Sami: Welcome to Future Tense, a show that puts today’s biggest Jewish questions in the hands of the leaders of tomorrow. I’m Sami Jinich. It’s hard to even say the word Zionism on a college campus these days. Hard because the discourse around Israel has become so reductive; a projection of American frameworks onto the complicated Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Too often, Zionism is misinterpreted as a blank endorsement of state policy or worse, as a synonym for anything and everything that is unjust. And yet, within the Jewish community itself, there’s no consensus on the word’s meaning. Every Jewish campus organization seems to offer its own vision, rooted in distinct Jewish and Zionist traditions, from Orthodox to secular, from labor to revisionist. For liberal Jews like me, the world can feel particularly unmooring. Many of us identify with the word while engaging critically, and sometimes painfully, with Israeli policies that seem to contradict our vision of what a Jewish homeland should be: Democratic, pluralistic, and committed to human dignity and coexistence. I attended the Hevruta Gap Year program in 2021, in part to grapple with the conflicting messages about Zionism I was hearing back home. The experience blossomed my admiration for Israel. Hearing the Hebrew language reborn, and seeing Jewish tradition celebrated en masse in a flourishing society. But I was also deeply unsettled as I visited Palestinians in Chevron and Bethlehem, and met Bedouins facing forced displacement in the Negev. I heard stories of ultra-nationalist Jewish violence that I never imagined could be part of our history and was shocked to see it manifest in racist mobs marching on Jerusalem Day, escorted by Israeli police in the Muslim quarter in the Old City. So when I returned to the U.S., I found myself carrying a deeper sense of urgency and frustration with the state of our discourse and pro-Israel advocacy. In response, I founded Duke University’s chapter of J Street U to create a space where students could engage in serious, nuanced dialogue about justice and security for both Israelis and Palestinians. Since then, I’ve watched my peers navigate this landscape in different ways. In the face of anti-Israel protests, I remember last year, seeing a group of students gather to chant Jewish prayers on the main quad. Simultaneously, there’s a small but growing number of Jewish students who refuse to engage with Hillel due to its explicit support of Israel. While no response is the same, I’ve come to see three broad patterns on my campus: One, fortifying support for Israel as a protective response, affirming Jewish safety and peoplehood in the face of rising anti-Semitism. Two, rejecting Zionism entirely, whether out of disillusionment or to move more seamlessly within increasingly anti-Zionist progressive spaces. And three, embracing the tension between liberalism and Zionism, attempting to hold both with intellectual humility and with intellectual honesty and humility. For me, college is about precisely the kind of wrestling exhibited in this third group. It’s an appreciation and respect for contradiction and complexity. Embracing tension and uncertainty allows us to productively explore those difficult questions. When does anti-Zionism bleed into anti-Semitism? How can I be a sincere and productive critic of Israel? What does the future of Israel look like? Now, I recognize that others may see the landscape differently than I do, but these questions are knocking at young Jews’ doors, whether we invite them or not. And I think we should welcome them. And there’s no better time to begin than right now with my co-hosts, Anna Weiss and Yadid Orlow. So welcome to the two of you. I’d love to start our conversation by asking the two of you, do you see similar or different dynamics on your campuses? Anna: I would say yes, there are definitely those distinct groups, people very much rejecting or people very much feeling like it is their right and their need to be a staunch Zionist and to defend Israel. I feel like there is also a group of people who feel kind of distressed and confused. It feels almost like a subgroup of that third type of approach that you were discussing, this, maybe, desire to figure out and this desire to feel okay and settled. But there is definitely a lot of confusion and stress surrounding just trying to figure out what feels right and what doesn’t. That’s how it’s been on my campus, I would say. Yadid: Yeah, I guess I’ve seen all of those themes and I’ve really noticed each of the three distinct camps and the subgroup that you’d mentioned manifesting on my campus. I found like, almost as an inverse to the third group that you mentioned that’s trying to embrace this tension, there’s a group that’s rejecting it. And like, whether it be internally or externally, there’s like an apathy that’s been forming. And like the main two reasons for that seem to be at least from my perception, either like a… like overwhelming difficulty trying to hold these different truths or the like fact that this is just like a hot issue and it is very difficult to actually say your opinion on it without being like bunched into these enormous political camps. Sami: Yeah, I totally agree with the two of you. I think it’s very similar at Duke. And I think in particular, part of why so many students maybe become apathetic in addition to it being sort of this feeling of hot soup is that a lot of the sort of loudest voices with respect to the conflict, whether