Noam: Hey everyone, welcome to Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam.
Mijal: I’m Mijal.
Noam: And I’m Noam and this podcast is our way of trying to figure out the Jewish world. We don’t have it all figured out. Actually, yeah we do. I do at least. Mijal, do you?
Mijal: I’m gonna let you own that today, Noam. You have it all figured out.
Noam: Okay, fine, fine, I don’t have it all figured out. I have like, like half of a percent of it figured out. But anyway, we’re gonna try to figure it out together, at least some big items together.
Mijal: And as always, we really love to hear from you, so please email us at wonderingjews@jewishunpacked.com or call us at 833-WON-JEWS.
Noam: We love hearing from you. We love it, love it, love it. And today, two weeks in a row, here we go. We have a third person to come wonder with us together.
Mijal: Not just a third person, I would say a friend. Can I call you that, Joe? that okay?
Joe: Absolutely.
Noam: Let’s say, Mijal, let’s say he said no to that. What happens?
Joe: Hehehehehe.
Mijal: I would find out what he thinks we are.
Joe: Just because I said it, just because I said it doesn’t mean I mean it.
Mijal: Yeah, so now that Noam established we’re all pretending. Well, Joe is my friend from where I’m sitting. But I’ll just say Joe, before I read your formal bio, that the words that I associate with you are wisdom and also like a certain amount of like pathos, like really being able to combine mind and heart in a very powerful way. And it’s such a privilege and pleasure to have you here. So I’ll read your formal bio now.
Rabbi Joe Schwartz is the director of Makom, the Israel Education Laboratory of the Jewish Agency, which seeks to strengthen the bonds between world Jewry and Israel through bold, deep, and engaging educational initiatives. Prior to joining Makom, Joe launched his own venture, IDRA, which aimed to bring Jews together through cultural learning and food. Before this, was a congregational rabbi. He wrote curricula and taught for diverse audiences. And before this, he was a litigator at a firm in New York City. Joe and his family live in Tel Aviv.
I’ll just add here that I knew you, Joe, before you moved to Tel Aviv, when you were in New York. So part of like what I know of you is like your story of not just working in the relationship between American Jews and Israel, but just exemplifying that move from America to Israel. where…
Joe: Mijal, if I, I’m honored that you call me your friend, you’re also kind of my therapist. mean, that whole process that I went through, you were a soul partner during all of that as we, you know, passed messages to each other under the wall.
Mijal: Well, I didn’t know that, so now I do know. We’re learning a whole bunch of new things.
Noam: So I’m gonna break into this love fest and I’m going to, Joe, we’re gonna have a serious conversation. That’s what we do at our dinner table together with me and Mijal. But we’d like to start with a listener question and I think it’s very timely. And the question is about the Olympics. If you had to compete in the Olympics, in anything, anything. It could be a sport, it could be chess. Is chess a sport? I don’t know. But it could be chess, it could be bowling, whatever, what would you choose?
Separately, just, my mind starts traveling here. What’s the deal with Israelis when they go to the Olympics and it’s like, I feel like they’re always competing in like windsurfing or like, it’s like, all of a sudden, like the Jewish people across the world are like the biggest windsurfing fans.
But anyway, but what would you choose, Joe
Joe: First, Thank you for having me on the podcast. It’s like leaping into a conversation that I want to get involved in anyway. So it’s a real pleasure to sit with you two.
I am definitely the least athletic person probably on this podcast. I was the guy chosen last in gym class who was scared of the horse that we had to leap over. Is being chosen last for, pick up kickball an event at the Olympics? I would be, I would kill at that.
Noam: My god. That’s amazing. Mijal, tell Joe all about your kickball prowess. Tell him.
Mijal: Noam, not happening here. I would probably be in the chosen last team. I think at the Olympics, I would love to be a judge.
Mijal: Is that like a sport? Can I be that? Can I just like judge everyone?
Noam: Of course. Hahaha!
Mijal: Thank you, Noam, you’d have like a food eating competition if they had. Is that better?
Noam: I think it’s a great call. I think it’s a great call. You know, I take that as a compliment. How many hot dogs can I eat in like 10 minutes? I don’t know, 8, 10? But anyway, would, tell what I would do?
