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Lihi Lapid · In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch

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I'm Rabbi Ami Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, and
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you're listening to In These Times.
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My guest today is a beautifully talented novelist who is also
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a journalist and an activist.
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Lihi Lapid is also the wife of Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition
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in the Knesset and former Israeli foreign minister and prime minister.
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Lihi's latest book.
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On Her Own is a truly Israeli novel that examines Israeli society from the
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inside out and from the outside in.
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Recently translated into English, Lihi's book has been boycotted in
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America by those boycotting anything Israeli, regardless of the content.
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On Her Own is not even political, it's a novel about people finding themselves.
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Lihi
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Lapid, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
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And welcome to In These Times.
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Thank you.
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Thank you so much for hosting me here.
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I, uh, read your book on her own.
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I couldn't put it down.
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First of all, can I ask you, uh, is the title of the book in English the same,
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basically, as in Hebrew, on her own?
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No.
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No, in Hebrew it's Zarot.
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which is strangers or strangeness, but it's, it's a feminine side of strangers.
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And I felt that in English, strangers or strangeness sounds like a, like
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a thriller or something like that.
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And I wanted something that is more, a little bit more feminine.
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I wanted to ask you about that because, uh, I'm sorry I didn't
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actually read the book in Hebrew.
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First of all, everything through translation misses a lot.
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I think it was Bialik who, who wrote it.
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Reading a poem through a translation is like kissing
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your grandmother through a veil.
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It's not the same thing, but it's just so Israeli.
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Do you think that foreigners reading it in English will
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get what you're trying to say?
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It's really a love, it's a love story about Israel.
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And there's so many Israeli things there.
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Do you hope that they'll pick up?
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Do you expect that they'll pick up everything that you intended?
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When people read you You can be sure what your intentions will get to them.
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But first of all, I hear a lot of people saying things that I didn't
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think about, but I do feel that.
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It doesn't concern only Israelis or only Jews.
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And I'll tell you why.
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Because when Harper's Collins, which is a very distinguished publication
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house, decided to publish it in, in English, they didn't think about Israel
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or Jewish or, or things like that.
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It's just that the story of, of connections between generations
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and when people live outside And far away from their family.
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And when I came to the office of Harper's calling, so one of them was
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Spanish and one of them was from the Philippines and one of them was Corsican.
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So I realized that's the global world is like that.
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Our kids grow up and they go to work in.
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which country that they will find their profession great there.
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And it's also raises the question of homeland and not homeland.
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And in Israel, this burden of living in your homeland or leaving your homeland to
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another country and leaving Israel behind.
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It's a big question.
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Leahy, the book takes place between Passover and Yom HaZikaron or Yom
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HaAtzma'ut, Memorial Day and Independence Day follows right after Memorial Day.
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That was on purpose, I assume.
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Why did you use that as a focal point in time?
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I wrote a column for 15 years.
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in Israel newspaper.
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And whenever Pesach, Passover started, I knew it will be Passover.
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And then it's the memorial day for the, for the Shoah.
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And then it's memorial day for the Israeli soldier that died.
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And then it's independence.
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And there are days that are, are very loaded here in Israel with
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emotions, with the, there is the siren that we stand, all of us, and it's.
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One day for the Shoah and 10 days after that we stand for the soldiers of the
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army and Israel becomes full of flags Everywhere every house and everything and
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and it's also the beginning of the spring.
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So in a way, it's it's a very tight emotional time in Israel.
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So yes, definitely.
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And I wanted to settle a time for this whole story not to be like many years.
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That's a three week period or so.
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Yes.
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Something like that.
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How
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did that time period impact on the development of the characters?
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Why was it important?
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to them during that three week period.
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Um, Carmela, the old character, uh, she lost her son 30 years
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ago as a soldier in the army.
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I do think that the publication of the book now outside of Israel
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is showing that for us in Israel, a soldier is not a war machine.
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It's our sons and daughters that have to go to the army.
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And Carmela misses her son that died 30 years ago, like, like he died yesterday,
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and she knows that Memorial Day is coming.
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And I'll tell you how it all started.
