Transcription
[Music] You are listening to an art media podcast.
If in the diaspora, I think that the major threat is external. In Israel, the major threat is internal. You ask Israelis, where's the threat? They always say it's within Israeli society. And that's the question. The diaspora can spill over towards Eretz Israel, towards Aliyah, but parts of Eretz Israel could also spill over towards the diaspora.
[Music] It's 8:00 a.m. on Monday, September 1st, here in New York City. It's 3:00 p.m. on Monday, September 1st in Israel, where Israeli children return to school for the first day of their new school year. And when we are about to hit the 700-day mark of the war, we have passed 100 Shabbats of hostages away from their families. 100 Shabbats of hostages still being held in captivity by Hamas. And as we pass the number of 900 soldiers that have fallen since October 7th.
Last Thursday, the Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rawi was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Yemenite capital of Sana during a government meeting, along with several other senior officials. Then on Saturday, in a strike in Gaza City, the Israeli Air Force killed Hamas spokesman Abu Oeda, better known as the face of Hamas. Abu Oda has been the spokesman of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades since 2004. He rose to prominence in 2006 as he announced the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
On Friday, the IDF announced it had recovered the bodies of 56-year-old Elon Weiss and 28-year-old Idan Stevie Weiss, who was 56 years old, was killed on the morning of October 7th while defending Kibbutz Be'eri from Hamas-led terrorists as a member of the emergency response team. His body was then taken to Gaza. Weiss's body was recovered along with the remains of Idan Stevie. Idan was a nature lover and photography enthusiast who had been studying sustainability and government at Herzliya's Reichman University. He was seized by Hamas terrorists at the Nova Festival, where he had volunteered to photograph the event.
Days ago, 32 Canadian members of Parliament of the governing Liberal Party released a letter expressing concern about the staggering rise in anti-Semitic violence in Canada and that more needs to be done to protect the Canadian Jewish community. The only catch is that there are 169 Liberal MPs in the Canadian Parliament, which means that fewer than 20% signed the letter. Or, put another way, more than 80% of the Liberal MPs assertively chose not to sign the letter.
Now onto today's conversation. On Thursday, Archimedia's very own Nadav Ayal published an op-ed on Ynet titled "An Existential Crossroads Between Exile and State," in which Nadav argued that both diaspora Jews and Jews in Israel are at a crossroads and are facing a grave threat, a perfect storm of sorts. On today's episode, we'll discuss the ideas Nadav laid out, some of which are very provocative. And we will have that conversation not only with Nadav, but with our other Arc Media contributor, Amit Seel, who, as often, will probably offer a different take. Nadav, Amit, good to see you guys.
Good to be here again, Dan. Okay, I want to talk about Nadav's piece that I just referenced in a moment, and that'll be the focus of today's conversation. But before I do, there were, as I mentioned in the introduction, there were two pretty significant news developments over the last few days. One, the Israeli operation against the Houthi leadership in Yemen, and two, Israel's taking out of the official spokesman for Hamas, which, um, again, got a lot of press attention. And me, you, you particularly thought that taking out of the Hamas spokesman was a much bigger deal than people appreciate. So, can you just, before we get into the conversation, just give me your quick analysis of both of those events?
Yes, the two assassinations are quite different in their motive, but very, very important. Let's begin with the Hamas spokesman Abu Obeda. Hamas hasn't won a single battle since October 7th at 12:00 p.m., give or take. The only battle Hamas won, and keeps winning unfortunately, is the propaganda campaign. And in that respect, Abu Obeda was very, very important. He was a crucial figure. First, he was the most famous figure in the Gaza Strip and in Hamas. He was well-known from Indonesia to Paris. Every fundamentalist Muslim knew him. So, it was crucial to eliminate him. And second, he was very good at his job. He was very good in the starvation campaign. He was brilliant in the idea of this red triangle for each video clip showing IDF soldiers getting killed by Hamas terrorists, thus taking specific events, making them as if Hamas is winning, and it's, it's, in my opinion, it's crucial. Now, there is only one senior figure left in Hamas in Gaza, and I think the next step wouldn't be eliminating him, but I think would be considering to eliminate Hamas leadership abroad, generally speaking, in Qatar, and I think...