Mijal: You will not win with that. That is a very low number. Like that’s not good enough.
Noam: It’s not a, I didn’t, the question’s not whether I would win. The question is what I’d compete in.
Mijal: You would not qualify with that.
Noam: That’s true also. But let me tell you the sport I’d want to play and I love that this became an Olympic sport. I think it became an Olympic sport. I would want to play through, you know, there’s now three on three basketball in the Olympics. Three on three. By the way, this, me, you, Mijal, the three of us would be an amazing three on three.
Joe: An amazing team, an amazing team. That’s right. Let’s just appreciate for a moment that out of this crooked timber of Judaism was born a nation that does in fact compete at the Olympics. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Even if it’s windsurfing.
Noam: But it’s happened. it’s, is, it is possible. And you know what? I think it’s part of the Zionist dream that we could speak about the muscular Zionism of from back in the day that they were talking about, like looking at this as, maybe not every Jewish person has to be picked last in the sports competitions moving forward. But Joe, let’s dive in. Let’s get into this. It is awesome to have you with me and Mijal at our dinner table.
Joe: Yeah.
Noam: And like Mijal said, your name was one of the first, and it always comes up of people that we want to talk to about big Jewish ideas. So give us a minute on what it’s like to work at Makom and how does working at Makom inform how you think about the relationship between Israel and world Jewry.
Joe: So Makom was born in the Jewish Agency about 20 years ago. Johnny Ariel, great, well-respected educator founded it in the recognition that something about Israel education wasn’t working. The kind of old Zionist narrative wasn’t having the traction it did, at least in the Anglosphere, which is what he was concerned about where most diaspora Jews live. And we tried to, they tried in those early days to devise a more complex way of teaching about Jewish peoplehood, the connection between Israel and global Jewry.
And by the time I was brought on, which was in 2021, it was really clear that liberal Jewry and Israel were in couples therapy, thinking about quitting couples therapy, thinking that wasn’t actually working for them. And so I was given the very, the kind of somewhat straightforward task to just make that work. Somehow work on this relationship between, you know, English speaking Jewry and Israel.
And I don’t know that I can solve those problems at all. It’s in those three years that I’ve been there, it’s been an explosive time. And I think the whole dynamic between American Jewry, world Jewry, especially Anglo Jewry, American and British and Canadian Jewry and Israel has shifted considerably.
I think October 7th represents a real watershed moment in the nature of that relationship. And I also think some of the factors that were contributing to what was called the distancing phenomenon have come to light. And we see it more clearly now than we did back then.
Mijal: Joe, what do you mean by that? From where you’re sitting, what has changed?
Joe: Well, there’s a perceived phenomenon, there are those that dispute that it’s real, but I think most of us think it’s real, is that American Jews who are overwhelmingly liberal or progressive feel less and less at home in a Zionist discourse, less and less comfortable with a relationship with Israel or have more and more provisos or hesitations about their support for Israel. And I think there’s sort of a left-wing approach to it or a left-leaning approach and a right-leaning approach. The left analysis has been, the problem is that Israel drifts increasingly rightword. And if you’re further left, it’s not just that, it’s that the whole conception of Israel, whole Zionist idea is kind of hopelessly irreconcilable with liberal values. That’s one view.
The right leaning view is this is a problem of American Jewish identity, which is getting thinner and weaker. And kind of naturally as a consequence of that, the connection to Israel will be thinner and weaker. And so the kind of left-leaning approach says, let’s sort of address ethical or value challenges between these two communities head on. And the right-leaning approach is no, let’s have stronger interventions at young age and in American Jewish life to strengthen Jewish identity. And along with that will come a stronger attachment to Israel.
I think that’s where things stood before October 7th. I think after October 7th, we saw something else, which was that a huge part of the left and the institutions that are, you know, essentially controlled by the left, are deeply, deeply antisemitic and that we’ve been putting young people into those institutions for a long time as that antisemitism has risen.
And to my mind, we were sort of blind to the way in which we were essentially marinating our young people in an environment in which an association with Israel was, you know, carried a strong penalty and has carried a stronger penalty over the years. And I think left-leaning and even progressive Jews now see that quite clearly. They’ve recoiled from a lot of it. Not all of them. But a lot of them have. There’s studies that show that kind of participation in Jewish events and Hillels on campus has grown since October 7th. And they’re trying to figure out what their place is in the Jewish world and what their place is in the left or the liberal world that they called home.