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My son was in the army, and in Memorial Day, they sent him to a cemetery somewhere
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in Israel with a name of a soldier that died and the address of the grave.
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So I took him there.
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And I watched from far to see which family is coming and how they are,
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and how is my son being with them.
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And to see memorial dates, one hour, all graves of all soldiers have one soldier
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standing and a family that's coming.
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And there are graves that no one is coming for.
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And it was beautiful.
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A big essence of, of me writing this whole thing in this book.
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Grief is another significant theme in, in your book.
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Do you think there's something unique in Israel about grief that Israelis
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can, uh, share with either Jews around the world or other people?
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Have Israelis learned something important about grief that, that
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other people may not be as attuned to?
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Wow.
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Um.
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Yes, I definitely think that, uh, we live in a place here in Israel that,
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that sadness and grief and losing.
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And I'll tell you something.
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I have two kids.
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Okay.
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Uh, one is Lior that went to the army and he was, uh, combat.
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And I have a daughter, she's autistic, she doesn't speak and she's amazing.
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But for me to send my son to the army, okay, the only son I have that
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I can be a grandmother for his kids, the only one that can take care of
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me one day, because my daughter, we are all just taking care of her.
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And it's three years when he was in the army and I was worried.
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I said, wow, that's a huge sacrifice that my country is asking me to do,
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to be worried for three years, to, to, to like not to sleep for any, I
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think a country should be wonderful and very, very good in order to ask us the
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mothers to sacrifice this sacrifice.
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It's very, very difficult.
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I wrote once that when you are an Israeli mom, when you go to the
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first ultrasound when you are, uh, pregnant and you go to the doctor
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and the doctor says, it's a boy.
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Immediately, you think of a soldier, immediately.
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You think that your son will have weapon and he will guard the country.
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It is crazy.
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And I think from that moment on, you are worried.
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And now we have women combat, so definitely we are more worried.
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So yes, I think at the surface of what it is to be an Israeli
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is the price of, of that.
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It's the price of, of worry.
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It's the price of grieving mothers.
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Wow.
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It's crazy.
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Do you think a lot of mothers, they go to the first sonogram, they see
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it's a boy and they immediately think of the military 18 years later?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I do.
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And I think that they say to themselves, there will be peace.
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In 18 years, there will be peace.
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I'm sure there will be peace.
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But, but we do, we, in the end, we, we, we do go to the army and
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our kids are going to the army.
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And, and, you know, when, when I was very, very small, there was the Yom Kippur War.
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And there was a very famous song in Israel, uh, that Yoram Gaon sang, uh,
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it's called I promise you, my little daughter, that this will be the last
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war, that it wasn't the last war.
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And my father was a fighter at four wars and, and continues until now.
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So.
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What do you think 20 years from now?
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Hmm.
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Wow.
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It's so much to do with how.
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This war will end and if it will be an agreement connected to peace.
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on long terms, like we have with Egypt or with Jordan, or, or it will be the
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same like it used to be until now.
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You know, it's like, I'm coming from a certain political point of view.
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We have a little granddaughter now, her name is Naomi, and I really hope that,
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listen, Naomi, she's six months old and she was in the shelter more times than she
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was, I don't know, in the swimming pool.
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And it's crazy.
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And, and her mother came one day.
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To us and on the way she needed to stop her car.
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She ran on the streets with her baby to hide somewhere because there was
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an alarm and there were missiles in the middle of Tel Aviv and she came
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to our place, all shaken, 25 year old mother that needs to hold her.
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Six month old baby and run on the streets.
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We need to give her another future, a better future here.
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If we want sick for peace, even as a wishful thinking and a
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wishful emotional situation, then first of all, it won't come.
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And I don't know what will happen if Israel will be a country that is
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forever and ever at war with no sense of one day it will be different.
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Uh, it's really scary.
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Just to finish, um, the question about grief.
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You dedicate the book to Deddy, my brother, and you say, I missed you for
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so long, now I will miss you forever.
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First of all, that's beautiful.
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Thank you.
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What is the background to that?
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My brother lived in LA for more than 30 years.
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He was a very successful sound man in post productions of movies and was
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even nominated for Grammy or Emmy.
