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Mom in a Time of War · Mom Wars

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: From the front lines of the Mom Wars. Here's Bethany
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Mandel and Kara Kennedy.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another week of your favorite podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: I am your only host. It's just me. I'm very sorry.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: My name is Bethany Mandel. I am a homeschooling mom
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: of six. I live in the DC area, and I
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: am a frequent writer for The Washington Examiner and The
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: New York Post and a somewhat infrequent writer at Fox News.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I am joined by my good friend thehav Harkov, who
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I think I've known for like, I don't know, fifteen
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: years or so now, maybe.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Right something like that. We've met on Twitter first.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, she's a senior political correspondent for Jewish Insider and
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: somehow still writing and doing all the things despite the
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: fact that she lives in Israel and is single momming
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: three children right now. And so I wanted to have
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: a conversation with the have today about what it's like
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: to be a mom in Israel now and what this
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: struggle looks like because I am in awe of all
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: of my Israeli mom friends and wanted to sort of
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: give my audience a taste of what it's like parenting
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: through war, which is this is what your third fourth
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: time doing this?
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it depends how you define war.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: But the fact that I even have to think about it, well,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: is that a war or is that just you know,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: a few days is not great. It's you know, it's challenging.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So first of all, why are you single momming it?
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Okay? So my husband he did, you know, the mandatory
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: IDF service when he was eighteen years old, and he
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: was a combat soldier, and he did reserve duty every year,
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: but usually it was two three weeks out of the year,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: and we knew in advance and whatever. But then when
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: there's a war, he gets called up. And so on
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Saturday when this war with Iron started. Hell, we don't
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: normally check our phones on a Saturday because we're Orthodox,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: but you know, when the sirens are going off outside,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: you look to figure out what exactly is going on.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: So he got called up, and so he's been on
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: reserve duty since Saturday. You know, schools across the country
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: were closed down, most non essential businesses closed and I've
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: been home with our three kids, and I'm very pregnant
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: with number four. So it's been a new challenge. It's
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: been a different challenge than what it had been in
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: the last two and a half year. Is what my
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: husband did more than three hundred days of reserve duty,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: and when October seventh halfened, my youngest was nine months old.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: But being pregnant on top of all the other challenges
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: of the situation has just made it that much more exhausting.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Let's say, yeah, do you know what he's doing in
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: reserves and what he's done. I don't know how much
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: of it you can share, but I think that would
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: be an interesting window as well.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's mostly sent to what we would call ju
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Dayan Samaria, but what's more commonly known as the West Bank,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: and it's usually a combination of guard duty and making
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: arrests of like terrorism suspects. This time he's lucky because
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: he's actually on a base that's in sovereign Israel, just
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: by the border with the listening and then they go
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: in when they need to do something. Whenever my husband's like, oh,
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: I have a night shift, Like there's a pretty good
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: chance he's going into some Palestinian village tonight to arrest
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: a terrorist. Like that's sometimes he really is just guard
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: duty on a night shift. But a lot of times,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: like the next day, he'll be like, oh yeah, we
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: did this and this, and I'm like, oh shit, but
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I'm alling it now.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: After what So what is his day job? Like this
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: guy who's like going into Palestinian towns through arrestourrism, what
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: is what does he actually do on a day to
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: day basis?
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: So he works, he's what's called a customer success manager
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: for a tech company. Like his job is it's sort
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: of like the retention basically.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this this customer success technician also arrests terrorists
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: in the West Bank.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, It's it's a crazy life here, it is,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: or el. But we're all very proud of him.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: That are you, like, how scared are you? Or is
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: this like kind of a safer assignment.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: You know, relatively, Like he could be in Gaza, he
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: could be in Syria or in Lebanon, like some of
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: my friend's husbands, like I think, are doing much scarier
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: things than he is. And while it's definitely a risk
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: and risks to his life, I mean even when he's
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: just doing guard duty. Like idea of soldiers who are
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: doing guard duty have been stabbed, have been shot at,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: have been run over intentionally by bypassing in terrorists. So
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: there's always a risk, but I try not to focus
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: on that too much. And like I'm glad that he's,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: you know, in one of the safer places. And also
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: just that like we can talk multiple times a day,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: we can text a lot, Like he's like he's like
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: putting the politics aside, Like basically he's an Israel in
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: the sense that like he's an hour away from home.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: He's in a place where like if he gets an
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: hour off, he can go drive to the supermarket or
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: to restaurant and buy food if he wants, you know,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: he's like in a relatively comfortable and safe position.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: What about so your friends in the neighborhood, is this
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: an across the board experience, Like how how common is
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: it for families to have dad away in Gaza or
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: in Lebanon?
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: So at the beginning of the big war, like after
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: October seventh, it was super common. Now I think a
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: lot of it depends sort of when your last round
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: of reserve duty was. So, like my husband had come
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: out in all guests and hadn't been called up against
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: since then, so he was sort of, or his whole
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: group was sort of top of the list to be
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: called up because it had been a while, whereas we
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: had other friends who had been called up in more
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: recent months and were not called up this week. But
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: I am on what we called the Hebrew word is
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: has said, which is like the kindness like the volunteering
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: committee or whatever of the parents of the school. So
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: I always have a pretty good idea of like how
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: many people in the school are on reserve duty, because
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: we check up on them and see the families to
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: see how we can help them. So it's before the
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Iran part of this war started, it was about ten
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: percent of the families in the school.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And now what is it?
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: I actually don't have the exact number because things are
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: so sort of new and fresh and there hasn't been
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: school either, but I imagine it's a lot higher.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Wow, how does the school message this situation? Like how
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: does this come up in the classroom for teachers? And
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: how are they navigating it in the classroom?