Michelle. And Qatar, etc. I think this is the next conversation that we will have in the next few weeks.
So, normally, spokespersons don't carry the same weight on behalf of governments that you're suggesting that that is the case with Hamas. A friend of mine, Dory Feith, who's a student at Columbia University, sent me a photo from early after October 7th where there were people with the anti-Israel protesters on campus. There was a photo of one of them with a poster of the Hamas spokesman. He really took off. This took on this significance internationally.
Abu Obeda was a chavara for the Hamas movement, and he's the most famous figure representing Hamas not only in the Arab world but also in the Muslim Ummah in general, and it goes beyond that. Nobody knows how Izz ad-Din looks, but Abu Obeda with this Keffiyeh covering his eyes is a branding gimmick, and it was a global symbol personified. And because of that, you know, killing him is meaningful. And I, you know, as an Israeli, I hope he won't become sort of a chavara on...
Yeah, sweatshirt. That everyone won't be wearing them on t-shirts.
Yeah.
Okay. Amit, Yemen.
Yemen. So, as for Yemen, Israel just, um, cut the red tape of the Yemenite, of the Houthi government by killing two-thirds of the Yemenite Houthi government. The funeral was held today in central Sana with 12 coffins. I think Israel killed almost each and every minister in this government. Now, there were many, many attempts to topple the Houthi regime by the Saudis, the Emirates, the Emirates, the US, and of course, Israel, and it failed because they don't really care about the economy, and deterrence is out of the equation for such a fundamentalist regime. There was an idea over the last few months within Israel that said that if you want to eliminate the Houthi regime, you should eliminate the Houthi leadership. The leadership of the Houthi regime is like the leadership of a terrorist organization because those were the origins. So there is a limited number of personas that if you eliminate them, you actually destroy this regime. The knowledge is there, the leadership is there, and there is one figure that we should have in mind, which is the leader of the regime, Abd al-Malik al-Houthi.
Okay. All right. I thank you for that. I want to now move to Nadav's piece. You, as I mentioned earlier, you published an article in Ynet, Nadav, in which you argued that the Jewish people globally are at an existential crossroads, both in the diaspora and in Israel. So, how would you, just to set up the conversation, Nadav, how would you describe this crossroads for both communities?
So, in the diaspora, the community is threatened by the forces around it, and a triangle of hate. You have there, of course, fundamentalist Islamist forces that are operating in societies around the world. And they are sometimes bringing about terrorist attacks or scapegoating the Jews, blaming the Jewish communities for everything that Israel's been doing. And Dan, you know this, it's like the nightmare scenario for many Jews around the world is of a terror attack by Islamists against their Jewish day schools where their kids are studying. And many of the attacks, for instance, in Europe, originate with Islamists fundamentalists within those Muslim communities.
So that's, by the way, Nadav, I just want to say one thing, one point on that. I just, I just returned from France, which I'll be talking about on a future episode. And as you, the three of us were talking offline, what's going on there is staggering. What's interesting there is now more and more Jews in France, from what I learned, are going to day schools because they've got to get out of the public school system because they're not safe in the public school system. But as you point out, the day schools are also targets. So there's like talk about the walls closing in, there's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go.
Yeah, to run to. One piece of this triangle, one sphere of this triangle is fundamentalist Islamists. Another sphere of the triangle is, of course, the far-right white supremacist, basically Nazis, who always hated the Jews. And you know, of course, in the United States, we...
Neo-Nazis, let's call them neo-Nazis. They're not Nazis yet.