Mijal: Joe, I want to make sure that I understand. So you said before October 7th, there were two assumptions as to what the problem was. One is Israel’s too right wing. The other is American Jews are not Jewish enough. And you’re saying that October 7th changed if I understood the left wing diagnostics, which is not only like, maybe they still think Israel is to right wing, but also it’s realizing, oh, and there’s also a big problem, use the word antisemitic, we can argue is it antisemitism, anti-Zionism, where do they intersect? But there’s like a really big issue with our institutions here in America. It’s not just a problem about us and Israel, there’s something about, okay, that’s really interesting.
Joe: That’s right. I think we were looking for, like you would call an internal factors, you know, factors within the Jewish community that explain this sort of growing gap between American Jewry and, or North American Jewry, really mostly American Jewry and Israel. And what we recognize is actually there’s an exogenous, there’s a factor outside of the Jewish community that has been influencing this, or at least I hope we’re seeing that.
It doesn’t mean that the first two are wrong. I think Israel is significantly right of American Jewry and is growing further right in all sorts of ways. And it’s true that American Jewish identity struggles to maintain a sense of thickness and literacy. Those are both true.
Noam: Joe, you just tell me a little bit more about what you mean about the rightward shift in Israel? What is the rightward shift that you’re seeing in Israel and how do you identify politically? I think of you as someone who is on the political left, maybe I’m wrong, the American political left, and that you critique from within. Is that accurate?
Joe: I have to say at this point, I really don’t know where I fall. I really am all over the map and I’m pulled in lots of directions. I feel homeless in America. I’m very grateful not to have to vote in this election in America. And I feel pretty homeless here as well.
When we talk about the rightward drift of Israel, I think what Americans mean by that is a hardening of attitudes toward the Palestinians. You know, for better or for worse, what the left came to signify in, I think for worse, probably what the left came to signify was the Oslo process, the peace process with the Palestinians, the establishment of a Palestinian state.
And I think it’s fair to say that after the second Intifada, you know, culminating, I would say, in the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, there’s been a kind of a sense of that the peace process is hopelessly stalled. There’s no particular urgency to resolve the Palestinian question among the Israeli electorate.
Even before October 7th, there was not a great deal of support for the idea that there should be a Palestinian state. The rise of parties that say explicitly that they’re opposed to there ever being one, which was just, you know, this was just voted on in the Knesset recently. Or those that would, you know, that openly advocate for the annexation of all the territories and even the expulsion of the Arabs that live there. That’s what I mean by the right-ward drift. You know, it’s a shame.
Noam: So how, Joe, I’m traveling here, but how do you connect 80% of American Jewry who do identify with values that are at odds with that, with the Israeli world that is moving towards that? Is that Sisyphean in the extreme? Like what’s the goal? Like how do you connect them?
Joe: I think one problem is that this, centering of the Palestinian issue, the making that the be all and the end all of political morality, of a relationship with Israel is a problem for lots of reasons. I think the primary reason is that while some of the relationship with the Palestinians is within Israeli control, a lot of it is not. I, the Palestinians are an independent group of people that don’t do our bidding. They do as they will. And to sort of place our relationship entirely on the basis of something that’s not in our control, I think is a mistake.
I also think, and this is my own political view, I think increasingly, and we can blame ourselves for this, but increasingly it’s clear that the idea that there’ll be two peaceful states living side by side is not on the Palestinian agenda right now. We may get there again, but right now the discourse is moved in a really maximalist way.
And the hope is for the dissolution of Israel in the most benign form, the creation of some sort of a confederation or a single state. But there’s also a really hard edged, know, quote unquote decolonial narrative, which fantasizes of driving the Jews out of Israel. If that’s the majority, more than majority, a super majority view within Palestinian society, we’re not going to have a Palestinian state anytime soon. And we have to somehow have a relationship among the Jews without it turning on the creation of something that’s not possible.
I also think there’s bit of an American thing here, which is the view that all problems have solutions. It kind of is deeply in the American character. If there’s a problem, we must be able to solve it. It’s not clear to me that every problem has a solution. And particularly this problem, really may not have a solution. And we need to somehow be able to face that and not again have everything turn on the implementation of a solution that may not be forthcoming.