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: So they try to they want to know, like which
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: families you know are experiencing this, and they'll like maybe
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: a few times a year like call all the kids
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: together and be like you're also heroes, you're also brave,
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: Like they'll give them like a certificate and a little prize.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: My oldest is in third grade, so you know, and
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: like sweet sweet things like that, you know. I try
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: to make sure that the teachers are aware because it
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: can be like a stressful experience for the kids. My
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: kids have been really mostly been really good about taking
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: it in stride, but like you never know when it's
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: going to come out because they miss their dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Have they had classmates who have lost their dads serving
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: in the last two and a half years.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: No, Our community has been very lucky in that respect.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: I know people who have lost like uncles and cousins.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: And the city that I live in, it has one
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: of the highest rates in the country of people enlisting
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: in the IDEA, and so there's been a lot of
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: casualties in the Gods of War just in the city.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: So there's people have seen like sign My kids have
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: seen like signs up and sort of funeral processions and
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: things like that, but not even close to them.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: So your oldest is in third grade, so she's she's
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: my ultimi. She's the same age as him. I remember
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: we were pregnant at the same time. So she's almost nine, right,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: she is nine already, Oh, she's not already. This war
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: started when she was seven. What does she remember life
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: before October seventh?
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, but she's like that, like she's very sharp like that,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: like she would remember, you know, like she remembers COVID.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: So some of it, some of it. So it doesn't
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: surprise me. But you know, I think that the kids
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: have lived in a sort of non war reality for
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: almost six months now. Yeah, I guess it technically gets
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: closer to five four months, but they haven't felt it
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: in a really long time.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and how much? I mean, I know the answers
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to these questions because we're friends, and I know the
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: geography of where you live. But and I saw you
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: pretty recently. Actually it was like what two months ago
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: less than that that I saw you. What was the
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: immediate experience of October seventh like for them? And then
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: what is this looking like?
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I think in both cases, like it was a Saturday
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: morning and we were getting ready to go to synagogue,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: so we were in like various stages of getting dressed
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: and are like nice to the God closed when when
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: we heard about something so this time, we actually heard
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: the sirens and we went into our safe room. Every
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: house in Israel built since the mid nineties has been
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: required to have a safe room built in, and so
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: we have one in our house. On October seventh, we
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: weren't hearing sirens, but a family member who doesn't keep Shabbat,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: who lives nearby, came and knocked on the door and
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: told us like there's a war on and on it
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: and we like sort of were like, okay, there's a
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: like you know what I mean, Like it's okay, there's
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: been other wars before. Like we didn't quite understand from
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: what she was telling us the like severity of the situation,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: and so we still like got dressed. I went to
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: synagogue and everybody in synagogue was like very it was
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: like very low key, and there were not a lot
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: of children, and we were sort of like, okay, I
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: guess we didn't quite get what's going on. And synagogue
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: wasn't disrupted by another siren, so they finished the prayers
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: very quickly in the bomb shelter and went home. And
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: that was how Chever seventh started for us. And then
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: my husband checked his phone, so I was called up
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: for reserve duty. We all had family lunch together like
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: every Shabbat, and then he left and that was it.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: We didn't see him per. We didn't see him at
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: all for three weeks, and he didn't come home for
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: any long period of time per a few months after that. Wow,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: By the way, in those first three weeks, our young
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: guests started walking, so I had to video that. He
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: sent that to him. He missed that. Yeah, this time,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: it was like all Saturday, it was just like on
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: and off sirens. So like we knew when the first
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: siren went off, I looked at my phone and I
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: knew it was the Iran thing. I mean, we were
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: kind of expecting it, right like for weeks now we
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: were like when is this going to happen? Whereas like
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: sober seven came as a total surprise. But also with
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: the sirens just constantly going off, it was like my
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: husband couldn't like get out of the house, Like he
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: had to get his bag from storage and changed into
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: his uniform and try to bring some extra food and
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: stuff because things could be like sort of a logistical mess.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: In the first couple of days, and it took like
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: hours for him to just get out of the house,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: which was sort of fine because like, because things are
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: a logistical mess, they don't really expect people to show
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: up right away even though they tell you to. So
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: it was it was different in that way. But I
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: do think that it was like for the kids, like
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: it was just like war's war, you know, like they
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: were just like what's happening. They had a lot of questions.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: They wanted to know, does he really have to go again?
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So yeah, So when you hear a siren, it goes
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: on your phone, you have the home front alert. But
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: then do you also audibly hear sirens in the whole community.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you hear them coming from outside. I live on
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: the like very edge of my town, like one block
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: away from me is just like open fields, and so
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: sometimes we actually can in the distance hear a siren
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: from another town. Oh, like it's pretty far, like it's
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: at least I don't know, fifty bits in the car,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: but because it's just like open.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: You can hear it sound.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I always look at the phone to
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: be sure because like I don't have to run to
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the siren. We have a minute and a half where
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: we live, so a few times to look at your
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: phone to convince all the kids to be.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And then you go in, So do you have like
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: a little pea potty, like a porta potty into you
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: My three year.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Old husband, I feel like this is his first real
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: experience of war and my husband going on reserved because
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: he didn't quite get what was going on up until now,
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: or maybe he was just used to my husband being
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: gone half the time, and now this is the first
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: time where he's constantly asking me like where's Aba, which
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: is like where's Dad. And the one of the first
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: sirens on Saturday, he was like, I don't want to go.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: I don't want to go. I don't want to go.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: The safe room is his bedroom by the way, it's
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: my son's bedroom. And he didn't want to go in.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: And then he sometimes when he throws tantrums, he takes
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: all his pants and peas on the floor. That's like
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: his tantrum reaction. So we had that and then we
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: had to sit there with the pea on the floor,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and I was like, well, I am not actually well
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: equipped for this, Like I have bottles of water and
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: canned food and things like that, but like I need
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: to bring like extra like wipes and rags and things
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: on the floor.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: So now we have a bucket that's hysterical. It's his
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: it's your youngest kid's bedroom.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: My two boys share it.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: In my experience in Israel, it's usually like the smallest
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: room is that is that the case in your house?
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: It's actually slightly larger than my daughter's bedroom.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, so have they all been sleeping in there because
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: the sirens one happenings is like it's day and night.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Between the last time when we were like really experiencing
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: sirens and now my youngest was toilet trains, although as
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: I've said, we've not fully successfully and and so we
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: got rid of the crib and we gave him a
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: big boy bed. So the boys have a bunk bed
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: that's also a trundle bed, so all three kids can
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: sleep comfortably, and it's actually pretty big. So like I
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: can when if there's a siren in the middle of
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: the night, I can just like climb into the bottom bog.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: And last night I fell asleep and I was there
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: for like an hour, and then I woke up and
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: I was like, wait a minute, back.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Does the siren wake them up? Or did they sleep
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: through it?