on the right or on the left, are ones that I think have an easy time seeing simplicity and therefore can be really loud in ways that are unnuanced. And it turns a lot of people away because they think either this, you know, seems so complicated to me and not to other, you know, these other people. And so I don’t feel like I’m smart enough to engage or they do think they understand the conflict in a more complex way, but don’t want to engage in this unproductive way. And so it’s really challenging, I think, on a lot of schools’ campuses. And, you know, it’s the reason why on my campus, I started this group, J Street U, largely to create forums for dialogue where students who wanted to engage with people they disagree with could talk and really educate each other because that’s what university is all about. And Anna, I think you had a similar experience on your campus as well. Anna: Yes, I did. I go to Muenenberg College. Last semester, Ariana Handelman and I, Ariana Handelman, who was also on the Hevruta gap year with me and with Sami and has done a lot of work with the Hartman Institute, we started this small learning cohort called Complex Conversations. It was for Jewish students coming from a wide variety of backgrounds and opinions, people who you could say were on opposite sides of the conversation. And we talked about various topics in the realm of Israel and Palestine. And the point of it was to create that space to have that dialogue and to talk to people we disagree with and also learn we have a lot more similar views than we think that we do, but also to give people, I would say like it gave me like the power, strength, and confidence to talk about the issue and also to say like when I don’t know what I’m saying, when I am confused and when I do feel unsure, when I am grappling with my own language and identities. And it was a very, I would say successful, worthwhile learning cohort that we had put together. Yadid: It’s interesting that you guys mentioned these like two distinct spaces that you guys created because it feels like I guess when I’m hearing that it sounds much more reactive and when I think about like the environment on my campus, contrary to, maybe parental or not unnamed Jewish nonprofit report card professional perspectives, like Binghamton has been wonderful for Jews and non-Jews and just like generally it has been like a wonderfully peaceful environment and so I haven’t really seen a need for those spaces being created, which is awesome. Sami: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think, and I wonder what you all think about this, sort of the way that our comfort discussing these types of topics relates to maybe how some outside organizations or parents are trying to maybe protect Jewish students or what they think is protecting Jewish students. I think in my view, you know, I do see oftentimes that there’s often this over weaponization of antisemitism. And then of course, you know, there’s a controversial subject of, you know, how can we, in what ways are we over conflating Zionism and antisemitism? And I personally do feel that this sort of desire for people to want to protect Jewish students sometimes comes at a cost where you’re preventing students from really educating themselves. And if you really do want them to be advocates for Israel, it’s a lot harder because they’re leaving without having heard criticism that they’re going to hear when they leave campus. I wonder if you all relate to that in any way. Anna: I would say yes, for sure. Last year there was a problem at my school. There was a bunch of alumni that had sent out this petition to get a professor removed, accusing her of being anti-Semitic and making students feel uncomfortable and unsafe in the classroom. She expressed both in classroom, both in, not as much in classrooms, but definitely online and through some of her teaching anti-Zionist views. She is a Jewish professor, but it definitely caused a bit of an uproar, I’d say at my school and also among parents, with a lot of parents really, really concerned for the safety and wellbeing of their kids. And every time I come home, I have a lot of adults and parents asking me, how is it? Is everything okay? Are there encampments or are there protests? How are teachers being? How’s the environment? But it’s really been fine and very safe here. And sometimes it feels really frustrating that they do end up taking away these experiences or this potential of having these difficult discussions. They’re not here, they don’t know what’s going on. They ask us and then they still don’t listen. And it can be very frustrating. And I think even though there’s the attempt to protect it just causes more harm. Yadid: I guess I’m hearing that and there’s like an instinctive like comparison that I have between the parents and the students, and like, American Jews and Israelis, which really makes me wonder as like a question to you, like how does that comparison, like what does that speak to about our role as American Jews in being involved in Israel and sharing our opinions and like influencing policy, given like this frustration that it sounds like you’ve experienced with parents almost overreaching into campus like climates. Anna: So similar situation, just like parents have their kids at school, we have a lot of friends and family who live in Israel. My brother lives there now. My parents are moving there in a few months. So it feels very close to home and, which, that’s like a more simple feelings perspective, but