Okay. Uh, neo-Nazis. Okay? You don't want to, you don't want to compliment them by saying they're Nazi. Okay? Uh, but, but these, um, so I did, you know, more than 10 years ago, I did a big series and documentary about the rise of hate across Europe, not only with the far-right, we're going to talk about the far-left too, but, so I had conversations with anti-Semites, with neo-Nazis in Germany, in other countries, and the rest, and they have never forgotten their big project against the Jews. And if we remember, for instance, the massacre in Pittsburgh a few years back, this Tree of Life attack at the synagogue in Squirrel Hill in 2018. Uh, that this, of course, was instigated by a person who can be described as a far-right white supremacist. And one of the interesting things is that there is a spillover from the far-right, or for far-right ideas, into more mainstream right-wing in the United States and around the world. For instance, you see sort of popular podcasts playing with the fairy dust of Holocaust denial. Candace Owens. It's a new far-right of sorts that is happening, and that's another sphere of the triangle.
And it also, it's not just that Candace Owens, I think, is a more extreme version of it. What you also see is just this normalization of revisionist history of events that affected the like, revisionist history, say, of World War II, revisionist history of Churchill, and revisionist history of what happened in the Holocaust. So it's not, it's not Candace Owens goes way out there, and then you also have these pseudo-historians now that are being normalized that are painting a picture of modern history that is what we, the Jewish people, have relied on in explaining our story.
I think it's even more nasty than that because why are they getting airtime? They're getting airtime because it's become more legitimate, and there's an audience there that's anti-Semitic, that is looking for content that is anti-Jewish, and this is worth money. Okay? And this is very worrying. And the third sphere of this triangle is, of course, the radical left. Now, generally speaking, unlike fundamentalist Islamists that see Jews and Christians as slaves, and unlike neo-Nazis, who of course are racist towards Jews, the DNA of the radical left sort of rejects racism and the rest. But what has happened, and it started pretty much long ago, is considering everything that is related to Israel as the original sin of the West. And because of that, everyone who supports Israel or supports the idea of a nation-state for the Jewish people is, of course, himself responsible for that sin. And Israel, of course, is much more than just Israel. It's the entire sins of Western society. And I should remind the people listening to us of a very important observation, not made by myself, that in every generation and demographics, the Jew is always the worst thing that society can envision in that specific moment. So, if the society is demonizing capitalism, the Jew is the capitalist. And in the same time, at the same society, some other demographics might be demonizing the idea of socialism, and then the Jew is the Bolshevik. And of course, for that type of radical leftism, the Jew, or the Zionist Jew, is the example of colonialism, imperialism, and abusing the weak, abusing people of color, and so forth, and so forth. And this is, of course, very much related to a term probably known by our listeners called intersectionality. The idea that it's the sum of these grievances together should be fought together, and the Palestinians are a sacred notion in that world, and therefore Israel is, if they are sacred, Israel is everything that is unholy.
Now, radicalism in the left and Islamism, fundamentalist violent Islamism, found themselves in the same camp after 9/11. This act is a total act of radicalism, of rejection of the system. So there was something in the far-left that was always glorifying, to some extent, violent struggle, and specifically a violent struggle of the indigenous populations, sometimes seen as those fundamentalist Islamists. But now you can really see, you know, far-left demonstrations, you know, marching together with Hamas supporters and Islamists. And they shouldn't be in the same camp in general, because the far-left is supposed to be secular, etc., etc.
And then you see the fusion of these movements in our contemporary politics here in the US, like the likely mayoralty of Zoran Mani and the populist right. Suddenly you're seeing, you know, these same podcasts interviewing Islamists. And the far-right definitely doesn't like Islamists, but if they're against Israel, actually, if they're against the Jews, suddenly they are so sensitive to Palestinian and Muslim harm, and what's happening in Palestine, suddenly is important for people who are actually neo-Nazis or neo-Nazis in disguise, or at least anti-Semitic. And this convergence is around one idea, and that is that the Zionist Jew, the Zionist Jew is demonized completely, and Jewish communities around the world are finding themselves in the center of this triangle.
Now, it's becoming more problematic politically because, for instance, Muslim communities across Europe are growing. This convergence in the United States has some political power. You mentioned Mandani, and you know, the populist right is sometimes buying into ideas of the far-right that is threatening Jewish communities and is anti-Semitic. So this is the diaspora.