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: If they're in the safe room. Then they sleep through it.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: I'm Ben Sass and I'm Chris Stirewalt. And this is
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: not dead yet. We're all dying, but some of us
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: have been brought face to face with that reality.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: However long each of us have to do it though.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: We all want to live a good life, one with meaning,
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: love and joy, and our guests are here to help
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: us do exactly that.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Now available for download and streaming at ricochet dot com.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Ricochet Ye, Join the conversation.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I've heard from a lot of friends that my friend
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Nina was joking around when I was when I saw her.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe I shouldn't say this, sorry, Yeah, but she joked
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: that so she lives in an apartment building Tel Aviv,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: and they have to go into the hallway of the
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: apartment building, and so she was joking that she hates
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: middle of the night sirens because she has to start
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: sleeping in a bra because she's just going to see
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: all of her neighbors in the middle of the night,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: and she has to grab the three kids, and she
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: doesn't have time to put a bran, and so she
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: was joking that the hardest part about war was sleeping
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: with a bron.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: For the like twenty twenty one Gaza war, which is
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: only eleven days long. And I think before that there
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: was like twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, there were these like
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: very short Gaza conflicts. And I was living in Tel
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Aviv for the twenty twenty one when I had two kids,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: and we also so as I said, like from the
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: nineties they started building apartments with safe rooms in the house.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: But our building in Tel Aviv was liken one hundred
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: year old building. It had nothing. It did have a basement, though,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: so we would just run down to the basement. But
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: I think for the Iran war, I wouldn't do that
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: because ballistic missiles are like not a joke and it's
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: not following the rules to go to the basement. Like
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: there's a public shelter across the street. For there was
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: a from that house, and I would have had to
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: go there.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, I have a number of friends who because
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: I have so many Israeli friends, I'm getting the whole
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: sort of spectrum of experiences. On my Instagram, I was
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: joking that when I lived in Cambodia, there's different words
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: for rice in Cambodia because it's such an important thing.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: There's like unharvested rice, uncooked rice, post cook, Like, there's
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: a different word in Khmer for all of those things.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: And that's the same thing for bomb shelter in Israel.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: There's so many different words. True, yes, so there's like.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: A lot of them. Are our abbreviations. Oh, they're like
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: safe space in your home, safe space in the community, whatever,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: things like that. That's what I just start with men
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: men so like mamad ma moch, like those are reviations
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: and the first two sounds stand for safe space.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Got it. I didn't know that. Yeah, I was in Israel.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Gosh when was it. It was during the Lebanon War
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: when I was in college and I was in Jerusalem
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: and I was at Hebrew University, and they I was
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: only nineteen or twenty. I guess we're the same, are we.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I think I'm a little older than you, right, I'm
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was at Hebrew University in Jerusalem during
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the Lebanon War and I was so frustrated because they
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: wouldn't tell us where to go in case of a missile.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: They like didn't they They said, They're like, well, we
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: don't want to, it's not necessary. We don't want to
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: scare you them, Like.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: You know, they weren't they weren't going that far back then,
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: but eventually they did get that far.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And so I was so frustrated that I
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: actually left a semester, like not a semester early, but
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: because the summer was broken into two parts and I
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: left after the first part, not because I felt unsafe,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: but because I was so angry at Hebrew you for
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: not just saying like this is where you go, Like
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: that's the all I want is just that information, and they,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: I felt like, infantilized us and would not tell us
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: where to go in an event of it, And I'm
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: just crazy. I didn't I didn't feel comfortable. I was like,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: this is not this is not how adults talk to
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: each other. I wonder now, thinking back as an adult,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: like it probably was really obvious, like there's shelters all
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: over the place, but maybe not back then, Like how
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: much of this is like more of a recent thing
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: where there's shelters everywhere versus back then.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: In places like Teliviv and Jerusalem, the shelters are usually
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: really old because they're public bomb shelters that were there
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: before they started building, you know, these safe rooms like
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: with reinforced walls and whatever in people's homes. So like,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: because we lived at a hundred year old apartment building
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: in Tel Aviv, like we like. One thing that was
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: great about livington tel Aviv during wartime is that all
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: the public parks had bomb shelters in them, so I
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: could go to the playground with my kids and feel
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: like it was safe even if there's a siry, because
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: we would just run down to the public bomb shelter.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: And now that I live in a city that was
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: only planned in the nineteen nineties and so everybody has
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: a shelter in their house, there's not a lot of
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: public shelters, and my kids have basically just been cooped
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: up now for four days. It's really frustrating for them.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet when I was in so I went.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I've talked about it, I think, not too much on
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: the show. Actually I was in Israel for like five
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: weeks over the winter, and we spent a day down south,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: like right next to the Gaza border. And one of
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: the things that I wanted my kids to do is
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: go to this fortified playground where they built entire structures
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: in as the playground that are also bomb shelters, And
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I thought that that was such an interesting way that
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Israelis have figured out how to give kids a normal,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: a normalcy while also keeping them safe.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean in those places, it's really hard because
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: they're right next to Gaza, and so I mean with
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: the Iran words different, but when it was Gaza that
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: was shooting rockets and missiles into Israel, those kids would
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: have you know, like ten seconds before impact. So it's
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: a really really hard Yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: One of the most striking things that I learned about
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: those communities is the significantly higher rates of miscarriage because
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: of that stress.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Stress.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was something that I don't think a
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: lot of non Israelis and like non Orthodox Jews who
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: were kind of plugged into what Israel life is like
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: in the in the years prior to October seventh, living
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: with missiles was a daily experience for people in those
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: in those communities right near the border, and this was
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: how they had to adjust, which is just wild to
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: me that this is your normal day to day.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it would it would like come and
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: go in waves, right like there would be good times,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: that would be bad times, but it's like you never know.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about perms. So you guys were don't
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: tell me star Wars.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, we had a Star Wars theme costume and
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: I was supposed to it. Do you I feel like
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: you like have not seen Star Wars? Right, You're like
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: one of those people who don't know it at all?