the things that happen in Israel do impact Jews everywhere. If for nothing else, then at least like perspectives on the way that people view Jewish people. I know a comparison I’ve made is it feels like Israel’s not like a brother, but it’s like a cousin. So it’s a little bit more distant, but what happens there absolutely impacts me. It impacts my family and impacts my friends. It impacts communities, especially seeing the division that’s been going on on a lot of campuses these days. Sami: Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with you, Anna. And I would even go further and say, I feel quite confidently that even if we do think it’s somewhat unethical for Americans to try and sort of force their hand on a foreign ally like Israel, I think the realpolitik of it is that’s what happens. And I do get frustrated sometimes when I hear from, obviously mostly other Americans, but sometimes Israelis who say, and I think Anna and I shared this experience in the Havruta gap year program where there was a period with rocket fire between Hamas and Israel and, a lot of us Americans were quite critical of how Israel was engaging with Hamas. And we had a lot of friends who told us, we don’t really care about your voice and it holds less weight. And I wanted to say, well, one, you might not care about my voice, but I’m going to go back home, and my opinion in 10 years and 20 years is going to probably have an impact or might have an impact on our policy and how it impacts your country. And I think there are a lot of reasons, of course, why Israelis have more of a right to speak on their own policy than Americans, but I think there’s also sort of this false narrative of, you know, because the vast majority of Israelis serve in the army, estimates vary, but I think around 65% of Israelis, including ultra-Orthodox, and Arabs, serve in the army. But yeah, mean, Yadid, what do you think? Yadid: Yeah, I guess I totally hear what you’re saying and it makes a lot of sense. What I wonder there is if like we as American Jews have a limited perspective where like there’s a political theorist who like explains how like statecraft like requires having dirty hands. And so like, what does it mean for us? Even if only 50% of Israelis are actually enlisting in the army, like we aren’t. So like, how does that really… not necessarily invalidate, but add a level of complexity to our opinions and when we should be sharing them. Anna: We totally do have a limited perspective. There’s no denying that. I don’t live there. I’m not there every day. I didn’t grow up there. So I totally agree with you there. I’m not going to the army. My brother is. A lot of Americans do draft. I think it also like… kind of similar to what Sami was saying, policy changes matter. There’s also like the issue of a lot of, for me, it feels like an issue of lot of Americans voting for a candidate that is better for Israel, even if they’re worse for other Jewish values, even if they’ve been accused of being anti-Semitic, they still vote for that person because, well, they give a lot of money to Israel, and that’s the most important thing. So I feel like it can also end up going into a more extreme opposite, and that’s also very frustrating and not helpful, that also, I would say, comes from limited perspective. Sami: Yeah, it’s definitely a tough balance to strike in. I think it’s maybe ironic or a little telling that we spent so much of this conversation talking more about the discussions around Zionism in Israel as opposed to Israeli policy itself. And I think it just sort of shows how our generation, at least the three of us, really feel like there are barriers to talk about Israel because there is so much controversy around what we’re allowed to say and what context can we say it and what spaces can we say it. And so I want to transition us now. We’ve covered lots of ideas and brought up lots of questions, but I think we can expand the scope and bring in another guest. So now I’m going to introduce guest scholar, Masua Sagiv to join us. Masua is Koret Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley and Senior Faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Her work focuses on contemporary Judaism and Israel and the tension between its Jewish and democratic identities. So, Masua, we’re so grateful to have you and we’d like to get right into it. Masua: Hi everyone, thanks for having me here. Anna: Thank you for being here. Sami: Thank you so much. I think I’d love to start us off really talking to you and asking you about that last point that we were discussing of, you know, when it’s ethical and okay to, as Americans, speak about Israeli policy and try to influence it in whatever ways we want to. Just to sort of restate what Anna and I sort of shared, this experience in Israel that there were Israeli friends of ours who were a bit uncomfortable with the ways that we were trying to talk about, you know, the policies of a country that we are not citizens of. And I understand that sentiment that, you know, our stake as American Jews may seem less grounded in the reality in the Middle East. But of course, American Jews are directly affected by what happens in Israel. It’s, you know, part of why this podcast and Hartman exists. It’s why my peers are sometimes afraid to go to their campuses and why some Americans are afraid of being deported. So I’d love to ask you from your perspective as an Israeli and as someone who’s an expert on Israeli democracy and law. Where do you think