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I, I don't know.
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He lived many years in America and we are a very tight family.
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Me and my sister and the kids with my parents and, and he was so far
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and 30 years ago flying and, and going here and there was difficult.
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And my parents are super Israelis.
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They have a story in Israel.
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They're common people, and they don't know English very well.
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And his kids grew up to be very Americans, and they didn't know Hebrew.
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And we were very close, but as close as you can when, when the
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time difference is so difficult.
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And after the book was published in Israel, and my,
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my brother didn't love reading.
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He detected that, uh, parts of it at least were connected to his story.
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So what happened was that after the book was published, my brother became
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very ill very quickly, and between him, between 22, that the book was
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published in Israel and 24 that the book was published in America, my.
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And I, I can definitely say that I'm so sorry for that, but I didn't have the
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nerve to talk to him about the book.
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I came to be in LA in his last days and we were together with my
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mother and sister and everybody.
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And, and he gave us a book.
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A very, very nice present that he, he asked to be buried in
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Israel and he's now close to us.
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So I missed him for many, many years and now I will miss him forever.
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Send you our condolences.
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Thank you.
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Thank you so much.
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I'm, I'm glad you gave us that background because, uh, that sheds
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light on what was noticeable to me.
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I have a lot of experience working with.
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Israelis who are living here in the United States.
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In fact, we had done many, many outreach programs to Israelis to keep
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them part of the Jewish community.
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One of the things that I discovered with Israelis that are living in New
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York, and then you can say in America in general, is they don't realize until
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much later that while they will remain Israelis their entire lives, their
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children, If they're born here are Americans for all intents and purposes.
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Many of them don't even speak Hebrew.
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Uh, and those who do, I know because I work with the children as well.
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And, um, while the parents have this Israeliness in them that will
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remain for the rest of their lives, the kids are not that way at all.
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And then there comes a point when the kids are already older that the parents realize
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Once you're out of Israel, you can't replicate Israel in the United States.
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And these trips going back to Israel to visit families, we trained kids
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for bar mitzvahs and Synagogue that you know well, uh, Beit Daniel
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in, in Tel Aviv with Rabbi Azari.
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Yeah.
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Rabbi that did all the bar mitzvahs in our family.
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Oh, you're,
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yes.
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So we used to send, uh, the children of Israeli kids to Beit Daniel to
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have bar mitzvahs because the families had families in Israel and they
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wanted to have bar mitzvahs there.
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But what was apparent was that the kids were Americanized completely.
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And that's what you describe here.
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And it really struck me.
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And I was wondering how you knew that so intimately.
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And so I, you had that in your family.
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I want to tell you that when my brother came to LA, so a friend
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of my parents told him, you have to come and be in a community.
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And I think that for us Israelis.
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Being Jewish is part of daily life because we don't work in Shabbat
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because everything is closed in Shabbat, most of the places.
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And we have the holidays because everybody are having the holidays
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and we are happy to do the holidays, et cetera, and everything.
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But when you are in America and you don't have a community, then you
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don't feel that it's a holiday and you don't know that it's a holiday
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and that definitely your kids don't.
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And I, I do relate to what you say, that Israelis thinks that
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Judaism is very, very natural.
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But when you are outside of Israel, being Jewish is not natural because
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the whole surrounding, if you don't choose being part of a community, then.
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It doesn't happen, and holidays doesn't happen, Hebrew for your kids doesn't
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happen, loving Israel doesn't happen.
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Uh, so yes, so I think you are, you are very right.
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And this whole thing started, that was the essence of the book that,
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uh, wow, I was thinking what will happen if my son decided to stay.
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to live 30 years in L.
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A.
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That's really fascinating.
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Remember that, uh, Arik Einstein song, uh, San Francisco a la mime, San Francisco on
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the water, and he concludes that, well, warm little Israel is the place for me.
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And I was thinking that I just want to read a little passage of the
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book, and it was very moving to me.
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You say here, Israeli brotherhood exists even at good moments.
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The holidays, the centrality of family, the sea, the language.
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Even in America, the Israelis stick together because no one can understand
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them the way they understand one another.
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I just found that to be so true, so Israeli, and so moving.