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: Right, I haven't.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I tried once. I tried once and then I fell asleep,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: and then I was biased ever since.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Okay. So there's the old Star Wars from the seventies
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: and eighties, and then there's the Stars from when we
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: were kids, and then there's the ones that came out
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: like ten years ago. So the ones when we were
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: kids are prequels to the seventies and eighties. And I
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: was gonna play this character who was the mom of
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: the main characters from the seventies and eighties movies and
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: she dies in childbirth, so not great, but like that's
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: the pregnant character in Star Wars, okay. And then my
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: hatsland was going to be Darth Vader. You know who
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: that is, right, Yes, I do know. Yes, So my
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: costume was like she's like a princess. So it's like
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: a very elaborate you has like a gown and her
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: hair as crazy and their makeup and whatever. And then
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: I was just like, I cannot have an elaborate costume
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: this part. And my husband wasn't home, so I took
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: his mask and his t shirt basically his sweatshirt, and
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: I was like, this is my costume.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Now I love it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: So yes, there was that, but the kids, I tried
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: to make it as normal as possible for them. So like,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: you're not allowed to have large gatherings right now because
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: like our school has like you know, the safe room
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: and whatever, but it can't fit the entire congregation inside.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: It's actually the kitchen. You can probably fit a dozen
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: people in the kitchen, you know. So they are synagogue.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: That's so shoal is. They like planned like to do
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: the reading of the mcguilla of the Book of Esther
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: in people's houses. So we went to somebody who was
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: like on our block to hear it, which is like
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: an important part of the holiday. And then in the morning,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: as you were, you like deliver packages of food. Usually
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: it's like candy and cookies and stuff like that. Sometimes
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: alcohol to your friends. So we tried to like keep
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: it to like our block, you know, So we were
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: like walking up and down the block, and we ended
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: up having to go into a neighbor's bomb shelter. Like
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: luckily it was like friends and they had like kids
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: who are my kids age, and they were all just
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: like hanging out, bouncing off the walls and eating the
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: candy we had just brought them.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: You know, how long do you have to stay when
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: there's a siren? Like, how much did of how much
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: time did you have to stay in the safe room?
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: I think it was like fifteen to twenty minutes this time. Normally,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: like throughout the war, it was usually ten minutes. But
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: with Iran because they send these like barrages of ballistic
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: missiles and sometimes we'll send missiles and drones at the
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: same time, the instruction is to stay in the bomb
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: shelter until you're told you can come out, which you
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: get that message on the same app. So it's been
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: like there have been times where we had stay for
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: much longer, like half an hour things like that. Yeah,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: So because it's my son's bedroom, like we have a
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: lot of books, we have a lot of toys there,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: so we're set up really well, but not everybody's you know,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: safe room is like that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I think she said it on her Instagram.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: But our friend Melissa who's executive editor of Jewish Insider,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: who I've known for like twenty five years probably no,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: maybe twenty years, she said that over Tel Aviv today
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: it was a cluster bomb, so that when it's detonated,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: it releases so much shrapnel and so much that it
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: like rains down.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Is that normal, No, but it's the second time run
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: has done it in four days. There was this town
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: that Chamish, that was.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: It that it happened.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: It was hit really hard, like if you look at it,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: it's like half a neighborhood was taken out.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And it was one of those Oh I didn't realize
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: that's how they did it because i've it was like
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: a dozen people who diedsh right, including children.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure children died it. Children were injured, but.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no children died that I remember.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in bait Chemish. The circumstances of that were actually
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: pretty scary in my opinion, because while the iron dome,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: which is what shoots down the rockets, it's the air
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: defense system. It's not hermetic, it's extremely accurate. But what
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: was scary to me about what happened was that whatever
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: landed hit a shelter and the shelter collapsed. Is that
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: like an engineering problem or is that just like there's
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: no engineering for this?
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: And no. So that's what we learned in the last
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Iran war, right the last summer, which is that if
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: it's a direct hit on your shelter as opposed to
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: on your building, then your shelter could collapse. People people
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: died in their shelter in the last war. I think
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: it was just two people.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: But yeah, do you so this is the mom wars?
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Do your kids know that?
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: No? And they've asked that question, and I've sort of
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: been like, why are you focusing on the worst case scenario, Like,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: let's not talk about this.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Why are we focusing on the fact that we could
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: write shit?