Now, in Israel, it's going to be much shorter than that. In Israel, I think the Jewish existence is threatened both externally. I think that the fact that Israel had amazing success since October 7th in fighting off its enemies, specifically Iran and its proxies. I'm more worried about the threat to the nation's existence, to the Jewish existence in Israel, as a result of what I call corrupt and, to some extent, repressive type of politics that we're seeing emerging. So, if in the diaspora, I think that the major threat is external, I think in Israel, the major threat is internal. And I think that most Israelis will agree with that. I don't only think that, I saw polls. You ask Israelis, where's the threat? They always say, you know, it's within the intern, the Israeli society, the kinds of dialogue within us. By the way, it's a very Jewish idea that the reason that the Second Temple was devastated was because Jews were fighting with Jews. It wasn't because of the Romans eventually destroying it. It was because there was no unity. But at any rate, there are facts, and I bring those facts. And the facts are, Professor Dan Ben-David from Tel Aviv University, from the Shoresh Institute, brings these facts again and again. He says, you know, entire Israeli society is relying on about 300 to 400,000 people that are the most industrious in the tech, the most economically productive, the scientific talent, the technological talent, the medical talent. Yeah, I've heard his argument, by the way. I disagree with him about that, but we can get into that later.
Yeah, all right. So, Amit, what is your reaction to Nadav's framing of these, of these, this parade of horribles, all marching in one direction simultaneously?
So, I see there is a decision to cast me to be the optimistic one in this conversation.
It's a rare, it's a rare role for you.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, but I have to say, I'm more optimistic than this. Not because the situation is perfect, but because when you have, you know, with perspective and an eye on history, the situation now is much better than it used to be. One, second, it's quite common that during wartime in Israel, anti-Semitism goes up worldwide. It's not because of Israel, it's just an excuse, but it happens. And the third thing is that when we see the levels of anti-Semitism, it's still way lower than, I don't speak about, you know, the 2,000 years ago, but even compared to the last century, it's much, much lower.
Now, here's the thing. Usually, what we see now, uh, when it happened in the past, it paved the way to mass immigration to Israel. And we see it in the prices going up in Netanya, the French colony of Netanya, a city packed with immigrants from France. And we might see it from the United States. Now, I see it mainly from Modern Orthodox families these days, not from the ultra-Orthodox or Reform Jews, but we might see it more in the future. On the third day of the war, I got a phone call from a singular figure who knows something about Judaism and anti-Semitism. And he told me, "Expect a mass immigration to Israel." And it was, I mean, I thought he spoke about immigration from Israel, but he said, no, to Israel, because he said it would lead to an increase in anti-Semitism. Israel will win the war, and then you'll see mass immigration to Israel. Now, we don't see it yet. I attribute it to the fact that the war is still going on, but once people understand this, that the situation changed dramatically in favor of Israel, and when we see what is going on in France, as you said, and in the United States, and in the United Kingdom, which we haven't spoken about yet, there is a chance that it's going to happen. The Israeli government just needs to do one thing: not to disrupt this process.
Okay. Amit, the last time something similar happened, a version of what Nadav is talking about, both in his piece and what he talked about here at the beginning of this conversation. The last time something similar happened, it led to Zionism. If the scenario Nadav articulated comes to pass, and I know you disagree to some degree because you're, at least today, ever the optimist. Um, what do you think, what do you think the response now will be?
I think you'll see something of a secular immigration to Israel. Um, from my, you know, close family, I see that those who usually immigrate are Modern Orthodox, because if you are ultra-Orthodox, you feel quite convenient in the United States. You're in your community. And if you're Reform, you feel detached from the State of Israel, let alone thinking about immigrating to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. What we might see, the closer the relationship between being Jewish and being Israeli becomes, you might see something like this. And if it happens, I hope it happens, this can change Israel dramatically. We don't have Reform communities in Israel. The sentiment doesn't exist in Israel, save, I think, 20 synagogues nationwide. So this is one enthusiastic thought to bear in mind.
Nadav, what are the, do you see migration patterns now that could lead to something comparable to what we saw with Zionism?