American Jews should draw the line where it comes to criticizing or pressuring Israel? Is there a point at which it becomes inappropriate or simply unhelpful? Masua: So great. I think maybe I’ll give two points here. One is more general and the other is how I feel October 7th changed a lot of things for me, and after, you know, and from the perspective of an Israeli, but an Israeli who’s been living in the United States for four years now. So first, maybe I’ll start with a story a few years back before October 7th, I was I was invited to a roundtable that discussed… the prompt was, when Israeli society will write a constitution or form a formal constitution, who should sit around the table? So similarly to the discussion that you did, it wasn’t a discussion about the content of the constitution, but it was a discussion around who should be around the table. And there were people representing secular Israelis and people representing the different religious Israelis. And there were people representing Arab-Israelis and also Arab-Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel. And I was asked to represent the voice of world Jewry. And among the different people around the table, there were many, many, disagreements. But the one thing that everyone agreed on was that I should be around the table, which I think was interesting and telling. I think that the question that you’re asking represents a bigger question, which is, is the state of Israel an Israeli project or is it the project of the Jewish people? If it’s an Israeli project, then we could understand why, you know, like a sovereign state should be sovereign. And then, and then we could criticize Israel if we’re outside of Israel, but we’ll do it in the same way that we criticize, you know, other countries who are supposedly, you know, distant to us, right? Maybe they share our values, maybe they’re allies, but something like that, but not as a specific stakeholders, which is not right, because we’re talking about criticism as stakeholders. I think that’s what I heard. But if Israel is the project of the Jewish people, and Israel aspires to be a project of the Jewish people; it declares it in all of its fundamental texts and you know, in documents, legal documents and social and cultural documents, then we have to ask, well first of all, of course, everyone are partners in this project, but then what’s the different boundaries, right? Like what should should people outside of Israel have a say about how to deploy soldiers when they won’t enlist to the military, which is something that you’ve mentioned. I think that engagement, so I heard many times Donniel Hartman says something that really resonated with me. A voice is different than the right to decide. Even if I say that, you know, whoever’s not voting doesn’t have the right to decide, why would I say that I don’t want to hear you guys? Right? Because it’s the project of all of us as a Jewish people, because like what you said, Anna, and what you said, Sami, what Israel does affects all Jews around the world, not just Israelis themselves. That of course we want engagement, and of course that and of course engagement also includes criticism. Anna: Well, I’m wondering, how does October 7th come into play with this conversation? Masua: I do think that situation since October 7th has been at least rattled my resolve in this sense, or at least made me pause, because October 7th was both a physical assault on Israel, right? For we have a war, from seven fronts, but also a very strong ideological assault on Israel. If I’d have to conceptualize it. I feel like it’s Israel’s fighting not only for its body, but also for its soul. So if usually to be in my, you know, my general view is that criticism is not bad. In fact, it’s crucial. It’s an act of love. The Torah agrees with me, or I agree with the Torah, because when the Torah is talking about rebuke, tochacha, it does that in the context of love, right? We rebuke our brothers and sisters because we love them. Right? So being a lover is supporting, but also calling out things that were when, when they shouldn’t, when they shouldn’t be that way. But what do you do when your environment is very hostile? When everything that you say might be used against… or everything that I will say, I’ll say it, you know, on a personal basis, because I feel a lot about a lot of what I’m doing is criticizing Israel usually, right? Because I want Israel to do better, because I see Israel as my future. But then when I go outside and the things that I’m saying can be used against the delegitimization of Israel’s right to exist, then it makes me pause. Things that I might say in Israel and to a specific audience, I might not say outside of Israel or at least I’ll think about how to say them. So maybe the last piece that I’ll say here is that what I started to think about is to differentiate between good faith criticism and bad faith criticism. And bad faith criticism is not interested in the entity or the institute or the people that it criticizes, right? It doesn’t, it doesn’t really want to change because if you want to change, you need to convince the people that you criticize, unless the criticism is all just like a personal experience of showing your righteousness, right? But good faith criticism, in my eyes, is criticism that is anchored in first of all not shaming the person you criticize, feeling close to the society that you criticize, caring about their future and trying to convince them that they should do