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Question?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I too would translate my children, right, But.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: Because we're asking a lot of questions, So I did
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: explain to them like, yeah, you know, like there have
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: been times where like the missile hits the building and
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: the building collapses, but then we have all you know,
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: the safe rooms are all built sort of one on
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: top of the other, so like you know that like
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: tower of safe rooms has remained and then people could
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: get out. And so then my son's like, wait, so
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: when we open the doors are going to be like
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: a cliff, like just air below us. I was like,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: number one, let's hope it doesn't happen. Number two, it depends, Like.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know, right how how scared are they when
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: a Simon goes off or is this just kind of
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: like well, here we go.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: It's a little more of the second, like they realize
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: there's a sense of urgency. But on the other hand,
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: like sometimes they'll see me like go grab their water
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: bottles or like go grab a snack for them, so
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: they I think that makes them less scared because I'm
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: not acting scared right, Like we have ninety seconds, Like
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't be going like all around the house like
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: doing I don't know, folding laundry or whatever. But like
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I do know I have the time to tell them
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: to pee and like for myself to grab things I
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: think they'll need.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: When I was there with my kids, I mean, I
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: think I think that they got a nott. And this
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: is why part of why we wanted to come, like
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: they got a not accurate image of Israel. They didn't
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: want to come. Yeah, they heard so much war stuff
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: and they had no prior experience of Israel. And we
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: didn't talk about it much before the war except for
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: you know, like you know, Jerusalem is here, like these
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: things are important. But it wasn't like a day.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: To day I went to the same camp that your
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: all of this daughter went to, and we used to
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: always joked that they would whisper subliminal messages of the
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: loud speakers telling people to move to Israel.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: So correct, Yeah, you're right. She came home, so had she.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: So this was two years ago, So I I think
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: only she went to camp and it was only two weeks.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I think that it was just her. But I remember
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: she came home from camp saying they want us to
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: move to Israel. But we just renovated our.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Kitchen, and I'm like, it's so cute.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I too, don't want to leave this kitchen. We just
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: spent a lot of money on it. That's accurate.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: By the way, I'm supposed to renovate, and they add
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: a bedroom to my house before this baby is born.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: And now I'm like, it's not going to happen, like
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: she's gonna be sleeping in my room.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: My kids had not an accurate and not a positive
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: view of Israel, and that was a lot of way
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: we wanted to go for the amount of time that
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: we did, and we were very lucky that we went
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: during a period of total calm. But they were scared
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: of they were scared of sirens, and so we had one.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I told you this. When we
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: were in the airport in Tel Aviv. My younger daughter
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: left her bag at the airport when we landed, and
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I had to return multiple times to convince the people
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: there to like, look for the bat. I'm like, I
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: see the air tech, I know exactly where it is.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: It's right there. Can you go get in that room
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: and then I'll page it? And so I had to
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: go back. So I there were four attempts to get
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: this bag. Melissa, aforementioned friend, was one of those attempts,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: and then I went, another person went, and then I
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: went twice. On my second trip was when I finally
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: convinced someone to go in the right room and search
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: for it. And when we were there waiting, there was
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: a siren. I don't know how that happens, by the way,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: like did someone like elbow something.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: I don't even to remember there being okay there.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: It was just in the airport. The siren went off
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: in the airport and in an area.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: I wonder if there was like something else going on,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: but yeah, I don't know.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: But in an airport you don't understand anything when it's
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: your own language, let alone when it's in Hebrew, which
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: my Hebrew is not great, which I learned. I thought
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: it was better than it was. And so they they
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: the siren. I grabbed, I grabbed like my younger two
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: kids under each arm, and I was looking around for
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: where to go. Oh, and then the sirens stopped, and
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: there was an announcement in tell In and you couldn't
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: tell what they were saying. And I looked at everyone
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: around me, like, so are we good? Like what did
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: that say? And they're like, yeah, it was a mistake whatever.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: But my kids were spooked.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Hi, this is a young Culter.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Welcome to my Ricochet podcast and Coulter.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Every week on Ricochet, You're home to center right conversation.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Hey, that was pretty good.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I want to rewind because I don't feel like it
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: we talked enough about like kids' reactions to all of this,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: but that was one of the only times that someone
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: was a jerk to me about my children in Israel.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I tweeted before we recorded, asking people like for questions
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: for you, and we got a question from Terry Ann
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: who asked, why do you think that Israel is like
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the only place where in the developed world where the
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: birthright is not declining? And I want to I want
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: to hear your thoughts about that.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: I think that the answers a lot of people find
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: them unsatisfying, but I think like a lot of it
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: just has to do with like the ethos of Israel.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Like there's a lot of things, Like some people say, oh,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: it's because there's like so many Orthodox Jews and orthox
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: Jews have more kids, But even the birth rate of
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: secular Israelis, or like just non Orthodox Jewish Israelis is
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: higher than like all of Europe basically, so it's not
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: just the Orthodox Jewish thing, but of course that plays
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: a role in bringing up the average. I think there's
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: like a definitely a sense of a national and sort
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: of communal responsibility in Israel, say like after the Holocaust,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: like we all feel very committed to the continuity of
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: the Jewish people. And also you have a very strong
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: like our politics in Israel can be as ugly as
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: the politics in the US. But then when you have
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: something like like now, like this war with Iran, like
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: the country and or October seventh, like people really come together,
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: you know, and it's really still like to complain and whatever.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: And it's not perfect, but I think that people feel
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: a very strong sense of community with one another and
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: less of the like you know, quote unquote bullying alone
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: that many Branans feel, and the loneliness epidemic and this,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: and that that's not how people are in Israel. I mean,
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say, like kids have screens and you
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: have all these other issues, but like it's just like
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: a really strong sense of this like camaraderie. Families are
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: close knit, grandparents are often you know, able to help
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: and live close enough to help. Because people are having
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: kids younger than in most of the Western world, so
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: the grandparents are also younger. And Israel is small and compact,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: so they live closer in most cases. So it's just
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: like a combination of a lot of different factors.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I make the video available for subscriber store substack. By
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: the way, I'm not perfect at it, so don't hold
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: me to it. But I'm I'm gonna put this one up.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: I think I figured out how to do it, do.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: A co post whatever. Oh okay, because I have subseect too.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I mean it's very active, but yeah, there you go.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: So but for folks who can't see you, you're not
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: like ultra orthodox, I would say, I don't even know
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: how you would qualify yourself, but I think there were Orthodox. Yeah,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: but like you wear pants, you don't cover your hair,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: like you're not but you're pregnant with your fourth.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Four is like very normal, and I would say if
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: you have less than three, then that's like very few.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: And I think, like not in a judgmental way at all,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: but people like assume that there's some sort of like