Mijal: Joe, it’s so funny because right now you spoke about this like American characteristic a little bit as if it’s something outside of you. And before you were speaking about feeling politically homeless in America and in Israel. You’re also like a bridge trying to connect between America and Israel and not fully at home either. And now I get why we’re doing therapy here right now. But I’m actually curious, what made you pick up your life, you know, in America, living comfortably in Brooklyn with your family? Decide to make aliyah? And how did the Aliyah process change or affect the way that you think about this relationship?
Joe: In some sense I’m a cliche. I grew up on the Upper West Side to two Jewish parents. was somewhere between Reform and Conservative. I went to public schools and private schools and Columbia and so on. I suppose what’s always been a little bit unusual about me is, first of all, having a deep sense of Jewishness that comes from living in this thickly Jewish space, but being largely ignorant of what that means.
And I tried to put flesh on the bones of my Jewish identity in college, primarily by coming to Israel for the first time and learning Hebrew. I figured if I could be literate in this language, which was the Jewish language, I’d be the master of my own Jewish identity. My personal culture hero is Gershom Scholem. And that’s very much the process that Gershom Scholem took. He grew up in a very assimilated German home.
Mijal: Can you tell folks who he was?
Noam: Who? No, tell me. Tell me. Tell me about… I’m showing.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. Gershom Scholem sort of created the academic study of Kabbalah. And he’s again, sort of like the most unlikeliest of people to do that. He grew up Gerhard Scholem in Germany in a very assimilated German family.
But at a young age, he was a genius. There’s an important difference between the two of us. So I mean, already at 15 or 16, he taught himself Hebrew and Aramaic, but he started with language. And he always felt that sort of, being able to speak a Jewish language helps to sort of catapult you out of the assimilated environment you’re in and at least for a time enter into sort of a thickly Jewish conversation.
I think I’ve always been looking for that. And I really hoped I could find it in America. I hoped I could find it by deepening my knowledge of Jewish text and ritual, you know, which is why I became a rabbi. And I suppose, I mean, to make a long story very short, in 2020, which to me is a really watershed moment in American history and in American Jewish history, what became clear to me was that I didn’t have a lot of fellow travelers for what I was looking for in America. A kind of a, as I said, like a thick, a thick Jewish identity that wasn’t apologetic, that wasn’t trying to curry favor, that was interested in sort of Jewish concepts, Jewish ways of making sense of the world.
And what I saw in the summer of 2020 in particular, with this, to me, this sort of widespread embrace of Black Lives Matter in particular, which five years earlier had announced very clearly that they saw the two great evils in the world to be America and Israel, which they wrote in their platform. When I saw my friends and colleagues kind of embracing that movement, I really worried. I thought, this is a bad omen for where things are headed.
That was one thing. There was a much more sort of practical thing, which was that there were very, very severe Covid shutdowns in Brooklyn. And my eldest son was then in first grade and was really emotionally suffering from being isolated and schools for young kids were open in Israel. And so we kind of took the opportunity to do a trial run here and see how it went. And it turned out to be a fantastic decision.
I also have to thank my wife, who’s a real Israelophile and said, you know, she basically thought there are two choices in this world. There’s Brooklyn or there’s Tel Aviv. And so we went to option number two.
Mijal: That’s awesome.
Noam: So what is your Zionism look like, Joe? What does it mean to be a Zionist for you?
Joe: Well, first of all, I wouldn’t put Zionist front and center for what I am.
Noam: Wait, this is so interesting. I feel like I’ve been speaking to so many people recently. I recently traveled to Israel. And every time I ask people, are you a Zionist or what does it mean to be a Zionist? I get like this different answer of, well, let me give you… like a preface. What do you think is going on?
Joe: Well, I think in some ways Zionism is a diaspora ideology. Zionism is a way in which diaspora Jews have a relationship to a set of questions that don’t really arise, I think, in Israel. I mean, I think in Israel, it sort of goes unspoken that we have a state here, our people live here, we have a right to be here. The kind of arguing for those things feel like you’re arguing for premises that have been demonstrated long ago.