better. Sami: Can I maybe push back on something that you said and ask you a second question? I think that something that frustrates me, as someone who, I similarly to you, I spend most of my time engaging on Israel in a way that’s critical and I feel very confidently that it’s for a very similar reason to you, that I feel committed to the Israeli and Jewish project and I want it to succeed and to improve. But I think that inherently, when you’re in a position where you’re being more critical, there’s more of an ask by the pro-Israel community to be careful with what you say and to be more silent and to maybe criticize, but not actually use your thoughts to enact change. But you have people saying, if you’re supporting Israel in a way that’s more just sort of—give them the money as they want it, support whoever’s in government, there’s less pressure from within the Jewish community, from the Israeli community to be careful with what you’re doing and what you’re saying. And maybe that’s just sort of how it has to be when you’re critical, you need to be more careful than those who are just sort of more fervent advocates for the status quo. But do you think that’s a fair frustration to feel? And maybe how can I deal with that? Masua: I can totally understand the frustration. I think there should be, like between those two stands, there should be a middle ground, right? I think it’s unfair, but understandable why, when when Israel and Israelis and Jews feel very attacked, we have like all of these… what’s it called, you have to give all of these… not caveats, you have to give all of these like this is the list of the things I believe in. Just so you’d know that I’m Zionist and I’m also liberal and I’m also, you know, right, like, list of things and then maybe I can say something that you’ll hear me out. Maybe it’s unfair but I think it’s actually understandable and and that doesn’t mean that the other way around to just, whatever, give the money, or give the support without asking questions is justifiable, right? But I think it’s understandable. Maybe I’ll say again, I’ll give one more example from the Talmud. There’s a piece where, Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah are speaking. And then you’ll, you’ll find it, I think you’ll find it nice because it’s, it’s very similar to what we’re experiencing today. Rabbi Tarfon says, I would be surprised if anyone can hear a rebuke these days because no, and whenever someone, whenever you say something, to a person, they say what you did is worse, which is, what about-ism, right? And then Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah says, maybe the problem is not with hearing a rebuke, but with the fact that we can’t give rebuke, right? In a way that the other person can listen. So maybe it’s unfair that we need to be more careful when we criticize, but I have to say, I really understand why it happens. Yadid: Yeah, I guess I’m wondering, like, does intention matter? Like, what’s the goal of the rebuke? Because if it’s like, you had mentioned, like, if it’s to shame, then that’s like sort of unproductive. And like those people shouldn’t necessarily be like invited to this table, both in metaphor and in practice. But then what is the goal? Like, is it because we’re talking about how will this person at the table influence what happens there, not how will the person at the table influence how America interacts with what happens there? Masua: Right, which is a fair question because let’s face it, most of us when we speak about Israel, we’ll probably won’t influence the prime minister, right? So we have to ask ourselves or the way that the war is being fought. So we have to ask ourselves, why are we doing what we’re doing? Right? My colleague, Elana Stein Hain is speaking when she’s speaking about criticism, she says, we need to consider why, how, and when we do the criticism, right? So even if we can’t, change the way that the war is fought, maybe we can change the way that society sees it. And a different way to think of it would be, there is a verse, “vehaya machanecha kadosh,” right? So maybe we speak because it’s important for us to say that this is, this is not how Judaism should be. So we’re fighting for Judaism, which is different than trying to change the mind of Israelis. But even if our goal is to say this is not how Judaism should be, which I think is a, is an important goal, it also, I feel it has to be connected to something that is realistically seeing the people we are criticizing, like practically, and also, you know, humanizing them. Anna: This might also kind of be a bit of pushback to a point of, we can’t control how the war is fought, but we can control how we talk about it or how the information or how people like, I guess, receive it. At the same time, how does one separate the image of something versus what actually is happening? And is that even like a fair expectation to have for people to talk about it? Talk about Israel differently and separately from how the war is playing out and from how the Israeli government is deciding to act in the conflict. Masua: Listen, I think it’s a fair question and maybe two things that I carry with me. One is, I don’t think there is a perfect way to speak about these things. And I can’t count the times where I came back home after a lecture or after a conversation and I asked myself or others that I spoke with, did I make a mistake? Should I not have said that or did say or should say that and you and sometimes you don’t even