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You know, a few days ago, I have a friend, his name is Justin, and he,
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he did Aliyah, and he had a birthday.
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So he, he's young, he's like 30, and he had a birthday and he invited
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all his friends that did Aliyah.
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Doing Aliyah now, it's super crazy.
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They are at war time in Tel Aviv.
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Their parents are very worried.
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And I looked at them meeting together.
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And I felt that they have this thing that you said from the other side.
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They, only a bunch of 30 year old Olim living in Israel in the middle
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of war can understand each other.
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So I can tell you from another point of view, I very much believe in a group.
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I don't know, therapy.
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When Yael was diagnosed and I was devastated from knowing that
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my daughter with severe autism.
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And so the only thing that saved me was to be with people that are like
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me, that are parents, getting to know their special child and everything.
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So I do really believe that we need always to be in a group that understands us.
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I just want to read the last, I don't want to give away the The ending or the
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plot, but this is just so moving to me and it speaks to me so much you, you, you,
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you talk about the son of the old woman who comes back to Israel and he thinks
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to himself, he says, his kids, Dana and Ariel will grow up and go to live who
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knows where in America first college, then whatever job they'll marry Americans.
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And do them a favor and come to visit for a few days, twice
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a year, that's to Israel.
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The way the grown children in America do.
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They'll, uh, buy a house on the far side of the world.
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And they'll renovate the house again and again.
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And then, uh, they'll move to Miami, because that's,
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uh, where everybody goes to.
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And you, you write this from the perspective of an Israeli who, who
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feels at one with Israeli society, with the people who understand her,
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the sea, the language, the holidays.
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You mention, uh, the quiet before Shabbat.
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And you mentioned that from a secular perspective, not, uh, preparing
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to observe Shabbat halachically.
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Yeah.
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It's very moving to me, Leigh.
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Thank you.
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Uh, I think there is something very sticky with Israeli families
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that they are all the time, they are meeting to eat something.
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We are eating all the time.
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Now there was the holidays, everybody gained like five kilos just from
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meeting the family over and over.
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So that's, that's one thing.
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And I see a lot of Also, parents hear that their kids move to other
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countries and that they're missing them.
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One of the things I think we need to appreciate more is the time we have
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with our kids when they live with us.
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Because, you know, at the beginning, we want them to grow, to be
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older so we'll know how they are.
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And, and suddenly you sit at home and Yair and me sit at home and we're
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just begging for them to bring the granddaughter because we, we miss her.
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And we are fighting with the parents of the daughter in law who is doing holidays.
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And then we said at the end, yeah, let's do everything together.
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So in Israel, everything is super close.
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And I want to say something else about secular.
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In Israel, actually, you are not secular.
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There is nothing like that because you live Jewish life all the time.
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The vacation of the kids from school and everything is connected to the
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Jewish holidays and times, and we go, and a lot of us are fasting.
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In Yom Kippur, and no one is driving in Yom Kippur.
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So it's not secular at the sense of, of American secular.
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Yes, I, I agree with that.
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And that's one of the challenges we have for Israelis living here.
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It's because you, you don't have to affiliate with a Jewish organization, a
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synagogue to maintain a Jewish identity in Israel, let alone Jewish continuity.
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And in America, you have to.
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You have to, anywhere outside of Israel, because you can't replicate all of
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the factors of Jewish collective self determination and sovereignty, which
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bestows a unique form of Jewish identity, irrespective of your religious beliefs.
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And what happens in America, because many of the Israelis who are not
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Orthodox are not only not attracted, but are often repelled, repulsed,
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because of what they understand as religious coercion in Israel.
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They regard all synagogues, for example, the same way, and they're intimidated
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even to come into a liberal synagogue.
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Synagogue.
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And it's a big, big challenge because the parents don't
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realize how much that's needed.
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We actually did surveys and the Israeli consulate mentioned this to me when I was
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speaking with the consul general one year.
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And they assessed three generations of Israeli immigrants who left
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Israel and they discerned that That Israelis assimilated the quickest,
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quicker than American Jews after they left Israel because they couldn't
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replicate Israeli society abroad.