So, first of all, I agree with Amit that it's mainly Modern Orthodox who are considering Aliyah or making Aliyah right now. And the reason is obvious. People who identify as Jews, who walk with the kippah, are prime targets in this sort of condition that is created. But it's also much more comfortable for Modern Orthodox. Israel has, you know, it's easier, there are more synagogues, there are more communities, food is kosher, your kids are going to marry with Jews. Again, it's ideologically more sound, it's closer to religious Zionism, there is an influence of religious Zionism in Israel on ultra-Orthodox abroad and in the United States. I'm not seeing secular Aliyah right now, and Amit was talking about this as a hope, and that's the question. I think both things can happen at once. The diaspora can spill over towards Eretz Israel, towards Aliyah, but parts of Eretz Israel could also spill over towards the diaspora. And these parts are different. Modern Orthodox are making more and more Aliyah, and people who identify, who send their kids to Jewish day schools. However, Israeli secular elites are having a very public discourse about what's going to happen in the State of Israel in the next few years and are terribly frightened from the possibility that Israel will change. And we saw this with judicial reform, or the judicial overhaul. We saw this with people moving their money abroad. This money, by the way, never returned to Israel, although it would have made, you know, a great profit in the Israeli stock market, but it didn't return.
As far as the data of the Bank of Israel that I know of, the...
Yeah, except that right through judicial reform and then shockingly through the war, Israel's economy, despite all the threats, despite all the credit agencies and the credit rating ratings warning doom for the Israeli economy, through each of these phases, the Israeli economy is, I mean, I know there's major dysfunction in it, but despite what Israel has been through and despite the warnings, it's flourished.
I wouldn't say flourished considering our debt ratio right now, but I would say that it's definitely proven to be robust. There is no depression and there's no recession, and that's a great thing. And everybody who visited Israel since October 7th saw... And Israel is doing a gas deal with Egypt, and Nvidia, you know, one of the most important companies in the future of AI, is doubling down on its presence in Israel. I mean, there's, you'd think this country, this economy would be much more banged up. That's all.
Yeah, I agree. But this still doesn't say that the Israeli secular and traditional elite, and not only the elite, sort of the middle classes in Israel, the serving middle classes, are willing to continue on with the political establishment with the covenant that was born in which it's the middle class of the Israelis that are bearing the brunt of, for instance, serving. Just give you one data point from Dan Ben-David. You know that in the 1960s and '70s, 80% of ultra-Orthodox men worked. Today, the majority of ultra-Orthodox men, at least officially, are not working. And now this is the biggest, you know, growing demographics in Israel. When I speak with Jews, whether it's in Australia or in the United States, and they're considering, for instance, Aliyah, one of the questions they're asking is, what's going to happen, you know, when the ultra-Orthodox are going to become a third of the country, 40% of the country? We're advancing quickly to a position in which many of the schools educating our children are not teaching essentials like English and math.
I fully agree with Dan Ben-David, and he hit the nail on the head with this analysis about the ultra-Orthodox community. However, basing the situation on 300,000 people who might leave Israel, thus leading to its destruction, is a far-reaching analysis. And to be honest, statistics that worked in favor of Dan Ben-David when it comes to the ultra-Orthodox community doesn't work on his side when it comes to immigration from Israel. I'll give you an example. In the year 2023, there were many, many reports about people leaving Israel because of the judicial reform. In 2024, about leaving because of the war. However, in 2023, there weren't any move, any rise in the statistics of people immigrating from Israel. The only increase was of Ukrainian non-Jewish immigrants who made Aliyah in 2022 because of the war, took all the benefits, and then moved to the next destination. There was always, in the Zionist movement, there was always immigration, even in the '30s, the '40s, the '50s, but it was always marginal.
Look, I'm not saying that there's a stream of people escaping the country, although Naftali Bennett, who's running for Prime Minister, has just had a post this week. Of course, he's in opposition. He wants to fight. Claim to fame, claim to fame is to say that if he is not elected as Prime Minister, the country is going to collapse. He told me that if Bibi gets 61 seats, there will be mass immigration from Israel, and the country would collapse. However, but he learned, however, he learned that.