know what’s the starting point of the person that you’re speaking with, right, so it also complicates everything. And the second is, even when I think there’s, there aren’t like clear rules as to how to make these conversations, I think that the key aspects should be empathy and humanization of all parties involved, and love. And I think that criticism stems from there, right? So we can share the fact that I mean, I’m sure I share the fact all the time that I’m very conflicted about the war. I don’t think it’s genocide. I think it’s nonsense. But I’m very conflicted about the war. And I’m also conflicted about what… I mean, obviously, and I think it’s horrible what’s happening with the hostages and whatever is happening internally in the Israeli society is very worrisome. But I say that as someone who deeply cares about Israeli society, about its future, about the safety of Israel and also the safety of Palestinians. And I think when you bring all of this to the conversation, and by the way, not everyone will want to hear, which is also okay. Or not OK, but that’s life, right? Not everyone will want to hear. So that’s also part of this, right? Who are your audience or who are your partners to the conversation, is also an aspect that you don’t always control. But what you can control is how you come to the conversation or how we come to the conversation, and what are the values and the concepts that we bring with us. Sami: Yeah, I’d maybe just like add one other point, I think as a young person on a campus, I really try to encourage people, sort of in line with I think what you’re saying, that we do need to be really careful of how our message is being sent, that we shouldn’t shy away from having the conversations to begin with. I think not even about commenting on Israeli policy, but even questions or discussions about Zionism and the idea of a Jewish and democratic state and whether that’s viable. I think it’s John Stuart Mill, who says sort of that it’s very important to discuss any dissenting opinion, because I don’t want our generation or the next generation in 20 years to be fervent Zionists but not know why Zionism is a thing and to know how to respond to criticism that exists, which may be anti-Semitic or not, but that exists out there in the real world. And I think it’s very important for us to carefully and appropriately, but actively engage in those discussions. Masua: I totally agree with you. I think engagement is the most important piece and I wouldn’t want, I wouldn’t want in the value of protecting our, I don’t know, kids, students, whatever you call it, to bar them from engagement with a hard truth or lies of the world. Anna: So my question was actually very similar to what Sami said, which is more like what kinds of conversations or discussions are productive for Jewish Americans when we’re discussing the viability of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state more specifically, particularly in relation to its minorities and neighbors. So how can we talk about these things? What conversations, not necessarily that any conversations shouldn’t be had, but what are conversations that are particularly productive? Masua: Listen, I think when you say productive and worthwhile for what? Right. So what’s what’s what’s the goal in entering a conversation? Is is something worth asking? You know, the state of Israel was established to create and to be a safe haven for Jews and to create an exemplary society in the land of Israel. We’re not there yet, as is very clear. And I think that right now we’re seeing the two major struggles for both core definitions of the state of Israel, right? What does it mean that Israel is a Jewish state? What is our Jewishness? Is Jewishness power? Is Jewishness religion? And also in democracy in a way that is very similar to a lot of countries in the world, including this country. What kind of democracy do we want? What role has, what role that people have and the different institutions? What will be our social cohesion or solidarity? So one aspect to tap into the conversation is in the global context and in the context of democracy, right? But it really, like, I think we shouldn’t shy away from any of these conversations. But it also I think is worthwhile asking ourselves: why are we interested in these conversations and not in other conversations? Yadid: You just… pushing back in the most respectful way possible. Masua: Don’t be respectful. I’m an Israeli. Yadid: Like you mentioned, you mentioned like Judaism and Israel being a Jewish state and Israel being a democratic state. At least in the way I’ve learned it, like those are inherently like antithetical or like, like they don’t work. Like it’s like water and fire and that like realistically imagining one or the other, can’t really hold both. So I’m wondering how you’ve been able to navigate it and hold both of those conversations in the same space. Masua: So listen, Israel has been around for 77 years and hopefully for will be around for a lot more. And they’re definitely in tension, but to say that they can’t, know, it exists in reality in a very messy way. And in a way that everyone struggles with everyone on the, on the definition. And sometimes we say, you know what? Maybe we shouldn’t decide, because it’s too messy and we have too many notions of what it means that Israel is Jewish, and too many notions of what it means that it’s a democracy. And I’m not even starting to talk about being both a Jewish state and a democratic state. And I