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And they couldn't really identify with the main way you sustain Judaism in
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the United States, which is through synagogues and Jewish synagogues.
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institutions, Jewish programming.
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Interesting.
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It's a big issue.
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Yeah, I agree with you.
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I, I think for us secular Jews in Israel, which are not really secular,
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Judaism is so natural and we don't think we need to do an effort to be Jewish.
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And whenever you live outside of Israel, you need to do an effort to be Jewish.
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Otherwise, It will get out of your family's system.
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So if you are not in a, in a community, yeah, you will just be out of it.
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Let me get to some contemporary issues before we run out of time,
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uh, in particular post October 7th.
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First of all, we're seeing here in the United States that.
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Anti Israel sentiments, and it's often, of course, connected and spills
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over into anti Semitic attitudes, are affecting the book industry as well.
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Your publisher, HarperCollins, is a very big, influential publisher, but I'm
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wondering, you Did they have any second thoughts about translating the book?
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And have you found difficulties in placing the book in bookstores
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or in your promotional activities?
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I think the decision to publish the book was before 7th of October.
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I don't know what would happen after that.
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I can tell you and tell you a story that, uh, when, when the book was
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supposed to go out and we said, we'll do a launch of the book and some
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bookstore in Manhattan, And they said, of course, we'll approach bookstores.
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And they wrote all the bookstores that they used to do it there.
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And none of them agreed.
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Each one said, I'm busy and I can't, and the schedule and come on, it's an
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hour in a bookstore that I'm sitting and, and signing books, and they
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couldn't find any bookstore to do it.
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And it took them long time to realize.
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That no one wants to do it because it was in March and it was the middle of the war.
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I think no store wanted to have demonstration outside and I'm not
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just an author, I'm not just an Israeli author, I'm an Israeli author
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married to a politician in Israel.
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I think they're doing their best, but, uh, for me, it's a big disappointment
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because I wanted the book to reach.
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people that are not Jewish and that are outside of our circle.
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And I'm not so sure it can happen these times.
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So it's very important for me to do talks like I'm doing with you, because I want
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at least the book to be connecting all of us, the Jews in Israel and in America.
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And I want to say something which is very important.
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I think what happened after 7th of October to Israelis on their relations.
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with Jews in the diaspora.
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It's a huge thing.
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Israelis used to be like, I don't care what the Jews in the
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diaspora are saying about us.
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And we don't need them.
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We are okay.
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You know, we were a little bit arrogant and, and maybe you can donate to
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Israel, but don't tell us what to do.
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And I think it's the first time everything that Jews around the world
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and Jews in America said, helping Israel, and coming to visit here,
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and even volunteering here, and, and, and doing campaigns in their faith.
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It was so important to Israelis here.
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I live a lot with understanding what it means that the community of Jews in
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America and in Israel, but I think it's very different now, I think, the way
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Israelis treat the importance of Jews in the diaspora and their help to Israel.
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I want to ask you, you've been particularly active for decades,
28:53
socially active and politically active.
28:56
And I think you still are a journalist.
28:57
You consider yourself a column writer, at least.
29:02
You're an author.
29:02
You write a lot.
29:04
Your husband, Yair Lapid, he also was a journalist, I suppose, when you met him.
29:10
And your father in law was a journalist before he became a politician as well.
29:16
And I, I think, I, I assume that you consider yourself a liberal
29:19
person, and you believe in liberal philosophy and ideology.
29:24
So in that capacity, how did Israel become the enemy of so many liberals?
29:31
In the aftermath of October 7th.
29:33
It's so sad and
29:38
it's us to blame.
29:40
It's us to blame, really.
29:42
The world loved us after 7th of October.
29:46
They opened their hearts.
29:47
All the prime ministers and presidents came to Israel to support and loved us.
29:56
And we didn't explain.
29:59
Enough.
30:00
We didn't explain good enough.
30:02
I know that Bennett was interviewed a lot, and Yair was interviewed a lot,
30:07
but the country didn't say, I'm taking all the forces that I know that can
30:12
help Israel, and I'm using them in order to talk and explain and be out there.
30:21
I'm a storyteller.
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Okay.