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: medical reason or.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Something, Whereas here with my six, people think that I'm
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: like mentally unstable. Right, even in the Jewish community, Like
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: there's one family with eight, one family that had nine,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: but then they moved to Israel. We lost them, But
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: I don't there's not many here that have six. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: I live in an Orthodox community.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean when I talk to friends who are
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: not Orthodox, right, Like I said, like I'm pretty modern,
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: like I when I walk on the street in normal day,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: people don't know like if a Orthodox or not. So
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: when I talk to friends who are like not Orthodox,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: a lot of them are like, well four, but like
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: three is not rare even if you're not Orthodox, and
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: two is like it's it's rare to be an only
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: child in this that's what's really rare.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: That's wild because most it's interesting because I so I'm
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: an only child. It's a lot of why I had
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: six children. Yeah, but most of my kids friends have
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: been only children, which has been an interesting experience because
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: especially when they were little, the friend would like beat
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: up on my kid, and the parents would be super apologetic,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: and I would be like, it's fine, Like what do
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: you think my kids brutalize each other? And I would
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: say to the other parent, you know, I have a
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: very like lase fair like if the kids are brutalizing
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: each other, there's some natural consequences. So if kid A
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: punches Kid B, kid B is going to punch back,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: and that's a natural consequence that I'm okay happening. But
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: it's different when it's not siblings, and so you don't
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: want your kids to like get into a brawl with
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: their friends. But I thought kind of good for the
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: only children to get there this not beat out of
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: them a little bit if they if they were the instigator.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's also like parenting it. It was hard
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: to understand before this happened to me, but like people
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: with a bunch of kids would always say to me, like,
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: when you have more kids, it's easier. And I see
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: it even with my third kid that I'm like a lot, like,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm like laughing about him beeing on the floor,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: and like if it was my first kid, I'd be like,
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: oh my god, what is wrong, you know, And I'm
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: just like he'll grow out of it.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Right. I was at a family bar mitzvah over the weekend,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: and no one in my family has more than two children,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: and so like the level of like not caring gets
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: like pretty high once you hit six. And so I
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: brought my older two children to the bar mitzvah with me,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: and it was like the last day of like five
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: days of travel, and I let my kids. I brought
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: my older two kids with me and I let them
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: pack for themselves. And my older son did not pack enough,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and so I was talking to my cousin at the
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: barmetsvah and I was like, can you just like toss
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: a T shirt his way so he has something to
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: wear tomorrow because we are out of clothes and my family,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: some of my family were horrified, and I was like,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I don't think you understand how low my standards are anymore,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Like we're dirty clothes is like very low on my
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: list of concerns.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: I will never forget. I have a cousin who's like
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: Israeli cousins who like they're old though they're a family
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: of four boys and the oldest is maybe like a
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: year younger than me, and they had they're like second cousins,
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: and they had like an aunts and uncle that lived
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: in New York. So as a barmezvah treat for the
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: first two boys because they're like they were two years apart,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: so like one was the year after as the other
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: was a year before. They the parents sent them off
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: to New York to like be with their family in Manhattan,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: and then they came to my family. We were in
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: New Jersey for Shabbat because the family in Manhattan wasn't religious,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: And it was there we realized that the boys had
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: packed for themselves and had not packed changes of socks
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: and were wearing the same socks. The entire trip was
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: like let us, let us do your laundry, like what
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: is going on?
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: So speaking of this is that was actually a perfect segue.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: So you were living in New Jersey, when did your
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: family because you do not sound like in Israeli. I
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: can't even do the fake accent. You sound like you're
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: from New Jersey.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: Right, And you've probably met my mom. She sounds like
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: she's from New York, except that she was born in
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Israel and my grandparents are super duper Israeli on that side,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: So she she was, you know, like an They emigrated
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: from Israel to New York when she was a child,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: and the home was like very Israeli, and so I
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: like grew up with like this knowledge that like I
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: am Israeli, like I was a dual citizen. I had
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: a second passport I was less than a year old
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: because my mom took me with her to Israel to
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: a cousin's wedding when I was less than a year
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: old and I needed to get an Israeli passport in
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: addition to my American one, and so and I would
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: spend a lot of summers in Israel at like with
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: my mom's side of the family and like holidays and
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: things like that. So when I was a teenager, I
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: went to the same camp your daughter goes to, which
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: was like super duper zionis love Israel, and I.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Also Settler in Training camp.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: Exactly, and I felt very at home in Israel because
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: I had been going at least once a year in
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: my whole life. So at a certain a port in
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: high school, I was just like, I'm going to go
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: to Israel after high school, like I'm not going to
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: do this whole grind, college applications whatever. My parents were
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: actually a little horrified at first, and I was like,
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: you taught me this, like I was raised to think
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: this is a good thing, and now you don't want
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: me to do it. But they they realized pretty quickly
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: that that's true. So I came to ist straight after
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: high school. I did what's called national service, which is
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: not military service. It's like civilian like like let's say
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: you were doing like America or something like that, except
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: I wasn't a teacher I was actually a tour guide
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: at government owned museums for two years and my parents,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: my family came very soon after. So they've been living
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: in Israel must as long as I have.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Did they come because of you?
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Like I would say yes and no, Like I think
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: they always had it in then. That's the thing. I mean,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: my dad probably didn't happen until he married my mom,
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: but like my mom, like they, my mom always spoke
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: of Israel as home. Certainly my grandparents did as well,
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: and so like, you know, I think they needed that
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: like little kick in the pants to be like, yeah,
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: do that thing that you said that you sort of
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: want to do.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: You know, So you've spent basically half your life in
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: America and half your life in Israel. Yeah, so how
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: does it compare.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: Look, I've never lived as an adult in America, but
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: I from the moment I came here, like Israel was
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: home for me. I really felt that this is where
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be. I felt that it really matched
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: up with my values as a Jewish person. You know,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: I think that there's almost no challenge in raising your
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: children Jewish here and hoping that they will, you know,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: continue to be Jewish and marry Jews and bring help
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: bring continuity to the Jewish people, And that's like a
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: very important value to me. So and I do think
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: especially after October seventh, and you just see the rise
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: of anti Semitism everywhere, And I really wish for Jews
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: to be able to live proudly and safely everywhere in
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: the world. But history tells us that that's not the case.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: And so you know, I think the future is here
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: where we can have our own sovereignty and our own place,
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: our own safe haven.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: How do you feel, I mean, you've never you've never
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: raised kids here, but I like, I mean, you follow
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: all of us on Instagram, like you see, like you
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: have windows into our lives. What do you think is
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: easier about raising kids in America versus what do you
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: think is harder about raising kids in America?