Yeah, no, that's exactly what I wanted to say. Can you guess who he learned it from? That if he's not going to get elected, you know, there's going to be a catastrophe, basically from the first politician ever created. So he said that, I think in the Tayelet in Tel Aviv, someone walked up to him, an academic, and said that a few or 10 of his friends are considering leaving the country. And his post was telling people, don't leave the country, okay? Don't leave the country, and things are going to change. Today in Israel, 10% of the working force is responsible for 50% of the government income, of the state income, and these 10% are paying 87% of all the taxes. By the way, this is not an anomaly in capitalism or in liberal democracies, but half of the population isn't paying taxes at all. That is an anomaly. You know why, Dan? Half of the population isn't paying taxes at all? Because they're not reaching the threshold of paying taxes. Because they're not working.
Yeah. No, some of them are not working now. Uh, yeah. Some of these problems are essential, and this is just, you know, we're talking about, I don't want to demonize a section because it's also about corrupt politics, you know. There's an entire story that Amit and I can tell you about the former Director General of the Prime Minister's office, Yossi Shelly, who's now the ambassador of Israel to the UAE. And I mentioned this in my column. This is a man who's been indicted before. And now the UAE, according to Channel 12, according to Amit's channel, the UAE wants him out as an ambassador. And why? According to an investigation published in Channel 12, because he kept on discussing the possibility of prostitution in the UAE. No, not discussing it as an issue, meaning trying to procure prostitutes.
Yeah, I'm trying to be as subtle as I can, but thank you, Dan. When the UAE officials first met him, Dan, you know what they said? They said, "Why did we that, why did we go to have a peace agreement with these idiots?" This was their response to meeting the Director General of the Prime Minister's office. What's happening to public service in Israel is that there is, you know, it's the opposite of a meritocracy. You can find these examples. I don't, you know, I think Israel sadly is not an outlier here. Maybe it's getting worse in Israel than it was. We can, but I mean, I want to come back to something Nadav touched on. Do you agree that liberal Israelis, liberal, more secular Israelis are, let's just use Dan Ben-David's the 300,000 again. I dispute his number. We do that. We dispute that number in our most recent book. And I think it doesn't account for the fact that huge numbers of talented Jews are making Aliyah that are expanding the pool and are moving to Israel. Again, just to come back to France. I just came back to France. I can't tell you every French business person, investor, doctor, lawyer, and in some cases even technologists that are openly talking about either themselves making Aliyah or their children making Aliyah, or they're buying a home in Israel in the event that they or their children want to make Aliyah. And it's quite easy for them to do, as they point out, because it's the, it's easier for them to get to Israel than for me in New York to get to Silicon Valley. It's a short flight. The time zone difference is one hour. Uh, it's, and there's a big French community there. And I can give you examples from other communities. I think you were alluding to this before. I also think the ease with which we talk about Israelis leaving Israel, where I think there's some of it, like Elon, whenever he's like in Greece, he was just in Greece and he's saying to me, there's Israelis everywhere in Greece. It's like a little Israel here. You know, you travel to Portugal, there's a big Israeli community in Portugal. You will always find pockets. But the real question is, will liberal Israelis at scale leave Israel? It's not, will small pockets leave? Will big numbers leave? And even if life is difficult in Israel, or it's seemingly unfair, which I totally get, by the way, for all the reasons Nadav you're talking about, for all the reasons you were talking about at the beginning of this discussion, it's not so easy for those liberal Israelis to live in these places. I'm like Nadav, you and I have had many conversations about this both offline and online. Like, it's, this is not these days to be in the diaspora. Like, it's not so easy. Alon Pinas is a funny liberal in Israel, and he, you know, everyone writes in Israel, the day after an election in which Netanyahu is getting elected again, "I want to immigrate from Israel." And then Trump was elected in 2016, and he said, "I want to immigrate from Earth." Uh, so it's not, I mean, the image of a somewhere liberal outside, I mean, see the polls in France, Germany, in the United Kingdom, the far-right is gaining ground in the polls dramatically, is going to take office in the next election. So it's not that easy outside.