I also just personally, I’m really fascinated by Israel. I remain endlessly fascinated by it as this sort of strange Petri dish of what happens when all the Jews in the world come together and try to create, not a theoretical state, an actual state in the actual land of Israel. To say, you know, I support a particular ideology about that is a little dull. It’s dull compared to the reality of Israel, right, which is so much more complex than a kind of a Herzlian or even like a Ahad Ha’am, or any of these kind of, you know, ideologies.
Mijal: I’ll just add here, Joe. I think Zionism as an ideology is part of what, I think it can actually be an issue. I think there’s something about when it becomes like a set of abstract principles, as opposed to part and parcel of like a thick Judaism.
Like, yeah, I’m Jewish. I come with this history. I have a relationship with this land and with these people. And I care for their well-being and I’m connected to them. Anyway, so I’m just agreeing with you, Joe, that there’s something there with…
Joe: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s right. I think that’s right. I also think, you know, I think the post-Zionists make really important points that I don’t want to just dismiss out of hand.
Noam: Aren’t you, aren’t you post-Zionist?
Joe: I think I might be. I guess what I mean is that when you see it in the flesh, Zionism as an ideology can be quite crude. It can say things like, we’re in favor of negating the diaspora altogether, or anyone that doesn’t live in Israel is betraying their, : you know, some sort of deep Jewish identity or, you know, there’s this kind of status ideology, you know, which really kind of almost reveres the government or the military. All of that, to me, belongs to a different era. And also what I guess what I really mean is those sorts of things, I think, don’t address the kinds of questions that we have today in Israel.
I have a very minimal view of Zionism. I know there are people that think of Zionism as sort of an ever receding goal. In fact, on the wall outside of my boss’s office in the Jewish agency, there’s a big Herzl quote, which says, Zionism is like a, chalom en sofi, an infinite dream, right? I don’t say that. I think Zionism had two jobs. It had to rescue Jews that were in mortal peril and get them out of there. And it had to establish a strong state that could defend itself. And it accomplished those two things. I think with those things being accomplished, to my mind, Zionism is over.
And now we need new kinds of thinking to address the kinds of problems we’re facing. I think a lot about the Arab minority in Israel, who is eager, I think, for the most part, eager to have a sense of real belonging in Israel, but are prevented by to some degree, the Zionist character of the state. I would love to see for instance, a very concrete example, I’d love to see two national anthems. I’d love to see one, Hatikvah, and I’d love to see one that Arab citizens of Israel could sing proudly, and really sort of wave their sense of belonging to this state. I think that’s really powerful.
That doesn’t mean I’m not a Zionist. I mean, I do believe in Jewish sovereignty in this land, in that sense, you know what I mean? But it’s sort of a trivial meaning. It doesn’t really address the deep questions that this place is facing.
Noam: I’m reflecting a lot about my recent trip to Israel and something that a lot of people said to me is, Noam, what are you still doing living in the United States of America? Like seriously, what are you still doing there? And what they meant is they look at what’s happening in France with the world going to the extreme right or the extreme left. They look at what’s happening in the US, and they say basically, Joe, no, no, you’re wrong. Zionism isn’t over. Those two goals haven’t been achieved. Wherever Jews will be, there will be problems and there will always need to be a Jewish state that’s there to save the Jewish people wherever they are. Right? So like, do you think that’s extremist thinking or do you think–
Joe: I think it’s a little hysterical. I think what’s true about it is that America is not quite the fantasy land for Jews that it was. I’m sure you’ve all read Franklin Foer’s piece in the Atlantic, which I recommend, about the end of the Jewish Golden Age in America. I think it’s worth reading. I think that there’s a huge, huge distance between it’s not the Golden Age for Jews and the cattle cars are coming for the Jews on the other hand. You can say, I think that there’s a kind of like a… I mean, this should be a familiar thing to students of Jewish history. The elites in America are not so friendly to Jews. You know, you can’t necessarily get the jobs you want. You’re not gonna necessarily be invited to the biennial art show in the way that you want. You’re gonna be excluded from certain places. There’s gonna be a bad smell that’s associated with you. It’s not nice, but that’s not the end of the world. It’s not the end of the world. I think you can still live a very good life in America and avoid all of that.