didn’t even talk about liberal democracy or different or a different kind of democracy. But I think that the attempt to understand these questions, which is a daily attempt in Israel in the political sphere, in the social sphere, in the cultural sphere, is a continuation of centuries old discourse in Judaism itself on what is Judaism and what is this project that we’re holding together? Now it’s… in Israel, it’s in a way of a sovereign state. We had two experiments of that in the past, they didn’t end really well, in around the 70 years. So that’s not amazing. But what would happen in this experiment? Yes, of course, that in some ways, Judaism and democracy are in deep tension, like Zionism and liberalism sometimes are in deep tension. When we have two values in tension, like feminism and religion are in deep tension, when we have two values that are in deep tension, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to choose one over the other. We have to see, we have to find the different strategies, how to make them work together. And there are different strategies for those. Anna: I think that’s really interesting. I’ve talked a lot about in this, as I mentioned previously about the cohor I ran, Complex Conversations, we had like a lot of community guidelines and how we made sure everyone felt respected. And one of something that was on the community guidelines or something that we discussed every time we met was that it’s possible to hold multiple truths. Multiple things can be great and terrible at the same time. You could care about multiple things at the same time. Sometimes things work and sometimes things don’t work. Sometimes things are in tension and that’s not necessarily an issue. I also think that sometimes there are times where there ends up being not always, but a time where you kind of have to, I don’t want to say where you have to pick one. I’m thinking very specifically because of the example that you brought up of feminism and religion. I grew up Modern Orthodox, was always such a feminist before I knew the language or before I knew that that’s what I was. And also realized I was queer. I eventually realized that a lot of my values in the realm of feminism and my queerness don’t really align or feel like they conflict with a lot of the practices that I was doing in the Modern Orthodox community. And so for me, it felt like I hit a roadblock where it was like these actions are directly conflicting with other values of mine. I guess I’m also more so just curious about navigating different values that both feel very important, yet at the same time conflicting. And also that maybe at some point you do need to make a choice. I was also, when you were talking about these questions and not having answers, I also was like, like how Judaism has always been forever. That’s one of our things is that we always ask questions, don’t necessarily always have answers, but I think that gets to be a lot harder when we’re talking about the specifics more so of like when it comes to war and when it comes to lives and when it comes to policy, there gets to be a time where you do need to have an answer. I’ve said a lot of different questions, but… Masua: Yadid said before, you mentioned Michael Walzer and dirty hands, right? And when sovereign states rule, necessarily, and politics necessarily involve dirty hands. For a long time when the Jewish people was in the diaspora, we had the privilege of not having dirty hands because we didn’t have power. Right? So now when we have power, we don’t have the privilege anymore to not, you know, to not put our hands into the messiness of, of power and violence. and, and very difficult choices. You’re absolutely right. Sometimes we need to make choices. Now there is a very specific version of Judaism that is completely counter to democracy, right? But there are so many other versions of Judaism that aren’t. And sometimes we have to make a choice, but that choice doesn’t necessarily mean that it colors all of our other choices. Right? So one of the strategies in religious feminism, by the way, is a strategy that says when in every case study, I see which one of my values weigh more. Do I lean more into my feminism or do I lean more to my religion or to my halakha? Right? In that sense or in the Judaism and democracy tension, one of the approaches that, that was suggested, were suggested by professors, Shahar Lifshitz and Ori Aronson from Bar-Ilan University, they’re saying that every example in the lives of Israel should be evaluated through lens through Jewish democratic lens. And then you decide, you have to take a decision, but you always… the process will always be a process that takes into consideration both Judaism and democracy. Of course, part of the problem is, and I will take the example of the war that you mentioned before. Or even, you know what, let’s take the example of the hostages. Some people will say the Jewish thing to do is to free all the hostages right now. And others will say the Jewish thing to do is wait, because it’s more dangerous to the lives of the country in general. So what do you do when you have two interpretations to the same thing? When you make a choice, did you choose Judaism or you didn’t choose Judaism? Both of them were choosing Judaism. Yadid: And like, when you look at like, Bibi’s nation-state, Basic Law stuff, like that is like, totally embracing Judaism to the like, negation of or like, consequence of losing any version of democracy. Masua: I mean, yes and no. If you take