30:24
That's what I do.
30:25
And there, there is one story that all the world knows.
30:31
and relates to, and it's David and Goliath.
30:34
Okay.
30:34
David is the small, sweet, good, smart, handsome guy.
30:41
And Goliath is the bad, devastating, evil, stupid, big guy.
30:50
And all Jews and all Israelis think of Israel as David.
30:56
And that's the real story.
30:58
And so many people around the world look at this.
31:03
As we are Goliath and we have to tell the story of Israel as David and we
31:13
are not telling it and going on TV and saying, we are strong and we will demolish
31:20
everything and we will kill everybody.
31:23
That's the way Goliath talk, not the way David talks.
31:27
So we need to say, listen, we need help.
31:31
We are the good guys.
31:33
We are liberal, like you say, we are, uh, and, and when I see
31:38
demonstration with people that are LGBT,
31:43
LGBT,
31:44
yeah, for Hamas, it's like, they will kill you there and, and we
31:50
are not telling the story right.
31:52
We are just not telling the story right.
31:54
Let me press you on that.
31:56
So I, I wanted to rely on your expertise as a lifelong feminist.
32:02
How do you explain, for example, that so many of the organizations that
32:08
we assumed were our partners, and with whom we marched, I remember our
32:12
synagogue marched several times on these women's marches after, uh, Trump was
32:17
elected in 2016, if you remember that.
32:21
But in any case, we have partnered with feminist organizations for
32:24
decades on reproductive rights and feminist rights across the board.
32:29
How do you explain that so many of them didn't even believe Israeli
32:35
women or express sympathy who were sexually assaulted on October 7th?
32:42
And there were some of them who even suggested that this was
32:45
justifiable resistance in the face of occupation and oppression.
32:50
It has to be more than just simply, we haven't explained the
32:54
story properly, don't you think?
32:57
Yes, I think we didn't tell the story right.
33:00
And then a lot of antisemitism.
33:03
arise.
33:04
I remember when Malala, you remember the, the girl.
33:08
I
33:08
remember Malala.
33:09
I remember the Boko Haram.
33:11
Remember the, uh, Nigerian girls and people were, were feminist organizations
33:16
were, were marching across the world.
33:19
Yeah.
33:19
And I didn't care that there are Muslims or Christians or Jews.
33:24
It didn't matter.
33:25
It was a girl.
33:27
Her, her rights were violated and it was one of my biggest.
33:33
Disappointment, really, the fact that the women's organization
33:41
were not there for us.
33:42
I thought, I don't know, I thought Oprah Winfrey will say something.
33:47
I thought that really women that are fighting the fight for
33:52
women's rights will say things.
33:55
Why do you think they didn't?
33:57
Why didn't they?
33:58
In your heart of hearts, what do you think is going on?
34:01
I don't know how we came to be the bad guys.
34:04
I don't know.
34:05
We're having nightmare here.
34:08
We're having nightmare here.
34:10
A year with, with kids that are, you know, I'm, I'm looking at our kids
34:15
growing up in front of a TV that every day there's mothers crying for someone
34:23
to bring their kids home, to bring their kids to burial because their
34:28
body's somewhere a year and, and it's like, it's, it's things that are crazy.
34:35
A lot of people are out of their homes.
34:36
Then.
34:37
And how come we became the bad guys?
34:41
There are young women being held with a horrible organization of terror.
34:51
You know, the, the, the hostages that were found now, they were, they found
34:56
their bodies, they were like, 35 kilos.
34:59
It's like, I don't know.
35:02
I'm, I'm, I'm devastated from that.
35:06
The fact that you are marching in New York, that the fact that you are putting
35:10
the pictures of the hostages again and again, when people are tearing it,
35:15
it's so important and, you know, When I met Tommy, his father, uh, he was a
35:22
Holocaust survivor and he was a big fat Hungarian man that loved food and life.
35:29
And he was very special.
35:32
And he all the time said, everybody are antisemitic, antisemitic.
35:36
And I was like, I grew up in Israel.
35:39
I never felt like it.
35:41
And I think what happened after 7th of October raised a lot of antisemitism.
35:48
You know what?