I think it’s particularly painful for American Jews and for Western Jews for whom achievement is a very, very important value and being admitted into the heart of power is a big deal.: And I think it’s increasingly true in certain spheres of life. It’s true in academia, for example. Now, you you can’t be a proud Jew who’s a Zionist and expect to, you know, have the right advisors and rise through the ranks of say, in the humanities today. That’s not going to happen. But then again, as I say, that’s not the Holocaust. That’s something else.
I want to turn the question back on you guys. What do you make of this? Obviously something has been revealed since October 7th, right? Whatever we’re seeing on campuses, in the arts and so on, it’s something, it’s something. So how are you making sense of this? I mean, do you think that the, is it more than just that the golden age, do you agree the golden age of the Jews is over in America? Do you think it might be, you know, more worrisome than that? More actually, you know, dangerous for the lives of Jews?
Mijal: I think it is still being written, to be honest. For me there’s too many questions that are still alive that will depend on a bunch of things that we have control over and we have no control over. Like I don’t believe that history is determined already.
Joe: But there’s some scenario, there’s some scenario where things turn actually dangerous for Jewish actual life in America?
Mijal: From where I’m sitting, I would say there’s always a scenario. And part of, part of living with Jewish history is this having to constantly look around you. I don’t mean to sound so dark right now, but there’s also a scenario where things, where God forbid, Israel betrays its own mission of keeping Jews safe, you know? A lot of October 7th has been like, you wake up, you are assuming things that are not true. So I’m not saying we need to be alarmist, but we can never preclude the possibility of things getting worse and things getting better. And part of it for me, and I felt this very strongly since October 7th, I feel like we are, there is a civilizational battle happening around the world, not just with Jews in Israel, but there’s like empires and countries fighting each other. We are caught up in a lot of it.
And I think we need to have a little bit of that mindset that our actions matter. Like that our actions matter enough that we can do whatever is in our capabilities to make sure things get better. I don’t know if I’m, I don’t know if I’m answering the question clearly. Noam, do you want to add anything?
Noam: I want to answer this philosophically a little bit or theologically and also personally. Because when you ask that question about whether what I see happening in the United States of America, my instinct is always to say I’m not a meteorologist, I’m not a prognosticator, I’m not Nostradamus. I can’t predict the future. I’m an educator and that’s the way I see the world.
That was my initial way of thinking. But then I’m just thinking about descriptively and personally, something that I’m struggling with is when I come to Manhattan, and I’m in Manhattan all the time, and something that I’ve done that I’m embarrassed about doing is I’ve taken off my kippah in the subway. That’s a reality, I’ve taken off my kippah in the subway. I’m a kippah wearing Jew. That’s part of my identity, to I am, and I’ve chosen at times to take off my kippah off because I’m scared. I’m not sure what I’m scared of maybe it’s the images I’ve seen on social media. Maybe it’s the stories that I’ve heard. But I’m scared and and the way I view that is the United States of America should be ashamed of itself for making me feel that way after years of never feeling that way. That’s the personal.
The philosophical, theological, which guides me and when I put my kippah right back on every single time is when I think of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed memory and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory. Rabbi Sacks said, he said, non-Jews respect Jews who deeply respect and embrace their own Judaism. Meaning, be who you are and you’ll be good. You’ll be good. Just be who you are, don’t be afraid. And the Lubavitcher Rebbe said, quoting from his ancestors, this concept called L’chatchila ariber. Have either of you heard of this, L’chatchila ariber? It’s this Chabad concept that basically says whenever there’s a problem, you don’t go around it, you don’t tiptoe around it, you jump over it. You go right through, you don’t do it a little bit. And that’s why you see Chabad on the streets of New York or Israel. Whether you like it or not, they’ll wake you up on a flight to Israel, tap you on your shoulder, have you put on Tefillin yet, right? It’s crazy in some ways, but it’s incredibly inspiring that they are who they are and they’re fine, they’re good.
So. I don’t know in terms of like Mijal was saying, like you’re saying, like we’re writing our own history. I’m wondering if we use those ideas from Rabbi Sacks or the Lubavitcher Rebbe and we embrace our own identity and we don’t act scared, we don’t feel scared, might that be a way to not actually be scared and we could create that positive self-fulfilling prophecy?