No, I agree. And this is, this is what, why what I wrote is that the two things are happening together. And the question is, what's going to spill over? Is it going to be the Galut, or the diaspora, spilling over to Eretz Israel, or Eretz Israel spilling over there? I think that the pushback that both of you are trying to get by is that it's impossible that Israeli liberals en masse will start leaving. And what I can definitely tell you, as someone who I think is closer than both of you to that specific demographic, is that I am not only hearing people, I already see and I can count my friends and family, and I can count, by the way, Israeli physicians, doctors, one, you know, that I know that have moved, one to New Zealand, one to Canada, and so forth and so forth, in my own circle. Now, these are, of course, anecdotes, but they're also supported with some data. If you talk with university rectors, if you talk with academics, there are people who want to return back home. Always, always there are people who want to return back home. But the big question is, what's going to happen with the political establishment? Is the political establishment going to be the type that generally we have seen since the beginning of the war, before the war? It's not that functional, to say the least, and I'm using a very understatement. And no, Dan, I don't think that it's like many, many other places in the world. I do think that the argument, and this is an argument I make at the end of the article, that if every place in the world is going dark, my Israeli answer is, I would rather fight it in my own language, in my own country, with my own people. So, I'm not making an argument for Israel to spill over to the diaspora, because I'm invested, you know, as an Israeli citizen, with Medinat Israel. But I am worried about that. And when you have, you know, sort of data like 30% of, you know, students in Israel today, talking about school students, 30% of them are ultra-Orthodox, and 84% of them are not learning math and English. And this is funded also by the state, and this is not done in Ben-David, this is according to the State Controller's last report in 2024. So you have here a real problem. And this is the message of the war, then, of the new generation that I'm meeting, that this age in which you pushed these problems aside cannot continue if you want the country to prosper and you want it to be an appeal to the Jews that are in distress around the world. These are the questions that I'm getting from people who are considering Aliyah.
Amit, before you go, I just want you to respond to one thing in your newsletter. It's noon in Israel, which we highly recommend, and we, you can subscribe to go to arcmedia.org. There's a subscription there. You recently highlighted a number that blew my mind, and our friends Yonatan and Michal on What's Your Number also cited this number. For the first time, school just started in Israel, I think today's the first day, and for the first time in Jerusalem, there are more Jerusalemite children enrolled in Haredi ultra-Orthodox schools than non-Haredi schools. So, just close out by, like, I'm asking you, Amit, does that worry you? Like, because that is part of what Nadav, that is like, that number illustrates the...
Of course.
...of what Nadav is saying is going to drive away liberal Israel.
Of course, I couldn't agree more. I live in Jerusalem now. Every right-winger who lives in Jerusalem from the national Orthodox movement is very hawkish when it comes to a nationwide vote, and very liberal when it comes to the municipal election, because in the municipal elections, you vote for the anti-ultra-Orthodox movements because you don't want the ultra-Orthodox to take over Jerusalem, which is happening. And the fear is that Jerusalem is the trailer to what is going to happen in Israel. When it happens in Jerusalem, 50%, it's going to happen in 20 years from now in the entire Israel. However, I'm more optimistic than this. Not, I don't mean that I'm going to just sit aside and be optimistic. I think that many things should be done. For instance, cut the benefits for people who do not serve in the army. For instance, not preferring people who do not serve over those who serve. But I do think that yes, we can change it. And I think even in Jerusalem, the process today is towards the most Zionist things. When you see the skyscrapers in Jerusalem, they will not host the ultra-Orthodox community. They will host students and liberal families and secular families and national Orthodox families. We should do, the state as a whole should invest a lot. And I think what Nadav says and what I say, I'm saying are basically the same, that the next government should be a unity government based on the Zionist forces, which will be able to do what? To take the necessary steps in order to move the Orthodox community towards working, studying, and all those important things.
Amit, Nadav, thank you for this, and I'm sure this is a conversation we will be continuing. Thank you so much.
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