involved with different organizations with different names and different specific titles one of the things I think went wrong with lucky like well I think a question you asked me maybe before we started was you know what happened to the math of the state was established like where'd they go where did that spirit go and because it was such a powerful spirit it kind of I don't think that it disappeared the first time is hard ending right so if so it was cracked in half and essentially I think one half was represented by L Dodd and one half was represented by nothing Yellin Moore was like the political leader of Lehi and within the Israeli state that was created they kind of each floated to opposite ends of the political spectrum yeah and each became irrelevant because of that float partially I think the combination of them was very powerful like if you look at not inulin more he'd some very powerful ideas about semitic unity about anti-imperialism about israel's role in the Middle East and he was very very I think what traumatized him really was the fact that Israel actually took the side of the British and French in the Sinai can be 56 against against another Semitic people against the Egyptians like really ease rayul was really as under ben-gurion like like you said before trying very hard to attach ourselves to the imperialist powers and their agendas in the Middle East we're gonna speak about that people don't know that history because in my eyes 56 was a critical turning point in our national history which has been largely lost in the wake of 67 but be specifically because of what you said we threw our cards on the table and what might have been the wrong side yeah we decided to basically well we decided to ally ourselves with the oppressors of the world instead of the oppressed and that's actually how anti-semitism works in a capitalist society meaning the way in which anti-semitism is systemic to capitalism is that we are pushed into a middle role it's not like anti black racism where we're pushed to the bottom we're not right at the bottom were pushed to the middle so we and we're able to benefit from the system or kept separate from the oppressed peoples uh-huh we're able to benefit even from there and we feel protected by the oppressors but when the oppressed eventually revolt we are the shock absorbers by the way that's all ISM in feudalism it definitely worked they said that was the role of the journalism but I think if you look at in the modern phase I hear you right but but post feudalism that definite you know if you look at the United States I think Jews the Jewish upward mobility in American history was very much at the expense of other minority groups and we were pushed into situations as they say right and although now there's questions on whether we became white or not or because it's white because they all tried is reclaiming its whiteness right so that there are real questions and even the scholars who said we had become white are now questioning whether that ever was the case because if you are white you can't lose white the right one to us yeah once white white forever right meaning is so so there that's a whole other conversation Jewishness and whiteness that sometime we should absolutely I think it's a great conversation but I think that Israel definitely does fall into the trap has fall into the trap of of being the Jew on the international stage meaning you know the we're in a region full of oppressed peoples who are really being oppressed by foreign powers yet we are the kind of the Middle agent oppressor we have fallen into the role of wanting to be attached to the Western powers wanting to be valuable to them because we believe our security to be dependent on their favor just like the Jew in feudalist Europe so his security as being dependent on the Lord solutely therefore he would go in to collect the taxes and he would go and and lend money and you know with interest etc and he would have his you know guards from the castle accompany him but he's not from the castle girls not from the castle and he's not from the village right and at the end of the day the only way for us to liberate ourselves I think Jewish liberation demands that we consciously decide to be with the village and not with the castle that we consciously decide to be on the side of the oppressed and of the oppressors that is a big message that I think the Jews need to absorb I think it has a lot of ramifications sure um and I'm going to ask you just give us a little bit information on how people can find you how they can find the work that you're doing if they want to get involved or they just want to learn more what do they do wish they'd go so many options you can also just put your contact yeah so you could find me on Facebook or Instagram or what have you yahoo Dahak o hen in english its yeh u da h AKO h en and one of the organizations I'm involved with is called Britta zone bri t - haz o n org that's where we do a lot of our educational work trying to empower young jews to become characters in history to become the leaders of tomorrow to really be the type of lead the type of lives that will cause us to name streets after them in jerusalem after they die God willing and really like to enter and to be leaders on campuses of course and to spread new messages and to be leaders here Britta zone that is the vision Alliance that is a place where you can find me also I mean my piece work is mostly under the title of alternative action there's a website for that as well but I know my name is probably the best way to find me and then people will find you and I want to ask you one last thought but sure we we wrap it up you know this is the Jewish story and part of what I'm trying to do is tell a story in which everyone can find themselves I really believe as you said that the Torah is a story that everyone can tell in its most broad and powerful sense what do you see to be the coming chapter right well it's interesting right now we see a lot of rapid political developments in the world in the United States in the Middle East in Israel etc I think one of the things I do still look to the next generation of American Jews or cañedo aspera Jews for leadership because I think sometimes diaspora Jews were able to come with a broader perspective than both of us were like locked into the conflict and living it on a daily basis I think right now we have a lot of young Jews especially in the United States who are able to speak you know in the language of oppressed peoples and liberation movements and and who understand like the systems of oppression in the world and are committed to combating those systems of oppression and we have a lot of other young Jews mmm who really connected to Jewish identity in Jewish history in Jewish nationalism in the Jewish homeland in the Torah but we don't have a big overlap and I think a lot of the work that we're trying to do for the coming chapter of Jewish history is to create a synthesis to really be able to create like a critical mass of young Jewish adults who are simultaneously deeply connected to the Jewish people the Jewish story Jewish history Jewish identity the Jewish homeland the Torah and able to understand the systems of oppression that exist in the world and understand their Jewish role to combat those systems of oppression beautiful so the goal really is a critical mass of consciousness know people who can make that bridge between the powerful particular identity of the Jewish people and then identikit and identification with the oppressed masses of the world who unfortunately as you've so nicely mapped out for us we've fallen into a bit of a binary trap thinking yes us or them and that's the educational work we do at Britta's owner really trying to create those type of leaders amazing well listen Roger Cohen West Bank peak peace after this educator and in my eyes very important thinker of our generation I really think for the time did you have to spend with us I encourage people be in touch with me at Robbin like for at gmail if you missed all the information that that Roberta gave I'm more than happy to put you in touch and before we go I want to thank people for dedicating the show this week to yoshua Tariq Ben Yaakov whose generosity was only discovered after he'd passed anyone who wants to dedicate the show can be in touch with me I'll give you the details also I want to thank the people give their hard-earned money to make the show happen to keep it free widely available one encourage you to join them go to Ralph Mike come up in the right hand corner you'll see a button that says be a paper you can click on through a little bit of per pod cast support I want to thank the Land of Israel Network for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many incredible people that's at the Land of Israel calm the parties Institute pa rt es Oregon il that just brings together Jews from all over the