Joe: Hmm. I think even if it doesn’t work, it’s better to go down with dignity, I suppose, is the way that I, that’s how I would kind of paraphrase maybe the, the Lubavitcher Rebbe in that way. When I’m, I’m in Europe, I don’t a keepa anymore, I did. And in Europe, always took it off precisely for that fear. Who knew it was going to come up behind you to smash you in the head.
But I think there’s a deeper kind of like a spiritual taking off of the kippah. The inner sense of sort of I’m gonna remove parts of myself that will interfere with my safety or my acceptance. And I think that’s a terrible mistake, a terrible mistake. And I think it’s very, very deep in diaspora consciousness. I guess in that way I share some of the critiques of early Zionists. And I really think that teaching spine, teaching self-respect, teaching the ability to stand up for yourself even if it doesn’t work, even if it doesn’t get you more accepted to recognize that it’s more important to stand tall than to be accepted. I agree with you profoundly, that’s really important.
Noam: Joe, why did you just say you don’t wear a kippah anymore? Why don’t you wear a kippah anymore?
Joe: It felt to me like a little bit of false advertising.
Mijal: What does that even mean, Joe?
Joe: You know, I think at the end of the day, honestly, honestly, Mijal, I was briefly a shul Rabbi and one day some French Jews came in. I assume they were North African of some sort. And this very, very sweet middle-aged French woman who had pretty good Hebrew, no English at all begged me to give her a bracha.
Joe: And she insisted that I take her down to the bima. We were having kiddush upstairs. I had to take her down to the bima and give her some sort of bracha. Because she had a notion that a rabbi has the ability to bless. And I didn’t know what to do with myself. I think I said, you know, yevarechecha, or something like that.
Noam: Like you should be blessed.
Joe: But I felt like a phony. I felt like a phony. I I felt like the Wizard of Oz at that moment. My beliefs didn’t coincide with her beliefs. I am not a wonder worker. I have no ability to bless. Idon’t share any of those premises and I felt like I was misleading this poor woman by holding myself out as a rabbi. That was kind of a guilty conscience that I had.
Noam: Wait, wait, Joe, have to, Joe, I don’t, have to, I want to answer, want to, no, you just stepped, you, just, you just stepped into something with us. Wait, I want–
Joe: Ha ha ha ha
Mijal: What? This is the most controversial thing you said. I don’t… Yeah, I don’t know what to do with you, Joe.
Noam: Wait, wait, let me tell you one story that maybe makes you feel better. The former head of the yeshiva of Har Etzion in Gush, as a man by the name of Rabbi Yehuda Amital. And the story goes that when he was asked for a blessing from a student, he said to the student, I’m not a rebbe, and you’re not an apple.
Mijal: My gosh. Okay, okay. All right. I really, really love Rav Amital of blessed memory.
Noam: So I’m saying, Rabbi Amital kept his kippah on, I’m just saying.
Joe: I understand, I understand.
Mijal: Okay, okay. Two things. First of all, Joe, I’m hearing you almost concede to the expectations of others, as opposed to saying, is what I believe in and I do it because of that and whatever you might assume. Good luck. There’s so many assumptions people can make about me and I’m like, okay.
You assume whatever you want. The second thing I want to say to both of you, I did not realize that I was going to bring the Sephardic thing so many times here, but okay, you do not need to be a rebbe and you do not need to be an apple to give a blessing. : Giving a blessing is someone coming and saying like, wish some good upon me and show me some generosity of spirit about what you want to happen to me in the world. And that is it. And it is beautiful by the way. And Joe, I want to bless you, the God willing, like that you will find, you know, I am not wearing a cap. And blessing is, beautiful. No, but blessings are beautiful.
Joe: No, I mean, I was giving an example. Maybe a better example is I really do think, and I’m sorry for saying this, I’m gonna offend people. I think wearing the Kippah is saying that you bear the yoke of the commandments. I think that’s what it means. That you see that the commandments are incumbent upon you and you bear that yoke. And, you know, for all my love of the Jewish tradition and for all my, you know, love of the Jewish people and maybe my love of God, that’s a whole other conversation. You can help me with that conversation. If I dive in Mincha, you know, for six months running, then maybe I’ll put my kippah back on. But until I do that, it’s false advertising.