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Look, you you have a lot on your plate, So
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: I don't know if they'd be compared to you, and
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: maybe other friends who don't homeschool would be closer to
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: the means, so to speak. Jewish school in America is
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: super expensive, so I'm glad that I don't have that expense.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Just to explain for our listeners, like what's super expensive.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Is there's a reason I home school that our local
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: school here would be anywhere from twenty five to thirty
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: five thousand dollars per child per year. And Catholic schools
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: here you get like buy three, get the fourth free.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: That's not the case. You'll get better financial aid. But
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: if I were sending my kids to school, I've done
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: the math because I thought about it. Two hundred thousand
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: dollars is out the door, and right now I'm working
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: from home and also homeschooling, so I'm netting money. I
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: would have to make two hundred thousand dollars and every
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: cent of that would go out the door for school here.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And like, like different people grow up in
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: different communities, But I grew up in a community where
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: in the nineties, right where almost none of the moms worked,
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Like it was unusual that my mom works full time,
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: and almost everybody, even with the mom's not working, had
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: like living out like nanny and cleaners and things like that.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: So we had a nanny, and I and Israel like nobody,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: like you have to be like a super millionaire to
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: have a nanny like that like doesn't exist here. So
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: I guess that gives you more quality time with the kids.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Like to me, it's like I wouldn't want another person
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: living in my house. It would be weird. But also
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: like I'm really glad that the expectation here in this
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: society is like, yeah, you will take a couple of
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: days of the week where you're gonna leave early and
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: you're going to pick up your kids. You know, like
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: there's that like level of flexibility and a lot of
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: the jobs here that's like not even questioned, and I
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: will say, thank God, like I have an American employer now,
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: and there's still that level of sensitivity, which is wonder
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: fall but rare among the Americans, I think. And you know,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: there's the whole talk. I see this a lot in
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: like American websites, mom discourse and things like that about
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: like it takes a village, you need to build your
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: village and whatever. But here, you know, like I said before,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: people tend to live really close to their families. They
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: tend to have siblings and their parents tend to be
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: able to help them. But also, and this is true
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: to a certain extent, I think of all Orthodox US communities,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: it's not just an Israel, but like people are really
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: looking out for each other and helping each other out,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: just in terms of like you have a baby, and
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: you'll have like twenty people sign up to bring you meals,
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: you know, or like I don't know, I go to
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: a meeting and I'm stuck in traffic and I'm maybe
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: late to pick my kids up, and like one of
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: the moms will just stick around and wait outside the
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: school with my kids until I get there, you know.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: And I can do that, and I can just put
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: it in the WhatsApp group of the class and somewhat
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: will do it, you know. So you have a village here,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: which is really nice.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have that here too, and I love it.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: One of my one of my like love language things
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: is I sign up for baby meals for strangers all
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: the time. So I'm making baby meals two three times
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: a month sometimes, and I think that that's really important.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: The discourse that I see of like I don't have
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: a community today, I'm like, well, what do you give?
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Like what are you putting into it? And if the
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: answer is nothing, and you expect a community but you
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: don't expect to participate, is why you don't have a community.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: It's why you don't have a village.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I also feel like so like again for
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Orthodox Jews, like a lot of times the community is
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: based around the synagogue. But like if you are not
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: particularly religious, you know, Jewish or not Jewish or whatever,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: like join the pta, like you know, like I find
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: like where I live, yes, there's a sitting on community,
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: but also the school community is really strong.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and like where I live, by the way,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: homeschooling is like not a thing among American Jews. Like
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: I am the anomaly. I'm like the point one percent
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: of people who homeschoolll.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: That's when you were saying to compare. I was like,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: I'm going to compare to other friends, yeah, because you're
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: like a different place.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, but like it's possible to have community
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: of homeschoolers too. You just kind of you have to build.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: If it doesn't exist, you have to insert yourself or
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you have to build, and you have to like be
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: a participant. And I think that that's something really nice
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: about Judaism is that there is an expectation slash like
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: pressure to participate in ways that like I don't want to,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Like when my husband has to go so to one thing,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: my oldest daughter is having like some feminist frustration with
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Orthodox Judaism, and so one of the things that a
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: noiser is that men only men are counted in the
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: quorum of ten, that you need to pray certain prayers.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: And I say to her, like, men would not show
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: up where they're not required in a way that like
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: women do show up, And so like, am I frustrated
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: that my husband has to go through like two blocks
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: away on Saturday at three pm to go pray with
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: ten other men because someone's in that family died and
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: they have to say a certain death prayer. It's annoying,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: but this is like, this is how you create community.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, by the way, at that age, I also had
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of those feminist frustrations too, which is why
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I ended up going to the high school I went to,
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: which is like relatively for Orthex, she's like very feminist.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: But the funny thing is that once I got to
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: that school and I was learning Talmud, which like a
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: lot of Orthotic schools don't like girls ready, or they
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: learned it off of photocopy pieces of paper as opposed
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: to the book itself, I realized that I was like
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: not that super interested like once it became an optional class,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: which I think was junior year, like you had to
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: take freshman sophomore year. I opted out. I was like,
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: I'm a bad feminist. Whatever.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she got a tape of reform Judaism because of
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: the barmus where we just went to and the leadership
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: of the whole synagogue, everyone was a woman. And I
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: said to her, I was like, this is this is
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: why they make it be men, because and don't show
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: up unless you force it, unless you absolutely twist their
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: arm behind their back.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: They're not going to show up.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: They're not going to do the They're not going to
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: do the work.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: I'm Ben Sass and I'm Chris Steierwaldt. And this is
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: not dead yet. We're all dying, but some of us
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: have been brought face to face with that reality.
• 49:40
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• 49:42
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• 49:46
  Speaker 4: love and joy, and our guests are here to help
• 49:48
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• 49:50
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• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Ricochet Join the Conversation.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: I think that that hit most of the questions that
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask, because when I'm on Hugh Hewitt Show,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: which I should tell him to have you on sometime.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: He always I've been on, but it's been a really
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: long time.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to tell him to have you on again,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: because he always asked me for like the mom perspective
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: of the war, because during the last war, everyone I
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: knew was delirious, especially the ones with kids, because it
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: was just constant sirens in and out of the shelter.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: From my sort of.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: Well, we haven't really talked about like what I do
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: for a living, right, but I have a reporter, and
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: like I have to. Basically what I've been doing for
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: JUSI and Sire since the RN warst start is I
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: write like this sort of daily update, like so that
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: you could have once a day a summary of all
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: the crazy things that happened in the last day. And
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: part of that, and this is part of why I'm
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: grateful for Jewish Insider, is that that's something that I
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: can actually handle while watching all of my kids, because
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: I'll like see a news headline and I'll like text
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: it to myself and then I'll sit for an hour
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: and I'll summarize everything, you know what I mean, which
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: normally when my kids aren't home, Like I'm out reporting,
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: I'm calling people. I'm trying to find in depth analysis,
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: you know. But why did I get on this? Oh?