35:49
What I know is that your kids now in America, for the first
35:56
time ever, feel anti Semitism.
36:00
And it's crazy.
36:02
When we are the most vulnerable, it happens.
36:06
And I don't want to say that Tommy was right, because I do believe
36:11
that there are a lot of people that love Jews and that are okay with us.
36:15
So I'm not saying everybody, but I'm saying it's a demon.
36:20
that it's so easy to wake up this demon in other people and say that we are to
36:27
blame, that Jews are to blame, and that's why we need to stick together, all of us.
36:35
Let me ask you, what's the mood like in Israel now?
36:39
Israel is holding up?
36:40
Is society holding up?
36:43
How do you see their future?
36:44
We won't talk about
36:45
politics here.
36:47
Okay.
36:47
So, uh, you know, there are the five grief.
36:51
Five stages of grief.
36:53
Thank you.
36:54
So the first one is shock, I think.
36:57
So we were shocked.
36:58
Then we say, okay, it will be okay in a minute.
37:02
Then we realize, I think there's.
37:06
We're at the beginning of, of, of the stage of rage.
37:10
I think there is something now, the atmosphere here is really, really, because
37:18
a year passed, hostages are not back yet.
37:22
There are every day, every day, every day, soldiers that dies.
37:29
And there are a lot of people that feel that it needs to be different.
37:33
And I feel a wave of rage.
37:37
Inside Israelis.
37:38
Rage.
37:40
Is it, is there a target for that rage?
37:42
I mean, you said it's fine to talk politics here, by the way, too.
37:46
And we, we, we know your family pedigree.
37:52
I mean, I assume that part of the people who are enraged are focusing
37:57
their attention on the government.
37:58
And.
37:59
the perception that the policies are misguided.
38:03
But is there a target for that region?
38:06
There's an issue of draft or not drafting Orthodox Jews.
38:11
Like, are we all putting our efforts or is part of the country, yes, and part, no.
38:20
There are a lot of women that their husbands are in reserves for
38:24
ages and are collapsing totally.
38:28
And yes, it, I think, I think, uh, it's political rage, but it's not just
38:34
from one side of the political arena.
38:38
It's everybody feels that, wow, guys, There needs to be an end to everything.
38:45
And here's my last question.
38:47
Do you have a final message for American Jews?
38:50
Wow.
38:52
Um, love us.
38:57
I know we are, everybody says that we are Sabra, so, uh, yeah, our
39:04
thorns are very sharp, but, um, yeah.
39:09
We are hurting so much now, and we need, uh, the friendship of Jews all over the
39:15
world because you are the ones we have.
39:18
We need you to continue and care about us and shout and be in connection and fly
39:26
over if there's a flight, if you can fly.
39:33
So, yes, we need to hold the hands more together.
39:37
We need you guys.
39:39
I agree with that, and on that, uh, note, it's a beautiful way to end.
39:45
I want to urge all of our listeners to buy the novel on her own.
39:50
It's a beautiful, beautiful, touching story.
39:54
so much.
39:54
And, uh, we'll We wish you, uh, well in every way, including politically, and,
40:01
uh, may it be that this year the, the, the fighting will end and recovery will begin.
40:06
Thank you so, so much.
40:08
And Of
40:11
course.
40:11
Keep writing and keep doing tremendous things.
40:21
I urge you to buy On Her Own by Lihi Lapid.
40:24
First, because it is a beautiful, compelling,
40:27
engrossing, and inspiring novel.
40:30
And second Purchase the book, as we say in Hebrew, dafka, precisely
40:36
because there are those in the literary and publishing community who
40:40
are boycotting all things Israeli.
40:43
They are boycotting the so called wrong Jewish authors, the ones who are
40:47
too Jewish in their eyes, too loyal to Israel, too distinctively Jewish.
40:53
Lehi Lapid is such a talented writer.
40:56
I resonated not only with the central plot, but with more subtle aspects
41:00
of the human condition that Lehi brings out through her characters.
41:05
I identified with a teenager, Nina, whose mother immigrated and will always have a
41:10
foreign accent that is scorned by Nina.
41:13
She is proud of her non accented Hebrew.