the Nation State Law, the Basic Law, nation state, Basic Law, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, you can call it the Nation State Law, just like, you know, long titles, from 2018, you, if you look at it on its own, you say, wait, where’s democracy here? If you look at it as a preamble of a constitution and the constitution also includes the bill of rights, which are the 1992 basic laws that speak about the human rights, know, dignity and liberty and privacy and all of these then, and that’s the proponents of the law. That’s what they’re saying. We already had equality, but what we didn’t have, we didn’t have a clear statement in a basic law that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. And by the way, a lot of the criticism on this specific cloud was not on what it says, but on what it doesn’t say. And when we have 21% of the Israeli population that basically are not mentioned at all, and I’m talking obviously about Arab-Israelis or Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel. Maybe that’s a topic for a different conversation why I’m calling them that or that, then, of course, it’s not welcoming. Israel is not read as the house of all its citizens. But again, that’s a choice that doesn’t necessarily say we chose Judaism over democracy. We chose, or in that specific law, we chose one version of Judaism that doesn’t take into account, and by the way, I would say the don’t take into account the minorities that live in Israel is a problem, not only from a democratic point of view, but also from a Jewish point of view. So that also maybe complicates the picture a bit. Sami: I think there’s a lot more we could say on this issue. I do want to make sure we get to our next topic. Yadid, do you want to take this one? Yadid: Yeah, so I guess we’ve been talking a lot about these dichotomies and the Jewish and democratic and I know, if I remember correctly, Hartman is a liberal Zionist institution. So I’m wondering why, I guess it’ll flow in naturally, why have we embraced this dichotomy of either caring about Palestinian lives or being a Zionist? Isn’t the establishment of liberal Zionist as a concept acknowledging or giving power to this dichotomy where it feels like the term itself is trying to reconcile a conflicting truth that doesn’t necessarily have to be conflicted. Masua: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think that we live in a world of black and white dichotomies. We live in a world of, you’re either my friend or my enemy. And all of our lives are zero-sum game. Whenever I speak about the conflict, I say that I’m having a very hard time calling the protests on campuses pro-Palestinian protests because I consider myself also pro-Palestinian and these protests have no room for people like me. I think it’s okay, by the way, to care more about your people than about other peoples. I think it’s fine. I think it’s morally justified to do that. But I think we have to break this dichotomy, not only because it’s incorrect. Loving Israel, I would argue, requires also being caring about the rights of Palestinians. If you argue for the right for self-determination for the Jewish people, necessarily, you have to argue also for the right for self-determination for the Palestinian people, right? There are other there are other concerns, right, I’m not talking about the the security concerns right now, or the fact that, you know, maybe not every right can be can be realized, because of different considerations. I’m not getting into the conversation about a Palestinian state right now. I’m talking about on the conceptual level. And on the conceptual level I think it’s the dichotomy of of being unable to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian or Zionist and pro-Palestinian I think is not only false but it is also extremely unuseful, because if you look at the reality on the ground, the Israeli people and the Palestinian people are intertwined in the land of Israel. It’s not, you can’t do zero-sum when you look at the millions of people who are sitting in that land. And therefore I think it is definitely our job to push against these dichotomies and to say, no, it’s paramount for us. Again, for me, I care more about my people than other people, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about the Palestinians. I think it’s critical to care about the safety and security and the right for self-determination of both Jews and Palestinians. Yadid: I’m wondering, given that and it seems like we’re on the same page, Masua, like It feels like there’s an open-ended question there about like what place liberal Zionism has as an identity marker or term… Masua: I think it’s the answer for us, being liberal Zionists, has in it, has in it both being a Zionist and pro-Israel and also recognizing and acknowledging and sometimes fighting for the right for self-determination for the Palestinian people. Sami: Yeah, well, I think that’s a great place to end. Just sort of acknowledging the inherent tension that exists, I think, in this sort of camp that we’re engaging in, in liberal Zionism. I think, you know, there’s a lot of questions that we could ask about, you know, to what degree are we debating sort of theoretical ideas of what the future could be and in what ways does that conflict with what’s actually happening and should that change our ability to advocate for change? There’s a lot we could discuss. I want to thank Masua again for joining us. Masua: Thanks for having me guys. Yadid: Thank you.