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: The reason I got on this tangent? Right. So there's
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: a commentator who lives in Israel, and on the first
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: day of the war, I saw like a tweet he
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: was on like some sort of live stream, and he
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: was like, he was like, I know the fighter pilots
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: are more important than I am, but this work is
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: important too, and like, so I'm not going into the
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: shelter with my wife and children. I'm not afraid. And
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: I was so mad when I read that, and I
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: let it ste for like two days. I made a
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: joke to a couple of friends that maybe the reason
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: he's not going in the safe room is because his
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: head's too big to fit. But then I was just
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: like I tweeted, like like I'm in a situation that
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: keeps me humble. I ever think that I'm too important
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: because I have to like make my good sandwiches in
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: the morning and I have to clean pee off the floor,
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: you know, and like that's yeah, that's like life.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, is that I don't know. I never
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: hear of people, except when it was like dinky hootie
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: missiles that were at three o'clock in the morning. Sometimes
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of friends stopped going to the
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: bomb shelter the hootie. Yeah, but no.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: I think it's pretty abnormal. It's such a really bad example.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: So like anybody who's on Israeli TV, like you can't
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: do that on Israeli TV. But also like you have
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: war reporters who run towards danger. This guy is not.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: I mean he was once a reporter like fifteen years ago,
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: but like he's not a reporter, he's a commentator. Like
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, you're not running towards danger. You're sitting
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: in your living room while your wife and kids are
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: in the next room, Like what is that?
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: So that's horrible.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: My point was sort of like it made me mad,
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: and then I realized why it made me head, which
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: is that like actually, like real life is the people
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: sitting in the safe room. It's not you talking to
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: someone on a.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Computer, right, But also you can bring your computer into
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: the safe room presumably, right, Well.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: The internet's not so great. It's like you have one
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: bar whatever you're after the last ye run where I
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: bought like a mesh system, you know, for like extending
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: Wi Fi, and I put it right outside the safe
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: room so that I could have reliable internet. But it's
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: not very good quality. You probably can't do a live stream.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think you'll survive for like the fifteen
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: to forty five minutes. Yeah, you can write offline.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you who it is after.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Like, you can write offline,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: like you can write the post and then hit publish
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: when you walk out right.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: Well, also, so I had yesterday, there were like two
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: sirens between like eleven forty five. I'm in twelve thirty,
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: which is like for me, the it's my deadline because
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: we have a newsletter that comes out at seven am
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: in the US, so that's what I have to file.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: So there's time of the story to be edited and everything.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: And so I was like sitting on the floor next
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: to the door of the safe room so I could
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: get the best internet and like finishing my article on
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: my phone and like that's life. You got to do it. Like,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: you know, I brought board games in for my kids
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: to play with each other while I was working.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Next to the door right right, and we're recording right
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: now after your because they're asleep.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we've not had any sirens, so that's been
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: I know. I know years ago when Nellie Bowles was
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: converting to Judy Asm and she was like writing a
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: blog about it. So I hosted the Jerusalem House podcast
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: and I invited around to the podcast interview about it,
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: and it was interrupted by a siren and we kept
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: the audio in because it was such good audio, like
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: it's very dramatic when there's a siren.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: It also happened to you on Dan Seynor's podcast Call
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: Me Back Right, Yes, did.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: And the funny thing is he heard it before me,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: because I was just like, it wasn't the usual sound,
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: and I was like I'm getting a message or whatever,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: and so I ignored it and he's like, no, no, what
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: is that? And then I looked and it was I
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: know what it was. My phone was plugged in like elsewhere,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: and it was my Apple Watch. So I wasn't used
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: to that sound. And then I looked at my watch
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: and I was like, oh shit, I gotta go.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but we didn't. We didn't get a sirens. So
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: here we are and lucky, I think. I think we've
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: hit all the notes. Thank you so much. How can folks?
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: How can folks follow your writing? Because it's wonderful and
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: you're doing it while juggling a husband in reserves and
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: three children at home.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: So first of all, I always recommend people subscribe to
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: the Jewish Insider Daily Kickoff. It's our daily newsletter. It's
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: some people call it politico for Jews, but I would
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: say it's more politico about Jews. So I know a
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: lot of people are not Jewish who have an interesting
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: what Jews and Israelis are doing. So it's really worth reading.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: Before I worked for them, I read it every day
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: when I was still at the Jerusalem Post. And also
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: I'm on x at Laha Parkov and I have a
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: sub stack, which is not super active, but it's you
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: can read everything for free. Right.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: But you also just published an incredible piece actually that
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: we're not going to get into because we don't have time,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: but it was amazing about different security concerns that Jews
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: who live adjacent to the West Bank have. That was
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: fantastic and kind of aligns with what your husband's doing
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: right now. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, amazing. I'm gonna put that
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: in the show notes, thank you so much for taking
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: the time. This was an amazing conversation, and stay safe
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: and we send our love. And we didn't even talk
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: about how your oldest and my third are getting married
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: one day.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, but he has to compete because I have other
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: friends who say the same thing.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: But you know, one day, well he'll first step is
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: changing his underwear and then maybe he'll he'll become one.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: That's good.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, until next time, subscribe to our
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: the mom we're substack. And if you don't subscribe to
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: the podcast, and leave us a review, because sometimes people
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: are mean to me and it's not unjustified. Actually, the
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: criticism was really fair, but if you could leave more
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: five star reviews to offset that fair criticism, that would
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: be appreciated. Until next time, settle
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Up ricochet, join the conversation.