41:17
That's how I felt as a 14 year old new immigrant to Israel back in the 1970s.
41:22
The acquisition of fluent, non accented Hebrew was critical for fitting in.
41:27
Looking back on my teenage years, speaking Hebrew as an Israeli was the doorway
41:32
to acceptance in that rough and tumble Israeli high school environment, and I was
41:37
so determined to speak as the natives do.
41:40
That within two years, people couldn't tell that I had arrived
41:42
in Israel only a short time before.
41:45
I had become more Israeli than the Israelis, if you know what I mean.
41:51
I identified with one of the central tensions in the book.
41:54
Itamar, the son of the old woman who left Israel to live in America.
41:59
The guilt of leaving your mother and your homeland.
42:01
The doubts.
42:02
The sense of lacking roots.
42:04
The uncertainty and insecurity.
42:06
are universal aspects of immigration and of the Jewish experience itself.
42:12
But there was also something uniquely Israeli about Itamar's dilemma.
42:17
Leahy describes it gorgeously.
42:20
Is something really wrong with mom?
42:22
Or is it him?
42:24
With his feelings of guilt?
42:26
He, the deserter, the traitor, the coward, the sellout.
42:32
Leahy describes how new generations use different words than their parents.
42:36
They call it, Relocating, fulfilling themselves, maximizing
42:40
abilities, the global generation.
42:42
But it's really the same thing in Itamar's eyes.
42:46
The abandonment of Israel in the Zionist project.
42:50
I loved the Israeliness of the novel.
42:53
How despite the magnetic attractions of America and the West, still, tiny
42:57
Israel gives enormous meaning to life.
42:59
As Leahy writes, Israeli brotherhood exists.
43:04
The friends you don't have anywhere else.
43:06
The holidays.
43:07
The centrality of family.
43:09
The sea.
43:10
The language.
43:11
Even in America, Leahy writes, the Israelis stick together because
43:15
no one can understand them the way they understand one another.
43:18
This is so poignantly true.
43:20
I have interacted with thousands of Israelis in the United States.
43:24
Broadly speaking, they are as Leahy describes them.
43:29
But even if novels are not your thing, Even if you will never
43:32
read on your own, still, buy this book, buy it for somebody else.
43:39
It is infuriating to me that the literary world has turned against Israel and
43:43
Jews, Jews, the people of the book.
43:46
What misguided and cowardly attitudes are driving these boycotts?
43:51
They remind us of much darker times.
43:54
How arrogant of writers, no less, to lead boycotts against
43:59
Jewish views and Jewish opinions.
44:02
As in so many other cases of bias against Jews, in the end, they
44:07
harm themselves more than us.
44:10
The boycotters, who see themselves as educated, enlightened, advanced,
44:15
sophisticated, moral, and progressive, they don't even realize that they
44:20
are revisiting in 21st century form the very cancellation of Jews their
44:24
grandparents practiced, and that led to collective destruction not only
44:28
of Jews, But of everything that free thinkers hold dear, their hatred of Jews
44:34
causes them to abandon their own values.
44:37
In the case of books, free expression, the competition of ideas, honest debate,
44:43
exposure to a variety of backgrounds and perspectives that writers of all people
44:49
are supposed to represent and defend.
44:53
It 7th.
44:57
International human rights groups that betray their own principles when it
45:00
comes to human rights for Israelis, Feminist groups that betray their own
45:04
principles when it comes to Israeli women.
45:07
Professors and academics who betray their own principles when
45:10
it comes to Israelis and Jews.
45:13
I believe we will overcome this scourge.
45:16
I am hopeful that the war will end in the coming months.
45:19
And we can begin to heal.
45:21
To rebuild trust and confidence in ourselves and our partners.
45:26
that have been so damaged in the past year.
45:30
But in the meantime, we need to fight back.
45:33
We need to contend with this surging Jew hatred.
45:37
Because the one thing that history has proven beyond a doubt is that
45:41
if anti Semitism is allowed to fester unchallenged, it gets worse.
45:47
The only way to heal the malignancy is to excise it.
45:51
before it destroys the body politic.
45:59
Until next time, this is In These Times.