Mijal: Wow, Joe, I just want to say Joe, I think we need another conversation in which I, no, no, I really want to teach both of you. No, you’re not off the hook. I want to
Noam: Hell yeah.
Noam: Okay, why me? Why did I get myself in trouble here?
Mijal: I don’t know, the apple comment really got to me.
Noam: That wasn’t me!
Mijal: You brought it in. Okay, now, there’s something about, it’s so funny, Joe, because you’re like, I don’t want to have ideology for Zionism. I want to be in the messiness of the land, the patriotism. It’s so complicated and beautiful and alive and organic. But then when it comes to Judaism, it’s like, no, I’m going to have this ideologically consistent, rigid way of thinking about it. And I want to argue, Joe, that there is a similar approach in which we can have a live, organic Mizrahi Mesorati if you want to call it. Approach to…
Noam: What does that mean?
Mijal: If you speak to a Mizrahi Mesorati Jew, I’m using terms that are familiar like in Israeli society. So in Israel you would say, they are Mizrahi, they come from the Middle East and North Africa. And meaning they are not the religious and they’re not secular. They’re something else. So if you speak to Jew, they will not have like a thesis statement for you as to why they wear a kippah and they would not know when they last prayed to feel good about wearing it. They will just feel connected to the world of Jews who put on a kippah or to the sense of reverence of what it means to wear it and not anything else.
Joe: Yeah, but what you’re talking about is why don’t I wear a piece of cloth on my head? I mean, I’m explaining the cloth piece. I feel all of those things. And I say many brachot, I say many blessings, and when I do say those blessings, I make sure to cover my head. I mean, I’m not saying…
Mijal: Joe, I don’t care that you don’t wear a kippah. I care the reason that you don’t wear the kippah. Okay? That’s the only thing I’m saying. Wear whatever you want.
Joe: But what I’m saying, I mean, I’ll go back to my culture hero, Gershom Scholem, right? Gershom Scholem also did not wear a kippah. He spent all his day engaged in the study of Jewish texts, not as a believing Jew, but toward the end of his life, he gave an amazing interview in which he said very clearly that Judaism without God is an empty shell. You know, this is a man who has identified as secular his whole life. He was religious in his own way. And he felt that the kind of, you know, the team logo that a kippah is, saying I belong to this particular team, didn’t fit his expression of Jewishness. And I suppose I feel, that’s how I sort of feel. I don’t belong to that team.
Noam: Okay, so I wanna just–
Mijal: But Noam, before you answer, I, just want to make sure that I clarify, I am very happy and content and respectful and excited for a whole host of choices and decisions. And Joe, this was just like a friendly conversation about the reasons that you were bringing. Just naming that. Okay.
Noam: Okay, okay, okay. Mijal, I’m giving you the last word anyway.
Mijal: No, no, I don’t need the last word. Just need to say that. You can have the last word.
Noam: No, no, no, but in this conversation, I do not deserve it.
Joe: I want the last work.
Noam: No, Joe, you don’t get it either, but Mijal. Mijal, Mijal, could you please give us a blessing to end this conversation?Mijal: Gosh, I actually love blessings. I think they
Noam: Okay, no, we’re listening, Joe, we’re listening. Come on, we’re listening. Okay.
Joe: I’m accepting it, with love.
Mija: I think, no, gosh, no, I think blessings are an expression of love, of just like seeing each other. It’s like, that’s like a real one. I have to think about it. The blessing that I will give to both of you is that you both in your own way express different journeys and different questions that feel alive and vibrant and questions that will continue to be asked without necessarily reaching the answer right away. And I want to bless you that God should, God willing, continue to give you the ability to use those journeys in a way that are not just about you, but you use them very generously to continue to impact other people and to welcome them in their own journeys and hopefully make all of our journeys better. That’s my blessing to you.
Noam: Amen. Amen. Thank you.
Joe: Amen, amen, amen. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for having me. What a pleasure.
Noam: All right, guys, so much fun having you, Joe.
Mijal: So, Joe, God willing, we’ll see you at some point soon.
Joe: I hope so. Thank you all.
Noam: We’ll see you soon. Thanks, Joe. Take care.